The Astronomy Thread

Hubble and the pillars of creation thru the new lens.



Full size pic.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/p1501ay.jpg

So, this "meteor / UFO" video has been making the rounds on the net and news sites since yesterday. I would initially say this simply looks like an object burning up on entry in the atmosphere, but I can not explain the glowing secondary orb that flies off in the completely opposite direction. Short of being a hoax, thoughts?

UFO Crashing Releases Orb Over Southern California. Anyone Else See It? - YouTube

*edit* For clarification, I am not at all trying to imply that its little green men, just trying to explain the complete opposite direction of travel. It doesn't seem like a realistic trajectory whatsoever.

This vid claims to explain it, but the trajectory doesn't seem to match up with the video.

ufono - vidme

That was my point though, when a piece breaks off ...and there are plenty of videos of that on the internet... none actually seem to turn in the complete opposite direction. Momentum would carry it in the same general direction but off at an angle. This video appears to break off and travel opposite the direction of momentum. If you watch, it doesnt continue in a similar trajectory as the main object and slow with wind resistance, it actually reverses direction entirely.

I'm with you on the skepticism of no other videos showing up yet.

So the person posts a youtube video asking if anyone else saw it then disables comments on the you tube video. When googling this event the lists of sites that it pops up on make me also think this is bullshit. I'm going with fake.

New Parallel Universe Theory - Business Insider


I wish I had taken more of an interest in this stuff when I was in college and put some electives towards it.

One thing I am curious about though. Our observations of the what we believe is an expanding universe is limited by light. Since what we see is actually the distant past when looking that far out, isn't it possible that while the Universe looks to be expanding, could it actually be in the process of slowing or even contracting and we wouldn't know it until the light from when it changed (perhaps a billion years or so ago) reaches us?

All I know is I find this stuff fascinating.

There's a lot that goes into measuring cosmic stuff, but distance to any object can be computed using the inverse square law to compare its observed brightness to standard candles.

Cosmic distance ladder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Misread

Vaclav_sl said:

And apparently live close enough to hear it but not see it, shame - at least with how overcast it was today all I could see was the plume of exhaust form, couldn't see the rocket itself. (double checked distance on Google Maps - 9 miles - 5 miles is to the parking entrance for Kennedy)

Click to expand...

Must have been super shitty weather for you to not see it well. I used to be able to see shuttle launches at UCF over in Orlando just fine, and on a super clear night I could see them from Tampa as well.

Worth the click

HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble's High-Definition Panoramic View of the Andromeda Galaxy (01/05/2015) - Release Images

They was all like "these images may crash your browser, download them, don't click them". I was all like "I like to live dangerously", CLICK.


Then nothing special happened. They did look like garbage though. Some kind of artifacts were everywhere. I knew it was a message from aliens, but I stopped talking to them after last time. I loaded the pics in gimp and they looked gorgeous.

Cool story bro.

The pics look grainy, but that's actually stars. And some areas are star clusters and not single stars in our Galaxy.

Some of you may find this fun:

Space Engine - Home page

a free space simulation program that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies.

Click to expand...

If, for example, you wanted to know what the Milky Way would look like from the viewpoint of a planet's surface in the Large Magellanic Cloud -- well, you can do it with Space Engine.

Image of one of Saturn's moons, Dione, taken by Cassini.

Tuco_sl said:

Yeah that's fun to move around at warp speed.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you can move around the galaxy pretty good at 300 light years per second.