amazing science/nature images

[DEyncourt]

Video tweet from NASA TV showing clip featuring Dr. Eugene Parker having just watched the launch of his namesake spacecraft on its way to study the Sun. It also happens to be his first rocket launch that he had seen live (as opposed to watching video feeds).

As I type this the Parker probe is already on its way to intercept Venus for a gravity assist towards the Sun.

A photographer for NASA also got this during the launch:



The linked article (from which that pic came) is the Bad Astronomer's explanation for the Parker Solar Probe mission where he also showed its planned orbital path which will use Venus for gravity assists to FURTHER lower Parker closer to the Sun:

[ukimalefu]

[ukimalefu]

you may know about hummingbirds, but did you know about snoring birds?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uEfmQt34Nc

[ukimalefu]

Valaise Blacknose Sheep

[juice]

That reminds me of the old Wile E Coyote cartoons where he's trying to catch a sheep being guarded by the sheepdog.

[TOS]

the great east coast blackout happened 15 years ago tonight

it was the first time i truly saw the milky way ... such a dazzling sight, i was sad when the power came back on (though it was damn hot at the time)

toronto suburbs, with and without a blackout (not my photo)

[TOS]

when cobras fight pythons, nobody wins

[Metacell]

Are you sure they were fighting?

[ukimalefu]

[TOS]

"fire tornado" from the california wildfires

1,000 feet across at its base

[macnuke]

toss in some vicious bears and have Samuel Jackson star in it and you got the making of a helluva movie

[TOS]

(not)fun fact: temperatures in that thing may have hit as high as 2700 degrees f

that's hot enough to melt steel beams

like literally, bro

[Pariah]

Bearnado!

[DukeofNuke]

Redding, huh?
Best wishes to Funky Res

[jkahless]

//sigh// Firenado is just embarrassing for an actual news report, it's a well known phenomenon known as a firestorm. Imagine that centred on a city, and that's what firebombing cities in WWII was like.

[Metacell]

Nobody would have watched Sharkstorm. If it bleeds, it leads.

[ukimalefu]

what about Sharkurricane?

[ukimalefu]

what about lightningnado?

[Metacell]

what about Sharkurricane?

I'm still still waiting for Octoquake followed by Sharknado vs. Octoquake and it's lesser known sequel Starfish Lansdslide

[user]

how about two guys who are brothers...

[ukimalefu]

The Troll Wall in Norway, Europe's tallest vertical rock face with 1100m(3600ft) from base to summit.

[TOS]

The Troll Wall in Norway, Europe's tallest vertical rock face with 1100m(3600ft) from base to summit.

don't get too close, it'll express the hope that you die in a fire

[dv]

The Troll Wall in Norway, Europe's tallest vertical rock face with 1100m(3600ft) from base to summit.

don't get too close, it'll express the hope that you die in a fire

If you didn't see Troll Hunter, you should.

[ukimalefu]

The Troll Wall in Norway, Europe's tallest vertical rock face with 1100m(3600ft) from base to summit.

don't get too close, it'll express the hope that you die in a fire

If you didn't see Troll Hunter, you should.

I did

[DEyncourt]

Again, no images, but researchers have found direct evidence of water ice on the Moon's surface near its poles.

Previously the evidence was indirect, finding evidence for compounds containing hydrogen and oxygen were present but not proof of water ice.

[DEyncourt]

Again, no images, but researchers have found direct evidence of water ice on the Moon's surface near its poles.

Previously the evidence was indirect, finding evidence for compounds containing hydrogen and oxygen were present but not proof of water ice.

The Bad Astronomer has a fuller explanation and maps:

Water ice has been found on the Moon in thousands of locations (green dots) by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. All the locations are very cold, and the ice is within millimeters of the surface. F, D, and R indicate craters Faustini, De Gerlache, and Rozhdestvenskiy where ice was found. Credit: Li et al

Note that these maps show only a small part of the surface of the Moon, those parts within 20º latitude of the lunar poles, so a bit less coverage than the regions of the Earth inside its Arctic/Antarctic Circles which are at 23.5º latitude from the Earth's poles.

