The Astronomy Thread

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Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
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It's probably been asked at some poine but I missed it, is Curiosity capable of sending video or due to the distance it must travel is it limited to still shots?
 

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
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The thing to remember is that the rover has limited bandwidth to transmit data back and while it might be cool, video is going to have limited usage from a scientific perspective...at least when you're observing static features like rocks.
 

ShakyJake

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I'm sure this was mentioned on the old forum and isn't particularly new news. But for those that aren't aware -- we have the potential for an AMAZING comet viewable in the northern hemisphere late this year (2013). Current projections suggest it may become brighter than the full moon.

Comet ISON Could Outshine Moon
 

iannis

Musty Nester
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Comet is gonna fragment and we're gonna be pelted with house-sized hail.

Giant balls of flaming ice falling from the sky to vengefully smite the decadent. Those Mayans knew what was up.
 

Loser Araysar

Chief Russia Correspondent / Stock Pals CEO
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Have we seen video from it yet just cruising around?
it has the capability but i doubt they will ever seriously use it. if you committed the entire daily thoroughput to just transferring video it would be like a 30 second clip of choppy video. they compared it to watching youtube on a 300 baud modem
 

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
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Considering how slow/little it moves, it wouldn't be a very exciting video unless some dust storm happened ;p
I dunno, I get not a ton would be happening if anything at all, I just think it would be pretty exciting to see live footage from an alien world.

it has the capability but i doubt they will ever seriously use it. if you committed the entire daily thoroughput to just transferring video it would be like a 30 second clip of choppy video. they compared it to watching youtube on a 300 baud modem
Yeah, I figured the quality wouldn't be super fantastic...just would be neat to me I guess.
 

Lenardo

Vyemm Raider
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looks like they upped the # of planets- potentially- in this galaxy to over 100 billion according to a new study in The Astrophysical Journal published last wednesday.

oh and i hope that comet does NOT break up, be Sweet to see a decent comet tail for once in my life.


as for rotating ships...read a book that IF the math in the book is right, to generate 1/3rd gravity, rotating a ship less than 3 times a minute, the diameter of the ring would have to be approximately 292 meters in diameter rotating once every 40 seconds..

why less than 3 times a minute? motion sickness, you could make a smaller ring, rotate faster, but that would limit the pool of passengers/pilots.

it's a simple math equation overall, i just have not checked that math
 

iannis

Musty Nester
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Carl Sagan knew that shit 30 years ago.

Biiiilions and biiiilions.

Even if it's our best guess, it's still just a wild fucking guess man. There may be a "goldilocks zone" for the entire galaxy when it comes to planet formation for some (literally) unknown reason. Or there may not. Confirmed exoplanets is the important bit!
 

Burnem Wizfyre

Log Wizard
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Pluto only rustled jimmies because the vast majority of Americans associated Pluto with the Disney character, no other country gave a fuck about Pluto's downgrade to a dwarf planet.
 

Eomer

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Pluto only rustled jimmies because the vast majority of Americans associated Pluto with the Disney character, no other country gave a fuck about Pluto's downgrade to a dwarf planet.
Actually, it was extremely contentious even within the IAU. And the definition they came up with was quite honestly fairly retarded, as it only applies in our solar system. They tried to please everyone and ended up just pissing everyone off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet
 

Troll_sl

shitlord
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It was a pretty poor definition, but to say that Pluto (and Charon and all the other icy bodies) should be defined the same as the large rocky bodies is not proper.
 
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