The Astronomy Thread

[quagmire]

*spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/03/hayabusa-2-launches-on-audacious-asteroid-adventure/

Japanese H-IIA kicks off Hayabusa 2’s asteroid mission | NASASpaceFlight.com

Japan is the only country to have managed to return samples of an asteroid to Earth and they are doing it again. JAXA has overtaken NASA and ESA in asteroid exploration..

 

[quagmire]

[youtube]FNnZ44S_vLQ[/youtube]

 

[Desmond]

Wow. And almost no coverage of this.

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So glad this is happening during my lifetime. NASA officially announces manned Mars mission.: NASA's Orion Test Flight Gets Us Closer to Mars - Businessweek

Test flights begin tomorrow.

 

[Anorion]

Just saw comet Lovejoy. It visits the sun once in 8000 years.
First spot orion, then betelguese nearby, it's a bright red star
then line up betelguese and aldebaran - both are red stars, pleiades and lovejoy should be side by side, roughly in a straight line to that.
this makes it easy : How To Spot Comet Lovejoy With The Naked Eye

 

[Desmond]

WOw. And now you post?

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BTW, expect high quality images of Pluto after July 14th this year: *en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach

 

[Ronnie11]

have been really unlucky in spotting lovejoy. Thanks for the link. Very useful.

 

[Desmond]

*www.sciencenews.org/article/aurora-shift-confirms-ganymede’s-ocean

Aurora shift confirms Ganymede’s ocean

Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has solidified its membership in the growing cadre of solar system locales where liquid water flows beneath the surface.

“The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place,” Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said March 12 at a news conference.

The ocean showed itself not with plumes or pools but via subtle changes in Ganymede’s aurora, the moon’s version of the Northern Lights. Jupiter’s magnetic field should interfere with Ganymede’s, causing the moon’s aurora to rock back and forth by about 6 degrees. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, showed that the aurora shifted by only about 2 degrees. Joachim Saur, a geophysicist at the University of Cologne, Germany, and colleagues deduced that an electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface — a saltwater ocean, for example — would create a secondary magnetic field that counteracted Jupiter’s interference.

Observations with the Galileo probe, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, hinted at Ganymede’s ocean (SN: 12/23/00, p. 404), but the flybys were too brief to provide unambiguous evidence. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus also hide subsurface oceans and researchers suspect that there may be water within Jupiter’s moon Callisto and the dwarf planet Ceres. “Every observation we make,” said Heidi Hammel, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., “takes us one step closer to finding a truly habitable environment.”

 

[Anorion]

for those keeping count, that is Europa, Enceladus and Ganymede now
maybe they have mermaids

 

[Desmond]

I would love to see them send a probe to Europa. I am very confident there is life there under the surface.

 

[Anorion]

Europa Report spoiler

Spoiler

*38.media.tumblr.com/89d48b6215b56f6da132925cd1c3bf55/tumblr_mr42jpFN5D1rcdliqo1_500.gif

 

[Desmond]

Is that from the movie The Abyss?

 

[Anorion]

nope. Europa Report.

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I would love to see them send a probe to Europa. I am very confident there is life there under the surface.

synopsis of the movie

When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean and single-celled life exists on one of Jupiter's moons, six astronauts embark on an ill-fated exploratory mission.

annnd just realised that was a spoiler.

 

[Desmond]

You could have deleted that before I read it

 

[Anorion]

it was the .gif, not the synopsis. fixed it now.

 

[beingGamer]

I love these Astronomy topics.
Its amazing how small are humans compared to the objects present in the universe as per our limited knowledge.

*upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Comparison_of_planets_and_stars_(sheet_by_sheet)_(Jan_2015_update).png
(let me know if image doesnt show up)

I am curious about the long discussion over the internet about the so called Planet X. If any of you or OP can enlighten some knowledge on it will be great

 

[Desmond]

AFAIK, everyone agrees that Planet X does not exist.

 

[Anorion]

 

[icebags]

^well, they forgot to show burning scorching earth, with stuff being evaporating, not to mention furious seismic activies, for as long as there is liquid core in earth.

on an other important note, get ready for New Horizon's Pluto flyby mission this july, when Pluto landscapes, mountains, craters will be mapped and named.....

The Mapping of Pluto Begins Today | The Planetary Society
Pluto Science, on the Surface | The Planetary Society

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150227_Pluto-Earth-for-PIP-2-26-15-lg.jpg
pic: pluto as seen by hubble ST (left), and picture of earth(right) with similar pixelization.

 

[Desmond]

^well, they forgot to show burning scorching earth, with stuff being evaporating, not to mention furious seismic activies, for as long as there is liquid core in earth.

on an other important note, get ready for New Horizon's Pluto flyby mission this july, when Pluto landscapes, mountains, craters will be mapped and named.....

The Mapping of Pluto Begins Today | The Planetary Society
Pluto Science, on the Surface | The Planetary Society

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150227_Pluto-Earth-for-PIP-2-26-15-lg.jpg
pic: pluto as seen by hubble ST (left), and picture of earth(right) with similar pixelization.

GG

A good time to be alive.

 

[Anorion]

vote for naming Pluto's features
Vote - pluto