amazing science/nature images
I submit that this thread should be renamed to The Perseverance and other Science and Nature Thread
I'm sorry Dave...
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
Relax with the calming sound of NASA’s Perseverance firing lasers on Mars
Spoiler
A laser being fired on another planet, in outer space, by a robot, and it's not a 'pew pew pew', but a 'tick tick tick'. So disappointing.
I'm still waiting for the martian flying drone footage. And I'm sure it'll have audio recordings too, it's the new thing!
Yes, these are clouds that have formed a double helix like a string of DNA. At the link there is no mention of if this particular form is common at this location or was just a lucky shot by the photographer.
These are the horns I asked for
There are no illegitimate children...only illegitimate parents.
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qp7c ... s1vn29.mp4
Marine Iguanas are the only marine lizard species in the world found only in the Galápagos Islands. They can dive as deep as 30m and hold their breath for 30-40 mins.
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
Eerie sounds from a robot on Mars
Maybe putting a microphone inside any machine could make sounds like that, but knowing this was recorded in another planet makes it feel different.
And this image
Focus here:
Bootprints?
Haha, I know they're not. Pareidolia they call it, things that look like other things... that's what it is... right? right... 
At least there's no footsteps sounds in the recording, but I only heard like a 3rd of it. Now, why would they make a "highlight reel" of machine noises?
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
I don't know about that, sometimes volcanos like to spit lava all around when you least expect it. Also, tourism has a tendency to destroy nature.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/22 ... adalsfjall
Couple videos of drone flying close to the volcano
I like it when nature destroys tourism
There are no illegitimate children...only illegitimate parents.
"TOS ain’t havin no horserace round here. “Policies” is the coin of the realm." -- iDaemon
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
Firefox is God
A new, detailed shot of a black hole reveals spiraling lines of mysterious magnetic forces that give astronomers an unprecedented look at how these cosmic monsters behave. It’s an intimate portrait of the black hole at the center of the gigantic M87 galaxy, which lies some 55 million light-years away from Earth.
I don't like the article there. Their wording is too... over the top. And they don't provide an actual source link for the new image, even if they do say it's from the same team that got the first black hole image.
Last edited by ukimalefu on Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
You might prefer reading The Bad Astronomer's explanation of the Event Horizon Telescope specifically because BA tries to speak to general science readers.
-
DukeofNuke
- Posts: 33331
- Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:33 pm
- Title: FREE RADICAL
- Location: Scintillating!
intellectual/hipster/nihilist
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."
-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."
-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Where does zodiacal light come from?
You must have VERY DARK skies to see this with the naked eye although it is easier to get such images via photography.
The Bad Astronomer explains how Juno--the spacecraft now in a polar orbit around Jupiter--may have gotten proof of how much of the dust causing zodiacal light MAY have come from Mars.
On its way to Jupiter Juno had to take a circuitous route to get there, in part getting a gravity assist from the Earth and thus spending some time between Earth and the asteroid belt:
While Juno lacks any sort of dust detector--that being not her main mission to Jupiter--an analysis of the dust that Juno intercepted during that route at least shows how there was little dust in the asteroid belt (previously an argument was made that asteroids and other interplanetary debris was the source of the dust causing zodiacal light) BUT there was a lot of dust when she passed through Mars' orbit.
While the Bad Astronomer pointed out the lack of any mechanism for ANY Martian dust to escape from Mars, I forget where I read this but there were articles on how Mars had lost much of its atmosphere in part due to lacking a strong-enough magnetosphere. In effect globs of the Martian atmosphere got stripped from Mars by action of the solar wind. Considering how practically every Martian year the planet gets swamped with large dust storms--sometimes covering nearly all of the planet aside from the polar ice caps--couldn't the solar wind also steal large portions of Martian dust as well? Now lacking any mechanism to get out of Mars' orbit around the Sun, that dust would form a relatively concentrated belt along Mars' orbit.
-
ukimalefu
- Posts: 44378
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:52 pm
- Title: want, but shouldn't, may anyway
- Location: Failed State
but wouldn't solar winds blow the dust away?
I know it's not like actual "air wind" here on earth, but it does move a solar wind spacecraft...
or maybe the martian invaders are just very tiny and look like dust to us
Well, there are problems with using the solar wind as a propulsive mechanism.
For example, comet tails. That we sometimes can see them from comets is an indication of how much of an effect the solar wind can have BUT that material being blown off comets is basically atoms and small molecules evaporating into a tiny atmosphere around a comet's head, and then being pushed out of a comet's tiny gravity well by the solar wind.
On the other hand, the dust particles lofted in Martian dust storms are HUGELY more massive that short-chained molecules. Even the very fine particles are perhaps quadrillions or more times more massive than the materials that create a comet's tail and thus are a bit more difficult to be blown about.
"Hey! You are using the solar wind to explain how Mars lost its atmosphere too!" True, but I did not say how fast that process happens. Currently Mars loses about a few pounds of atmosphere each day according to NASA. Undoubtedly in the far past when Mars had a more substantial atmosphere, the planet lost its atmosphere at a higher rate but most of that loss was due to the billions of years of erosion.
Considering how insubstantial the Martian atmosphere is compared to that of the Earth, that planet's atmosphere isn't likely to have any significant layering like the Earth's does. Such layering might prevent dust particles from being lofted to the upper edge of Mars' atmosphere, thus enabling them to be stripped away in "gobs" of atmosphere. That the zodiacal light can be seen from Earth is more a matter of the long time that was required to create it.
