Combine one part Fiery Dragon, some Doves of Diana, and at least seven Eagles of mercury, and what do you get? A key precursor to the Philosopher’s stone, according to a rediscovered manuscript handwritten by legendary physicist Isaac Newton.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
One of the biggest black holes ever found sits in a cosmic backwater, like a towering skyscraper in a small town.
Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole containing 17 billion times the mass of the sun—only slightly smaller than the heftiest known black hole, which weighs in at a maximum of 21 billion solar masses—at the center of the galaxy NGC 1600.
That's a surprise, because NGC 1600, which lies 200 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus, belongs to an average-size galaxy group, and the monster black holes discovered to date tend to be found in dense clusters of galaxies. So researchers may have to rethink their ideas about where gigantic black holes reside, and how many of them might populate the universe, study team members said. [The Strangest Black Holes in Space]
"The black hole is much bigger than we expected for the size of the galaxy or where this galaxy lives, the environment," said study co-author Chung-Pei Ma, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.
"That's the puzzling part—or the intriguing part—of the result," she told Space.com. "There may be more NGC 1600s out there lurking at more ordinary sites, like small towns in the U.S. rather than Manhattan."Ma is head of the MASSIVE Survey, a multitelescope effort that began in 2014 to identify and catalogue the most massive nearby galaxies and black holes. NGC 1600 first showed up in the survey with data from the McDonald Observatory in Texas.
Although the initial observations weren't detailed enough to see the spectrum of light from the galaxy's center clearly, Ma and her colleagues could already tell that they were looking at something extraordinary: "It was a little bit like looking at a hurricane from very far away," she said. "We couldn't quite tell how big this hurricane was, this black hole was, but the hurricane was so big that we already started to feel the wind using this coarser data."
Suspecting they had spotted a very large black hole, study team members next investigated the elliptical galaxy using the northern half of the Gemini Observatory, twin telescopes situated in Hawaii and Chile. Gemini allowed them to probe the black hole's "sphere of influence," Ma said—the region where the black hole's mass held more sway than the overall galaxy's, where it was whipping the stars into action. They also scoped out the site with data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
The stars "were going so fast that the only way they could be travelling at this speed is if you had a 17-billion-solar-mass black hole at the center," she said.
See - what's wrong with this dude's presentation is that he should have been playing some Issac Hayes when his robot strutted out. Here, I'll get him started,
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
See - what's wrong with this dude's presentation is that he should have been playing some Issac Hayes when his robot strutted out. Here, I'll get him started,
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
Holy shit man. That was so fucking cool. I was watching this on mute while in a meeting and it still got a little dusty in the room. I can't believe they can land a skyscraper on that little floating platform from fucking space! Mind boggling.
Be very afraid if Elon ever announces a spacecraft named Mistake Not
You forgot the ellipsis. It's the Mistake Not...
...My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have helped design and test a component that could improve the performance of doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks. Called a "liquid lithium limiter," the device has circulated the protective liquid metal within the walls of China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and kept the plasma from cooling down and halting fusion reactions. The journal Nuclear Fusion published results of the experiment in March 2016. The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.
"We demonstrated a continuous, recirculating lithium flow for several hours in a tokamak," said Rajesh Maingi, head of boundary physics research and plasma-facing components at PPPL. "We also demonstrated that the flowing liquid lithium surface was compatible with high plasma confinement and with reduced recycling of the hydrogen isotope deuterium to an extent previously achieved only with evaporated lithium coatings. The recirculating lithium provides a fresh, clean surface that can be used for long-lasting plasma discharges."
Along with Maingi, the research team included engineer Charles Gentile and benefitted from key leadership and insights from physicist Leonid Zakharov, who previously worked at PPPL. Scientists from the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were part of the team, which built the limiter to use only a small amount of lithium and operate at low pressure to ensure safety.
Main point of contact with plasma
The device incorporates an electromagnetic pump that circulates the lithium from a distributor to the top of an angled guide plate inside the EAST tokamak. This pump works with the magnetic field within EAST to drive the lithium to the top of the plate during plasma discharges. The lithium then flows down the front surface of the plate and serves as the main point of contact between the plasma and the plasma-facing components of the EAST vessel.
This system reduces the production of impurities that typically are created when the plasma reaches other components of the vessel. Moreover, plasmas tolerate higher amounts of lithium impurities, compared with the impurities from other materials, because the low atomic number of lithium produces very low amounts of plasma radiation that typically cools the plasma core.
Serving as the main point of contact with plasma enables the lithium to absorb the hot deuterium ions that drift from the center of the plasma, and keeps them from striking the interior walls of the tokamak and cooling down. Limiting the amount of cool deuterium at the edge of the plasma reduces the difference in temperature between the hot plasma center and the cooler edge, and reduces turbulence. As a side note, however, contact with the ions was found to slightly damage the thin stainless steel foil surface of the limiter device, prompting work on an improved design.
Researchers increased their control of the amount of lithium that flowed down the front of the guide plate by varying the amount of electric current to the electromagnetic pump. This control was important because researchers did not know before the experiment how much lithium was required for optimum plasma performance. More control of the limiter means more control over the performance of a tokamak, a crucial ability when trying to create and maintain optimal conditions for fusion reactions.
All in all, the experiment confirmed that liquid lithium can be driven through an electromagnetic pumping device that works with a tokamak’s magnetic field to raise and recirculate the liquid metal and improve tokamak performance. Next step in the research will be to modify the surface of the limiter to reduce the damage caused by contact with the ions.
PPPL, on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas — ultra-hot, charged gases — and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. Results of PPPL research have ranged from a portable nuclear materials detector for anti-terrorist use to universally employed computer codes for analyzing and predicting the outcome of fusion experiments. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the largest single supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov (link is external).