[TOS]

you know, all this effort to explore mars, when there's still so much to see on the moon

even a simple hi-res camera on a polar orbit would be fine, and pretty darn cheap

[ukimalefu]

you know, all this effort to explore mars, when there's still so much to see on the moon

even a simple hi-res camera on a polar orbit would be fine, and pretty darn cheap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Rec ... ce_Orbiter

Too bad nobody claimed the Lunar X Prize. Google offered 30 million dollars for any private robot to land on the moon move around certain distance and send pictures back. The deadline was march 2018 and they didn't extend the deadline.

I think the last "moon rover" was chinese.

[TOS]

you know, all this effort to explore mars, when there's still so much to see on the moon

even a simple hi-res camera on a polar orbit would be fine, and pretty darn cheap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Rec ... ce_Orbiter

Too bad nobody claimed the Lunar X Prize. Google offered 30 million dollars for any private robot to land on the moon move around certain distance and send pictures back. The deadline was march 2018 and they didn't extend the deadline.

I think the last "moon rover" was chinese.

yeah i know about that

i just feel like a basic orbiter -- not even a lander, just an orbiter -- would be an easy win

[DEyncourt]

Um, y'know what that story about the Moon is REALLY about?

The possibility of man being able to colonize the Moon.

The problem with moving stuff off the Earth JUST into orbit is that EVERYTHING is so expensive. Water is especially the worst case because it is not compressible and is absolutely necessary to maintain life, no substitutions. While not particularly heavy, we need a LOT of water.

BUT while there are many POSSIBLE locations on the Moon to find SOME water, there is still no guarantee that there is a lot of it. It might be that practically ALL of that water is only molecule-thin sheets frozen on the surface so despite that number of locations the total that can be collectable might only fill an above-ground swimming pool. That amount might be enough to sustain (with approaching 99.9% recovery through recycling) a dozen people at most for a while. Not much of a colony, but it would be that much LESS water that has to be launched into orbit.

[ukimalefu]

[TOS]

somebody tell that dog it's not a freaking polar bear

[TOS]

Um, y'know what that story about the Moon is REALLY about?

The possibility of man being able to colonize the Moon.

The problem with moving stuff off the Earth JUST into orbit is that EVERYTHING is so expensive. Water is especially the worst case because it is not compressible and is absolutely necessary to maintain life, no substitutions. While not particularly heavy, we need a LOT of water.

BUT while there are many POSSIBLE locations on the Moon to find SOME water, there is still no guarantee that there is a lot of it. It might be that practically ALL of that water is only molecule-thin sheets frozen on the surface so despite that number of locations the total that can be collectable might only fill an above-ground swimming pool. That amount might be enough to sustain (with approaching 99.9% recovery through recycling) a dozen people at most for a while. Not much of a colony, but it would be that much LESS water that has to be launched into orbit.

"oh, there's water on the moon? great, let's slurp it up till it's gone!"

[ukimalefu]

[DEyncourt]

The Bad Astronomer on how scientists have determined an exoplanet's characteristics by how it moved its star:



That star is Beta Pictoris which is about 167 light years from Earth. While an actual infrared image of its exoplanet was taken (the star is "only" less than 20 million years old so its exoplanet is still glowing brightly in infrared), there was considerable uncertainty about its orbit around Beta Pictoris because of the limitations of such pictures.

The above image shows different expectations about Beta Pictoris' apparent motion:

1) the straight dashed line shows how the star should have moved based on the different velocity it has compared to the Sun,

2) the corkscrewed dashed line shows how the star should have moved when the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun was included,

3) the stars shows the actual locations of Beta Pictoris off of the path in 2) due to its exoplanet.

Thus the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b is now estimated to have a mass of 11 ± 2 times that of Jupiter and an orbit of between 22.2 and 24 Earth years.

[ukimalefu]

[TOS]

[TOS]

bioluminescent algae in aussie land

[Metacell]

I'm surprised it's not lethally poisonous.

[user]

bil lie jean

is not mah luver