Spaceships and astronomy
#271
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
He lives in Birmingham so doubly impressive he could find somewhere dark enough.
#272
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
#273
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
So was anyone following the excitement about Ultima-Thule? I find it incredible that (i) we are able to get close up images from an object that is an area that we thought was a mostly empty area until quite recently, and (ii) that we can find something that is less than 20 miles long and take it's picture, and yet we still can't find Planet X, which is hypothetically the size of Neptune! I can only hope that there are provisional plans being prepared to send a probe to investigate it as soon as possible after its existence is confirmed and its location and orbit mapped. Honestly I am much more interested in that than the weird obsession with sending men on a suicide mission to Mars, and I hope that we might have the technology to send a probe that will get there within a few years and which can be slowed enough to be put into orbit around it.
#274
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Joined: Feb 2009
Location: Fox Lake, IL (from Carrickfergus NI)
Posts: 49,598
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
So was anyone following the excitement about Ultima-Thule? I find it incredible that (i) we are able to get close up images from an object that is an area that we thought was a mostly empty area until quite recently, and (ii) that we can find something that is less than 20 miles long and take it's picture, and yet we still can't find Planet X, which is hypothetically the size of Neptune! I can only hope that there are provisional plans being prepared to send a probe to investigate it as soon as possible after its existence is confirmed and its location and orbit mapped. Honestly I am much more interested in that than the weird obsession with sending men on a suicide mission to Mars, and I hope that we might have the technology to send a probe that will get there within a few years and which can be slowed enough to be put into orbit around it.
Planet X will be a bit more tricky to locate, because it's likely so far out it will be almost impossible to detect.
#275
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Douglas Adams
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
#277
#278
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
#279
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
I can't argue with that, but when we have found thousands of planets around other stars at least as far as hundreds of light years away from us, and imaged stars billions of light years away, it is still hard to believe that it is so hard to find something that is thought to be within 80 light hours of the sun.
#280
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
I can't argue with that, but when we have found thousands of planets around other stars at least as far as hundreds of light years away from us, and imaged stars billions of light years away, it is still hard to believe that it is so hard to find something that is thought to be within 80 light hours of the sun.
#281
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
I have to imagine one of the reasons is that it isn't very reflective, and that in order to discover it, we'll have to pick up an infra-red signature. In order to do that, a telescope will have to happen to be looking at the right part of the sky at the right time.
#282
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Or maybe Betelgeuse will go supernova (or will have gone 600-odd years ago) and eclipse any other discovery so far this century, pun not intended.
#283
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
#284
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
I'm torn - on one hand it could be probably the most spectacular astronomical event I will see in my lifetime unless I get to see an eclipse before I die, but on the other hand Orion is my favorite constellation and I don't want it to change.