The Astronomy Thread

Alex_sl said:

Don't some of Saturn's moons have geologic activity as well?

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Yes, all the gas giants have some moons with geological activity, although in those cases it's due to tidal stress with the larger planet. However, if you use that as the consideration for planethood, then Mercury isn't one because it has no geological activity and hasn't had any for billions of years.

Obviously Veeshan destroyed Pluto

NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved | NASA

Damn nice timing with The Martian opening next week.

Abefroman_sl said:

NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved | NASA

Damn nice timing with The Martian opening next week.

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Extremely interested to find out what this is

Care to place some friendly wagers on what it could be?

It's not going to be awesome. It's probably evidence of past Martian liquid water.

Gonna say water was found only a few feet under the surface.

I bet they found 200 million year old salt in a rock and that is important because it shows aliens may have had a salt factory there.

Probably something mundane that will make us once again wonder why we are not focusing our efforts on Venus

Szlia_sl said:

Probably something mundane that will make us once again wonder why we are not focusing our efforts on Venus

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Do you expect to find more evidence of water/life on Venus (and by this I mean evidence of past water/life)?

As for the Mars announcement, I'm assuming it'll be water related or the source of the "seasonal" methane

Lie about finding a massive vein of gold and get yer budget back!

They found John Carter.

Yeah it's gonna be something only a astrogeologist would get excited for. I suppose they could be modulating it a bit after overhyping previous announcements tho.

Lunar eclipse tonight, visible if you live in the eastern 2/3 of the US.

Borzak_sl said:

Lunar eclipse tonight, visible if you live in the eastern 2/3 of the US.

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Here are the specific times.

Eastern Daylight Time (Sept. 27, 2015)
Partial umbral eclipse begins: 9:07 p.m. EDT on Sept. 27
Total eclipse begins: 10:11 p.m. EDT
Greatest eclipse: 10:47 p.m. EDT
Total eclipse ends: 11:23 p.m. EDT
Partial eclipse ends: 12:27 a.m. EDT on Sept. 28

Central Daylight Time (Sept. 27, 2015)
Partial umbral eclipse begins: 8:07 p.m. CDT on Sept. 27
Total eclipse begins: 9:11 p.m. CDT
Greatest eclipse: 9:47 p.m. CDT
Total eclipse ends: 10:23 p.m. CDT
Partial eclipse ends: 11:27 p.m. CDT

Mountain Daylight Time (Sept. 27, 2015)
Partial umbral eclipse begins: 7:07 p.m. MDT on Sept. 27
Total eclipse begins: 8:11 p.m. MDT
Greatest eclipse: 8:47 p.m. MDT
Total eclipse ends: 9:23 p.m. MDT
Partial eclipse ends: 10:27 p.m. MDT

Pacific Daylight Time (Sept. 27, 2015)
Partial umbral eclipse begins: 6:07 p.m. PDT on Sept. 27
Total eclipse begins: 7:11 p.m. PDT
Greatest eclipse: 7:47 p.m. PDT
Total eclipse ends: 8:23 p.m. PDT
Partial eclipse ends: 9:27 p.m. PDT

Iannis_sl said:

They found John Carter's missing box office receipts

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Fixed

I had a very good look on the full moon three hours ago before the eclipse started and now I have like a 80% cloud cover with the holes not being cooperative... not cool.