The Astronomy Thread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
First image of Ultima Thule imaged from New Horizons. They think they're approaching it from one of it's poles.

IMG_20181231_115611.jpg
 
  • 4Like
Reactions: 3 users

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
It will take 20 months to get all the data collected in tonight's flyby.

 
  • 4Like
  • 1WTF
Reactions: 4 users

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
So as of a couple minutes ago, New Horizons just passed by Ultima Thule, the closest it's come to an object since about 30 minutes after liftoff. It will phone home in a few hours, live stream stuff resumes around 7am PST.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
How did they get ripples in the steel though?

it ain't their first rokkitship, and ship builders have been producing unrippled steel plating since the merrimac.

did they go cheap on a trivial aesthetic? I don't think they're incompetent and I also doubt the ripples matter. That was a decision to not care.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

Oldbased

> Than U
27,542
64,631
Might be better than sitting here in my work chair waiting to die!

I'd miss my forumbros though.
You could still shit post. Just everything would be like 6-10 minutes old when you see new messages.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
Queen's Brian May is also an astrophysicist and wrote a song about New Horizons.

First image of Ultima Thule imaged from New Horizons. They think they're approaching it from one of it's poles.

View attachment 187986

Rofl:


Latest coming into better focus. It won't be until February until we have the highest resolution images that were taken. A lot of science will be coming down for a long time. Here's the latest image (edit: actually, might just be a better processed first image).


Q&A ongoing:


Anyways, the big thing so far today is they were able to confirm the probe survived the encounter. The trickle of low res images begins soon.
 
Last edited:
  • 4Like
Reactions: 3 users

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
Initial science and photo(s) of the flyby to be revealed in the presser that starts in a few minutes:

 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
Wow. Contact binary confirmed.

1546455955967.png


It is red (real color photo, LORRI image and then the combined result)

Dv7bDvSW0AACwRY.jpg:large


Dv7bgOeUwAAe31S.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • 6Like
Reactions: 5 users

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,351
4,634
China may have just landed their Rover on the dark side of the Moon.

 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
So they go faster.


They're either going to be red, blue, or green I guess. Based on how our eyes work. Our sun is greenish yellow, right? It may be no more complex than color theory and an indication that there was more heavy red stuff in the protoplanetary disc than blue or green. A lot of words to say it's red because it's red. Not very satisfying. Maybe there's a better reason.

Most of the not-star solar system is red though. Just Jupiter being mostly red makes that true. So really it might just be initial conditions. Might just be that simple. Probably also something fundamental about how light works. Earth is pretty red underneath the water and biomass.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
<Bronze Donator>
8,027
17,681
link no work

Thanks, no idea why copy-pasting the URL didn't work. In the end I had to click on the "send as e-mail" link and copy that link over.

Edit: the link in my original should work now.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users