The thread for space cadets!

[EnglishEdward]

When I first heard this, I thought of the old parodies on military recruitment:

Join the army, travel around the world, meet interesting people, and shoot them.

Join the navy, sail around the world, meet foreign beauties, and sink them.

Join the air force, fly round the world, see interesting cities, and drop bombs on them.

Join the space core, (remote) fly a spaceship to interesting asteroids, and blow them up.

 

[Ferocitus]

I haven't checked Futurism today because the graphic is so funny.

 

[Samson]

I haven't checked Futurism today because the graphic is so funny.
View attachment 615437

CNBC also reporting that:

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that the company faces a risk of bankruptcy if it can’t get enough reliable Raptor engines -- that power its Starship rockets --made by the end of 2022.

The billionaire made the remark in a letter that he sent to his employees the day after Thanksgiving, as per reports. “We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year... We need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster," he wrote in the letter that has made its way to social media platform Twitter and is being widely shared.​

 

[EnglishEdward]

Is he hoping to buy back shares he sold before he sent that letter?

 

[r16]

like because he got jealous of the speculation being done in New Turkey where every speech by the PM causes record lows for the lira against the dollar ?

 

[Samson]

 

[Kaitzilla]

I haven't checked Futurism today because the graphic is so funny.
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Something about the Raptor engines having a critical production flaw, the Raptor engines being critical to make the Starship spaceship work, and Starship being required to launch all their future money making ventures (Starlink version 2.0?) that no one else without Starship can compete with.

Elon Musk warns SpaceX employees of bankruptcy risk if Starship engine production doesn't increase: report | TheHill

In an internal email first obtained by SpaceExplored, Musk said SpaceX faces bankruptcy if the company can't "achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year."

"Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following exiting prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this," Musk wrote in the email, which was sent the day after Thanksgiving. "Unless you have critical family matters or cannot physically return to Hawthorne, we will need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster."

Musk does not expect Starship to survive its first test flight early next year, but he is confident that SpaceX will succeed sometime in 2022.

What a crazy timetable!
Work those workers 100 hours a week!

Bah, just sell another $10 billion in Tesla stock and keep SpaceX going.
It is a revolutionary company!
Starship is Still Not Understood – Casey Handmer's blog (wordpress.com)

 

[Samson]

Giant black hole in tiny galaxy breaks models of galaxy formation

A tiny galaxy orbiting at the outskirts of the Milky Way appears to have a giant black hole at its center, comparable to that of the much larger Milky Way itself, and scientists don't know why.

The Leo I dwarf galaxy, some 820,000 light-years from Earth, is only about 2,000 light-years across. Until now, astronomers thought the galaxy's mass was about 15 to 30 million times the mass of our sun. That's tiny compared to the Milky Way, which is estimated to weigh as much as 1.5 trillion suns and whose disk is over 100,000 light-years wide.

Unexpectedly, at the heart of the little Leo I sits a black hole that is nearly as large as the one at the heart of the entire Milky Way, a new study found. The discovery defies expectations as astronomers believed giant black holes grow from collisions between galaxies and should correspond with the galaxy's size.
​

There is a false colour image from the curiosity rover that I like

Spoiler Original image :

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

What is the reason we do not take photos in colour straight away? Is it bandwidth sending the image back to us?

 

[Samson]

What is the reason we do not take photos in colour straight away? Is it bandwidth sending the image back to us?

I know nothing, but I would guess it is to do with the sensors. I think all sensors are monochrome, and to get colour you need multiple. If you are doing science rather than pretty pictures I guess there is no need for multiple sensors within the fairly narrow range of frequencies that make up human colour vision.

 

[Kyriakos]

Where is @hobbsyoyo , btw?

 

[uppi]

What is the reason we do not take photos in colour straight away? Is it bandwidth sending the image back to us?

Camera sensors by themselves are monochromatic. To get a color sensor, you usually apply a mosaic filter like a Bayer filter on top of the camera chip and then you have an algorithm to interpolate the colors at each pixel. However this has two disadvantages: Because of the filters, less light is reaching the sensor, so the camera performs worse in low light situation. Second, the interpolation algorithm can create artifacts in the image, especially if you are near the resolution limit. So scientific cameras usually come in black and white, because you get the better images if you don't care for color. And if you do care for something wavelength-specific, it is often better to put swapable filters in front instead of a fixed filter directly on top of the chip. A fixed filter in the visible spectrum would make it impossible to take a picture in the near-infrared, for example.

 

[tjs282]

Where is @hobbsyoyo , btw?

Likely busy with bringing up SputnikYoyo (who is now ... 2 years old?).

I think he was also preferring to hang out on Tim's Discord channel, but I haven't logged in there for a while.

 

[Samson]

Anyone seen comet Leonard? It has been a bit stormy here, and you need binoculars anyway. There are some good pictures from observatories.

From the UK just after sunset you only get about 30 mins before it sets. You get more time if you get up before dawn.

You get a better chance from the US in the morning

Where it goes from here.

Comet A1 Leonard passing by globular cluster M3 with a meteor in the foreground, by Terry Hancock and Tom Masterson, Grand Mesa Observatory, Colorado, USA, 3 December 2021. Equipment: QHY367 Pro C one shot color CMOS camera, Takahashi E180 Astrograph, GMO’s System 4a telescope.

Comet Leonard passing the Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies, by Tom Masterson & Terry Hancock, Grand Mesa Observatory, Purdy Mesa, Colorado, USA, 25 November 2021. Equipment: QHY367 Pro C One shot Color CMOS, Takahashi E-180 Astrograph, 116 x 60 second.

 

[Ferocitus]

Mysterious galaxy without dark matter puzzles astronomers
"The difference between theory and observation is only getting bigger."

In the event that dark matter is real, experts think it could be ubiquitous. If the whole universe is expanding, then the thing causing that expansion should exist pretty much everywhere, right? Well, maybe not. Astronomers say they've located six galaxies that appear to have either very little or absolutely no dark matter. The team will present its findings in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

https://www.cnet.com/news/mysterious-galaxy-without-dark-matter-puzzles-astronomers/

IOW, watch this space!

 

[Broken_Erika]

Space sleeping bag to solve astronauts' squashed eyeball disorder

Scientists have developed a hi-tech sleeping bag that could prevent the vision problems that some astronauts experience while living in space.

In zero-gravity, fluids float into the head and squash the eyeball over time.

It's regarded as one of the riskiest medical problems affecting astronauts, with some experts concerned it could compromise missions to Mars.

The sleeping bag sucks fluid out of the head and towards the feet, countering the pressure build-up.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59591301

 

[EnglishEdward]

After 30 years of planning and work; today is (hopefully) a big day:

https://www.theguardian.com/science...as-10bn-james-webb-telescope-set-for-lift-off

Astronomers on tenterhooks as $10bn James Webb telescope set for lift off

Nasa’s flagship mission counts down to launch at 1220 GMT on Christmas Day from Kourou

Also, with diagrams

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59782057

 

[Kaitzilla]

10 billion going up on Christmas. $_$

Good luck James Webb!!!

 

[EnglishEdward]

Been looking at live feed of launch on youtube:

Mainly simulation in video, but with live sound and translation

Final stage rocket switched off as scheduled and solar array power operational.

Hurray

 

[Samson]

China's Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter captured this stunning selfie above the red planet by jettisoning a small camera that beamed its photos back to the mothership over Wi-Fi.