Science and Souls (for geeks and spiritual explorers)

[t-dub]

NASA has released an 8 minute movie from the hazard avoidance cameras on Opportunity. Cruise around the surface of mars . . .

And in other news . . . New Horizons sends back a great color image of Pluto, the most detailed yet. The image was taken on July 7, when the NASA spacecraft was just under 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto, and is the first to be received since the July 4 anomaly that sent the spacecraft into safe mode.

 

[h3rbalist]

And in other news . . . New Horizons sends back a great color image of Pluto, the most detailed yet.

That sure is some funky shading/colouration, the heart shape is interesting. I wonder what is going on there?

Apparently there will be a more detailed examination on the 14th.




EDIT
Had to paste this comment I saw on that youtube link.

Scott “marsroverdriver” Maxwell Shared on Google+ · 1 day ago
'Oh, man, the memories this brings back: 11 years of Opportunity in eight minutes, as seen through her own eyes.

This especially affects me since, as a rover driver, the HAZCAMs -- the hazard-avoidance cameras used to take the images in this video -- were often my primary window onto Mars.
I can still quite vividly remember watching the 90-sol versions of this video.

Just when we'd completed the three-month nominal mission on Spirit, Justin Maki put together a minute-long video of all of Spirit's HAZCAM images so far, and he shortly afterward did the same for Opportunity.

Now it's 11 years later, and one of those rovers is still going strong. And still reminding us what it's like to almost literally have a window to another world, continually open for anyone on this planet who cares to look through.'

 

[t-dub]

Pluto and Charon in color . . .

A high-contrast array of bright and dark features covers Pluto’s surface, while on Charon, only a dark polar region interrupts a generally more uniform light gray terrain. The reddish materials that color Pluto are absent on Charon. Pluto has a significant atmosphere; Charon does not. On Pluto, exotic ices like frozen nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide have been found, while Charon’s surface is made of frozen water and ammonia compounds. The interior of Pluto is mostly rock, while Charon contains equal measures of rock and water ice. “These two objects have been together for billions of years, in the same orbit, but they are totally different,” said Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

 

[t-dub]

Last pic before the big show . . .

Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The color image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument that was acquired earlier on July 13. This view is dominated by the large, bright feature informally named the “heart,” which measures approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across. The heart borders darker equatorial terrains, and the mottled terrain to its east (right) are complex. However, even at this resolution, much of the heart’s interior appears remarkably featureless—possibly a sign of ongoing geologic processes.

Credits: NASA/APL/SwRI

 

[grokit]

First detailed closeup of Pluto, at 0.4 km/pixel.

 

[h3rbalist]

 

[momofthegoons]

I looked through this thread and was surprised this hadn't been posted yet...

 

[Joel W.]

Saturn's rings are the grooves on the record playing in our solar systems phonograph. .

Wait, I thought sound waves were not possible in the vacuum of space?

 

[Frederick McGuire]

Saturn's rings are the grooves on the record playing in our solar systems phonograph. .

Wait, I thought sound waves were not possible in the vacuum of space?

I'm not 100% sure, but basically
They either take some data they can measure, and convert that into the audio spectrum - so we can hear a direct audio representation of some form of data (eg radio waves).

Or they take some of the data and create an approximation of the sound that information would produce had there been a medium for the sound to travel through.
(Eg: taking a video of a twister, extrapolating air speeds from that, then making An approximation of the sound those airspeeds would make)

I believe that vid would be the former, but without looking into it further I'm not too sure.

 

[t-dub]

New images from Pluto released today . . . For the next couple of months downloads will be focused on engineering data so there will be fewer images for a while.

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[momofthegoons]

 

[mvapes]

Our next home? will we become Keplerians...

G_d I hope there's other Jews there!

 

[StickyShisha2]

 

[grokit]

https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/3e75ct/australia_vs_pluto/

 

[grokit]

We've had the technology to help correct our energy and climate crisis for decades and nothing has been done simply because of politics and economics. Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors are everything we wish our energy sources were: inherently safe, extremely reliable, and financialy viable. Unfortunately, we don't always make the smartest decisions as a species.

To become part of the conversation:

TL;DW Version:

Please learn about it; lack of knowledge is part of the problem. I promise you won't believe you hadn't heard about it. Feel free to repost for awareness- I'll even upvote.
TL;DR: It's about an energy revolution, dumdums. SMH. Go and watch the 5min video!

 

[t-dub]

This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth - one million miles away . . .

 

[Joel W.]

Nasa is joking that there is a woman like figure standing on that rock on Mars. I want to prospect for gold right there. Gold, Gold, Gold!

Spoiler: Do you see it?

http://mashable.com/2015/08/06/nasa-mars-lady/

 

[grokit]

Eternal parking space.

 

[momofthegoons]

I saw this vid and thought to myself, I'll bet that was @t-dub when he was a kid....

 

[Joel W.]

I searched for an ET thread but the 2 here were way old. I am not sure I believe in UFO's yet, I saw "something BIG" once when I was a kid, fly over head with my sister driving, but i have no idea what it was. It was fast and seemed way bigger than any plane? I figure there is a whole lot of space out there and it really is unlikely that it is just us, here. I think life will be every where we look in space, but visiting here, well I am not sure about that yet. I like more proof personally. IFLS is kind of harsh on him.


Apollo Astronaut Says Aliens Prevented A Nuclear War On Earth

Sometimes it’s amusing to poke fun at conspiracy theorists. After all, most of them believe irrational stories with little to no evidence, and attempt to fit contrasting evidence to their theory – as opposed to actual scientists, who realize their theories could be wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

But in the case of NASA's former Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, it’s actually a bit sad what has happened. Since he returned from the Moon in 1971, he has spouted someincreasingly bizarre conspiracy theories, mostly regarding aliens visiting Earth, and his latest is no different. In an interview with the Mirror Online, he says that aliens came to Earth to prevent a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In the interview, he references the famous White Sands Missile Range facility in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb – Trinity – was tested on July 16, 1945. “White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that's what the extraterrestrials were interested in,” he said. "They wanted to know about our military capabilities. My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth."

He went on to say that unnamed Air Force officers had told him their missiles were frequently disabled or shot down by UFOs flying overhead. Why aliens would use interstellar travel to come all the way to Earth and disable a few missiles here and there rather than, I don’t know, making contact or something, is up for debate, I guess. "To me this is just another case of UFO fantasy and speculation," UFO expert Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, told IFLScience. "When you try getting to the facts it is like trying to herd cats."

Let’s give Mitchell a bit of credit though, and talk about some actual science. He was, after all, the sixth man on the Moon and the Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission. This was the eighth manned mission of the Apollo program, and the third to land on the lunar surface. Mitchell, together with his commander Alan Shepard, spent more than 30 hours on the surface, during which time they collected 45 kilograms (100 pounds) of lunar samples and performed various scientific activities. Shepard also famously hit a golf ball during this mission, while Mitchell himself threw a lunar scoop handle like a javelin.

But it’s been a bit of a fall from grace for Mitchell since then. We wish him all the best, and hope that at some point he returns to the real world with the rest of us.

 

[t-dub]

Want to send your name to the surface of Mars? Well you can on NASA's new InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission. The space agency is inviting people around the world to submit their names to be etched on a silicon chip that will be affixed to the InSight Mars lander, which is scheduled to blast off in February 2016 and touch down on the Red Planet seven months later. Names will be accepted through September 8th. This is very similar to the New Horizons mission that had my name, and about 400,000 others, whizzing by Pluto not that long ago . . .

http://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/

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http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm

 

[grokit]

 

[herbivore21]

I searched for an ET thread but the 2 here were way old. I am not sure I believe in UFO's yet, I saw "something BIG" once when I was a kid, fly over head with my sister driving, but i have no idea what it was. It was fast and seemed way bigger than any plane? I figure there is a whole lot of space out there and it really is unlikely that it is just us, here. I think life will be every where we look in space, but visiting here, well I am not sure about that yet. I like more proof personally. IFLS is kind of harsh on him.


