The Astronomy Thread

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iannis

Musty Nester
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InSight apparently got really lucky w/ the landing spot, some less favorable areas nearby.

It's horrible to think that we send these probes however many million miles we do over the course of years or months and if they just happened to land on a boulder then boom, it was all for nothing.

Talk about rolling the dice. I wonder how much they can account for that, because i'm SURE they try to account for that. Like are they able, in theory, to change their landing area to avoid bad terrain? With the airbag landings, not so much. With thruster landings... maybe that's why they switched to thruster landings. I know there were a few airbag landings (well, at least one, maybe "a few" is an exaggeration) that didn't make the landing.
 
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Cybsled

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Airbag landings were still rough. Wrapping something in bubble wrap and then having a major league pitcher toss it is still going to put a ton of stress on the object. Thrusters at least you can gently set the thing down, although any potential redirection would be limited and would have to be completely automated by the computers on the craft. The delay in signals between Earth and Mars would make it impossible to have human intervention unless you had over an hour of fuel and your craft would just kind of hover in place until it got the all clear.

They do try to scout as clear a landing spot as possible. The functioning orbiters have decent enough resolution to at least figure out where the larger obstructions would be in any given landing site.
 
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Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
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It's horrible to think that we send these probes however many million miles we do over the course of years or months and if they just happened to land on a boulder then boom, it was all for nothing.

Talk about rolling the dice. I wonder how much they can account for that, because i'm SURE they try to account for that. Like are they able, in theory, to change their landing area to avoid bad terrain? With the airbag landings, not so much. With thruster landings... maybe that's why they switched to thruster landings. I know there were a few airbag landings (well, at least one, maybe "a few" is an exaggeration) that didn't make the landing.

I don’t think it’s possible yet. When this rovers landing was going on the people said they just pick a spot and pray for no rocks.
 
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Dandain

Trakanon Raider
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The orbiter also has a tolerance for how many degrees of tilt it could have landed with and still operate nominally. Like it can be tilted 15 degrees (I am not certain the exact degree of tilt the tolerance is) There may be last second adjustments, but we also have some satelites around Mars that have taken a lot of images of pretty good quality by now. Its a very calculated shot, they couldn't make major course corrections, but I would imagine the lander sees the ground in real time with its automated system and would be looking for something that at least appeared in the range of the performance tolerance. It could certainly shift 5 feet to the left or right on its own. Space X brings downs its rockets well off target, and only corrects for the landing attempt if all the lights are green. To keep the craft stable with thrusters, even to land, they can't all just blind fire. It has to sense the ground and its orientation to at least complete that goal.
 
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meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Virgin Galactic sent SpaceShipTwo into space (> 50 mi up) today.

DuUk6INUYAErzeP.jpg:large


InSight was imaged from orbit.

DuUaSIJUwAATNra.jpg

DuUar1yU0AAPk_W.jpg

DuUaswPV4AAP_l1.jpg

Landing location:

DuUg-0YUYAAynaU.jpg
 
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Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
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MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
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I'm surprised none of you are talking about the major UFO encounter caught on film when they fired up the feed on the ISS as they sent out the arm to grab the dragon capsule.
For real.
 
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MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
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Suck it mudcrush.
The raw feed.

Quick break down from someone other than that secureteam twat.
This guy considers it could be the black knight satellite.

I think it was just a satellite.


Clearly an object. Clearly unknown.
Just cause I use the term UFO, doesnt mean ALIEN bullshit.
Just clearly something anomalous.
 
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Cybsled

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It is clearly an object, although for it to be traveling that slow, it would mean it is more or less approximately matching the orbital velocity of the space station. Not only that, but it very close proximity with the station. All of that would lend credence to the idea it is something that was either part of the station or part of something that visited the station, later fell away, and has maintained some of the orbital velocity of the station.
 
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MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
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It is clearly an object, although for it to be traveling that slow, it would mean it is more or less approximately matching the orbital velocity of the space station. Not only that, but it very close proximity with the station. All of that would lend credence to the idea it is something that was either part of the station or part of something that visited the station, later fell away, and has maintained some of the orbital velocity of the station.

Ya. Sort of looks like a space blanket of all things.
 
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meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Progress imaging planetary discs in just 2 years:

1217_PLANETS-1-WEB-1ss3tqv.jpg

Images taken several years apart of HD 163296, a star nearly 350 light years away and seen over the Southern Hemisphere, show how improvements in the quality of images at the ALMA radio telescope have revealed new features of its protoplanetary disks. A Rice astronomer has authored a paper explaining some of the features as part of a major survey of 20 young stars with planet-forming disks. The inset at bottom right compares the size of the disk to our own solar system. Courtesy of Andrea Isella/DSHARP/ALMA​

Common ground discovered in planet-forming disks

1217_PLANETS-2-WEB-23q80bg.jpg


Rice astronomer Andrea Isella and his co-principal investigators have issued the first results from a major study of protoplanetary disks observed around stars at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the world’s most powerful radio telescope in the high plains of Chile. The new data gathered over hours of observation of the 20 target stars revealed they share common features like bright and dark rings, but no two are alike. Courtesy of Andrea Isella/DSHARP/ALMA​
 
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meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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First crew Dragon test flight expected in January.

Duut7ThXcAA01AR.jpg
 
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StJesuz

Graybeard Lurker
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Scrubbed in the last 8 secs... wonder why.
Me too, I've been looking for information about the scrubbed launch, but they haven't released anything. I'm no expert but at the time they cancelled, the engines are already starting up. Something must have been out of parameters and the system cancelled the startup. Its normal to see flames come out of the rocket and travel up the sides before the delta 4 launches, sometimes it turns the rocket black, here's Scott Manley talking about it.

They just scrubbed this delta 4 for the third time, and will try again tomorrow, luckily another chance for twilight effect.

Here's some more interesting information about the satellite that is being launched. The way the launch times have been changing shows us that they are not aiming to install the spacecraft into a usual orbit, so the visibility footprint that I posted above could be off by quite a bit.

Here's a picture of the engine they are using, on a test stand.
RS-68_rocket_engine_test.jpg
 
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khorum

Murder Apologist
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Oh right they switched off the Russian engines after the sanctions hahaha
 
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