See - what's wrong with this dude's presentation is that he should have been playing some Issac Hayes when his robot strutted out. Here, I'll get him started,
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
Along with Maingi, the research team included engineer Charles Gentile and benefitted from key leadership and insights from physicist Leonid Zakharov, who previously worked at PPPL. Scientists from the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were part of the team, which built the limiter to use only a small amount of lithium and operate at low pressure to ensure safety.
Sorry, that name just jumped out at me for some reason...
See - what's wrong with this dude's presentation is that he should have been playing some Issac Hayes when his robot strutted out. Here, I'll get him started,
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
See - what's wrong with this dude's presentation is that he should have been playing some Issac Hayes when his robot strutted out. Here, I'll get him started,
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
For the second time now, the world risks losing its best hope of finding potentially habitable planets in outer space. The Kepler telescope has gone into emergency mode 75 million miles from home. NASA is working tirelessly to correct the problem.
No one knows what the problem is exactly, and that’s not to mention the difficulty in fixing anything that takes 13 minutes to register a command and return a response to Earth (that’s at near-light speed).
The space telescope was meant to continue on its extended mission to hunt down Earth-like exoplanets when, on April 7, the Kepler team suddenly noticed it was operating in “emergency mode.”
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
That might be true, except modern pirates don't have the capability to reliably disable the ship. All you'd need to do in a boarding incident is drive the ship over to a nearby naval vessel.
They cover that in the video. It has no controls for them to commandeer.
If you're thinking unmanned cargo ships, I doubt that will ever happen, at least not fully unmanned. There's too much going on, and the long periods needed, strain on the ship, and overall investment in each ship is going to necessitate at least some measure of on-ship maintenance.
They cover that in the video. It has no controls for them to commandeer.
If you're thinking unmanned cargo ships, I doubt that will ever happen, at least not fully unmanned. There's too much going on, and the long periods needed, strain on the ship, and overall investment in each ship is going to necessitate at least some measure of on-ship maintenance.
You can do most of that with maintenance robots. And also have some security robots to shoot at pirates.
Though what's going to be really neat is when automated ships become capable of dismantling other ships for parts to repair themselves or make entirely new ships. Entire pirate operations could be carried out without the need for any human involvement.
Without a crew to threaten I don't see the current incarnation of pirates being too keen about the idea. Any organization well funded enough to intercept and disable/redirect unmanned ships is going to run afoul of a blue water Navy pretty quickly. With no hostages, Navies will have a free hand to sweep the deck with machine gun fire to send a message.
Without a crew to threaten I don't see the current incarnation of pirates being too keen about the idea. Any organization well funded enough to intercept and disable/redirect unmanned ships is going to run afoul of a blue water Navy pretty quickly. With no hostages, Navies will have a free hand to sweep the deck with machine gun fire to send a message.
I am sure that the ship owners would not want a Navy filling their expensive investment full of holes over some low budget thugs that picked the wrong vessel to come aboard looking for hostages on.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Without a crew to threaten I don't see the current incarnation of pirates being too keen about the idea. Any organization well funded enough to intercept and disable/redirect unmanned ships is going to run afoul of a blue water Navy pretty quickly. With no hostages, Navies will have a free hand to sweep the deck with machine gun fire to send a message.
I am sure that the ship owners would not want a Navy filling their expensive investment full of holes over some low budget thugs that picked the wrong vessel to come aboard looking for hostages on.
Sail the roboship out to sea, keep the mothership away with your fleet, and starve them out.
Posts
alternate relaxation wear
communications specialist helmet variant
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Who's the headless walking droid
That's the sexiest to all the nerd boys?
(Schaft!)
You're damn right
Who is the robo-man
That has no neck or even hands?
(Schaft!)
Can ya dig it?
Giz: Alphabet-owned SCHAFT’s newest bipedal creation demonstrated by confidently walking out on stage at the New Economic Summit going on in Tokyo.
Does this mean we'll be seeing Labors soon?
Start at 35:33.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
http://www.tor.com/2015/01/23/elon-musk-iain-m-banks-just-read-the-instructions/
today's landing was on "Of course I still love you"
Hell with that I'll ask for a permanent bunk on the damn ship
How about Grey Area?
Huh, it was fine about an hour ago. It will probably be fixed, just watch the technical webcast instead:
edit: audio on the hosted webcast looks like it's fixed
You forgot the ellipsis. It's the Mistake Not...
We are the SCHAFT! SCHAFT!
Sorry, that name just jumped out at me for some reason...
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
That's clearly the chassis for ED-209. And it can climb stairs.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Emergency Mode Activated
https://www.rt.com/news/339073-nasa-planet-kepler-telescope/
armed in 6?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLk-17K0buHIvy68TGjnSUppTq-Gi91lT-&v=_nApv-C7qSg
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
That might be true, except modern pirates don't have the capability to reliably disable the ship. All you'd need to do in a boarding incident is drive the ship over to a nearby naval vessel.
They cover that in the video. It has no controls for them to commandeer.
If you're thinking unmanned cargo ships, I doubt that will ever happen, at least not fully unmanned. There's too much going on, and the long periods needed, strain on the ship, and overall investment in each ship is going to necessitate at least some measure of on-ship maintenance.
You can do most of that with maintenance robots. And also have some security robots to shoot at pirates.
Though what's going to be really neat is when automated ships become capable of dismantling other ships for parts to repair themselves or make entirely new ships. Entire pirate operations could be carried out without the need for any human involvement.
"Order the self-destruct".
I am sure that the ship owners would not want a Navy filling their expensive investment full of holes over some low budget thugs that picked the wrong vessel to come aboard looking for hostages on.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Sail the roboship out to sea, keep the mothership away with your fleet, and starve them out.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy