The Space Thread: Diablo's Home Planet Found

[Camel]

First closeup photo has been released.

 

The Icy Mountains of Pluto | NASA

 

It's amazing to think that we can see a relatively small object billions of miles away from us in such detail.

[Eudemon]

That image isn't even from it being at its closest. Much more spectacular images to come!

The close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 478,000 miles (770,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet.

[Camel]

Still the closest pic we've seen so far so :p

 

Might be a while before we get many more pictures though with the upload speed only being about 1kbps! Must be about 2 hours just for 1MB. And I think they're still recording more data over the next few days too so won't be uploading all of the time.

[CarMadMike]

they're still recording more data over the next few days too

 

Didn't they say it'll take 18 months or did I make that up?

 

Even so, it's a huge triumph for those involved, should change a fair few things we thought we knew* about pluto and its moons.

 

*they thought they knew

[Camel]

NASA have found What appears to be Earth 2.0 with their Kepler telescope.

 

The planet appears to be remarkably similar to Earth 0.1b with a similarly sized and brightnessed sun, a similar orbit to us that's only 5% longer than ours. Although the diameter is much bigger.

 

I wonder if there are human 2.0s living there. Too bad it's 10,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. :(

 

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth | NASA

[CLR-GTR]

I read about this, then went on digging a bit because it sounded exactly like the million previous claims they made. And unfortunately it still is, pretty much the same as all other clames (although I know every new claim is a slight bit better than the previous). I just expected a bit more information, considering NASA held a press conference and it's going all over the news at the moment (I heard about this through some fashion tv show lol). But they don't even know for sure if it's a rock surface or a gas planet, so I don't see why this planet needs its own announcement in the media and all previous ones didn't get that.

 

At least we know it's a planet we won't have have to put effort into visiting.

[Eudemon]

I thought this was a more probable discovery compared to others due its star size, its own size and the distance it is from its star? It's not like the others where there can be no atmosphere because their star burns it all up due to the proximity and isn't too far away or the star too small to provide the required heat believed to create life like here one earth.

 

What is remarkable about this exoplanet is that it is in our own galaxy and relatively close, it's 6 billion years old and the light we are seeing from it is, I believe, 1400 years old. Putting that into our own terms here on earth means the light we could be seeing is from the dark ages even though we are living in the 21st century right now.

 

Messes with your head when you think of these things. :derp:

 

 

Check out the NASA link with info and media from the briefing

[Camel]

Thinking of it like that really does make my face do this :derp:

 

And we only really know (well, we don't really know about) a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the universe. And what if there are multiple universes? :derp:

[Eudemon]

Ever looked up the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) image and then looked at the context to what area of space it represents? Now that will mess up your head.

 

Even if we are not alone, chances of us finding or visiting are so remote it's actually upsetting to think about. :bdown:

[Camel]

I've seen that before but it still amazes me.

 

And to be fair, we have you and I think that's close enough to an alien life form for me. :p So chin up, you have you!

[CLR-GTR]

We need fusion reactors and warp drive ships, or worm holes. I think in 200 years we got fusion reactors small and efficient enough for space ship installation, and within 1000 years we múst have completed full scale tests with warp drive. If not, you can kiss humanity's chances of being a space race and saving our behinds from this dying rock goodbye. But I think this should be doable. They expect actual fusion reactor power plants within 50 years (ITER is a prototype fusion plant) and NASA is slowly figuring out the theory behind feasible warp drive.

[Eudemon]

We cannot effectively look out into space exploration until we get together and stop the petty crap between each other here on earth. When you see the pics from the ISS and of earth from space, it makes you realise our home is beautiful and looks so peaceful and yet down on it idiots prevail!

[hassan1995]

This is some amazing stuff, I wish we had the technology to travel these distances, I'd love to explore the vast universe but us lot now are too early which is a shame. Future generations might be able too, however I don't want us as humans right now to even go near another planet if it's suitable for us, we've ruined the planet we live in and I wouldn't want us to taint other planets be it now or years later.

[Ryzza5]

Gravity is twice as strong so you'd weigh twice as much there.

[CLR-GTR]

Pluto: it has a haze around the planet reaching up to 130 km above the surface:

 

 

And:

"Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this sharper global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away from Pluto, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers). That’s twice the resolution of the single-image view captured on July 13 and revealed at the approximate time of New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach."

 

 

 

Source: New Horizons | NASA

[TIMELESS]

I'm not at all just quoting a guy from Belfast because I'm biased (:p)but because I thought his points on "Earth 2.0" were very interesting:

 

Dr Chris Watson, from Queen's University Belfast, UK, commented: "Other Kepler habitable zone planets may well be more Earth-like in this respect. For example, Kepler-186f is approximately 1.17 Earth radii, and Kepler-438b is approximately 1.12 Earth radii.

 

"In fact, at 1.6 Earth radii, this would place Kepler-452b in a category of planet called a 'Super-Earth' - our Solar System does not actually have any planet of this type within it! Super-Earths are hugely interesting for this reason, but one might then say, well, is it really 'Earth-like' given all this?"

 

He added: "When we look at the type of star Kepler-452b orbits, then it seems to be a star not too dissimilar to our Sun... The other Kepler habitable zone planets that have been discovered so far tend to be orbiting M-dwarfs - stars far cooler than our Sun, and therefore the planets need to orbit much closer to receive the same levels of heating.

 

"So it may be a potentially rocky super-Earth in an Earth-like orbit (in terms of host star and orbital distance). It's this combination of the host star and orbit that set it apart in my opinion."

 

It's a shame about the 2x Earth's gravity thing, because other than that it sounds like a massive possibility for finding some sort of life, like what we have on Earth. Not to mention when we finally destroy our own Earth it could have been a backup! :(

[Ozzmcom]

well, ok here's what I don't get about these 'earth like' and 'habitable' concepts. These are only valid for living organisms that are located on earth right now, the universe is pretty massive I don't think referencing a tiny piece of planet when looking at this massive almost endless space would be accurate. All they're looking for is carbon based life forms that require o2 and water but what if there are organisms out there that are completely different to what we have in our frame of mind? I mean a tardigrade could potentially survive in space with no atmosphere or any resources, in fact NASA was so scared of contamination that they've decided to launch  Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter's atmosphere and burn it down to little bits.

There is a good chance that we are not alone in this universe, but there is also a good chance that we will never meet any of them in our time frame. The observable universe is stretched out to 13.8 billion years, even if a life form advanced enough, somehow figures out to send radio waves into the space, and are decrypt-able by our technology and somehow the waves coincidentally encountered by us in the last 100 years which is equivalent to 0.00000725% of the age of the universe.

Yeah.. you decide from this point.

 

edit: and think of this humans only started listening to radiowaves from space consciously after 1964.

[Ryzza5]

A funny quote I heard, from the Simpsons of all places...

 

 

For someone who likes electric cars so much, Elon Musk certainly uses a whole lotta rocket fuel :)

 

 

 

btw thanks for warning me about Interstellar being a sad movie :(

[Ozzmcom]

A funny quote I heard, from the Simpsons of all places...

 

 

For someone who likes electric cars so much, Elon Musk certainly uses a whole lotta rocket fuel :)

 

 

 

btw thanks for warning me about Interstellar being a sad movie :(

it's hollywood sad, it is basically a melodrama with a bit of science. Don't expect anything deep like god father or something.

[CLR-GTR]

:eek::eek::eek:

 

 

This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto’s equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum. The entire expanse of terrain seen in this image is 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) across. The images were taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).

 

This 220-mile (350-kilometer) wide view of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft illustrates the incredible diversity of surface reflectivities and geological landforms on the dwarf planet. The image includes dark, ancient heavily cratered terrain; bright, smooth geologically young terrain; assembled masses of mountains; and an enigmatic field of dark, aligned ridges that resemble dunes; its origin is under debate. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size. This image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).

 

Two different versions of an image of Pluto’s haze layers, taken by New Horizons as it looked back at Pluto's dark side nearly 16 hours after close approach, from a distance of 480,000 miles (770,000 kilometers), at a phase angle of 166 degrees. Pluto's north is at the top, and the sun illuminates Pluto from the upper right. These images are much higher quality than the digitally compressed images of Pluto’s haze downlinked and released shortly after the July 14 encounter, and allow many new details to be seen. The left version has had only minor processing, while the right version has been specially processed to reveal a large number of discrete haze layers in the atmosphere. In the left version, faint surface details on the narrow sunlit crescent are seen through the haze in the upper right of Pluto’s disk, and subtle parallel streaks in the haze may be crepuscular rays- shadows cast on the haze by topography such as mountain ranges on Pluto, similar to the rays sometimes seen in the sky after the sun sets behind mountains on Earth.

 

Flying SOURCEr (I see what I did there) for more text and pictures: New Pluto images from NASA's New Horizons - It's complicated

[CLR-GTR]

 

Source: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama | NASA

[Eudemon]

Amazing pics those latest ones. Pluto looks so different to I think we imagined and it's all the better for it.

[CLR-GTR]

We definitely need surprises like this. To spark interest in space again at everybody. Too bad I think this will also spawn 10 million more ideas to send boxes with dishes and long sprites into space instead of landing on mars for a change, but this is the second best thing.

[Camel]

Can't believe how detailed the images that we're getting are considering how far away it is. It is truly remarkable.

 

It looks nothing like I thought it would either but we can't see any cities. :(

[Eudemon]

NASA have confirmed that ancient lakes were on Mars.

Using data from the Curiosity rover, the team has determined that, long ago, water helped deposit sediment into Gale Crater, where the rover landed more than three years ago. The sediment deposited as layers that formed the foundation for Mount Sharp, the mountain found in the middle of the crater today.

 

NASAs Curiosity Rover Team Confirms Ancient Lakes on Mars | NASA