Apollo Astronaut Says Aliens Prevented A Nuclear War On Earth

Sometimes it’s amusing to poke fun at conspiracy theorists. After all, most of them believe irrational stories with little to no evidence, and attempt to fit contrasting evidence to their theory – as opposed to actual scientists, who realize their theories could be wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

But in the case of NASA's former Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, it’s actually a bit sad what has happened. Since he returned from the Moon in 1971, he has spouted someincreasingly bizarre conspiracy theories, mostly regarding aliens visiting Earth, and his latest is no different. In an interview with the Mirror Online, he says that aliens came to Earth to prevent a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In the interview, he references the famous White Sands Missile Range facility in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb – Trinity – was tested on July 16, 1945. “White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that's what the extraterrestrials were interested in,” he said. "They wanted to know about our military capabilities. My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth."

He went on to say that unnamed Air Force officers had told him their missiles were frequently disabled or shot down by UFOs flying overhead. Why aliens would use interstellar travel to come all the way to Earth and disable a few missiles here and there rather than, I don’t know, making contact or something, is up for debate, I guess. "To me this is just another case of UFO fantasy and speculation," UFO expert Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, told IFLScience. "When you try getting to the facts it is like trying to herd cats."

Let’s give Mitchell a bit of credit though, and talk about some actual science. He was, after all, the sixth man on the Moon and the Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission. This was the eighth manned mission of the Apollo program, and the third to land on the lunar surface. Mitchell, together with his commander Alan Shepard, spent more than 30 hours on the surface, during which time they collected 45 kilograms (100 pounds) of lunar samples and performed various scientific activities. Shepard also famously hit a golf ball during this mission, while Mitchell himself threw a lunar scoop handle like a javelin.

But it’s been a bit of a fall from grace for Mitchell since then. We wish him all the best, and hope that at some point he returns to the real world with the rest of us.

Man I can't believe the garbage that IFLS post on their pages.

IFLS are such a bullshit organization. The fact that these guys get so much web traffic is a testament to the scientific illiteracy of too many today. Seriously, so much communication of pseudoscience and pop-culture bullshit and so little communication of actual science - which when done, is frequently inaccurate.

https://briankoberlein.com/2015/07/27/a-failure-to-communicate/ This astrophysicist highlights one example of their bullshittery. So much pseudoscience pedaled on that site!

Sorry bro not meaning to pick on anyone just wanted to provide a scientist's view on this so-called 'science' page - but please, ignore IFLS, this page does not support scientists or scientific work, it frequently does the opposite.

It really should be renamed - I Fucking Love Clickbait (or maybe I Fucking Love Tin Foil Hats)! The site is about as credible a scientific publication as buzzfeed - although I'm not 100% sure that IFLS is a 'native advertising' platform (look it up, it is a fucked up practice!) like that page, just full of eye-catching bullshit to make people click.

 

[Joel W.]

Man I can't believe the garbage that IFLS post on their pages.

Elise Andrew (IFLS) is just a blogger who as you know does not write the science, nor does she claim to do the science. She is just a fan of science and she (IFLS) is just how I found out about the ufo story.. There are other sites that report a similar story so not sure what's wrong here really.

The IFLS site does do a lousy job at times I totally agree, but I have never had to "clickbait" click to see the story listed on FB or the video that is usually at the bottom area. Never.

She has 21+ million people (2 million when I joined) right now that like her science page and it gets people interested in science. Truly, that can't be a bad thing.

edit: It does say, "The lighter side of science." on the front page..

Quick, ufo's or no?

 

[t-dub]

The New Horizons science team has released a movie showing the entire spacecraft’s fly-by of Pluto, condensed into 23 seconds, compiled from images taken by the spacecraft.