Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

[MichVandal]

Russian Cosmonauts flew to the ISS mid-December and a micro-meteorite nicked the coolant system of their Soyuz capsule cause it to be useless.

Good news, there is enough supplies for the seven residents in the ISS. Bad news, thanks to the privatization of US space flight, rescuing the crew from the ISS will have to rely on Russian Soyuz capsules, and not Musk's SpaceX Dragon capsules.

Why? Because SpaceX uses custom fit flight suits for each of its astronauts, and there are zero flight suits made for the current astronauts at the ISS, despite the Dragon capsule having room for seven people.

Also, the dependability (or even ability) for Soyuz to dock to the ISS automatically and unmanned has been called into question. Which means at least one Cosmonaut would need to pilot the new Soyuz up, which would strand one of the existing crew longer than planned until another short crewed Soyuz could take the remaining crew home.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/week...outputType=amp

I'd just like to add: **** Elon Musk and **** SpaceX.

One should note that the crews were of mixed nationality- the Russian craft took up an American, and the last Dragon took up a Russian.

But yea, they should be able to adapt.

[Kepler]

Meet WASP-76b.

In March of 2020, initial spectroscopic findings indicated the presence of neutral iron. Therefore, if the temperature on Wasp-76b could reach 2,400 C (2,700 K; 4,400 F), hot enough to vaporize neutral iron and cold enough to condense the vapor to 1,400 C (1,700 K; 2,600 F) the neutral iron could rain down like a liquid.

Turns out, it doesn't rain iron, the iron vapor just forms clouds. Iron clouds. JFC.

[dxmnkd316]

Meet WASP-76b.



Turns out, it doesn't rain iron, the iron vapor just forms clouds. Iron clouds. JFC.

Jesus ferrous Christ.

[Kepler]

No matter how many times I see the landing on Of Course I Still Love You, I am still blown away.

Start at about -48.00

[Kepler]

TIL the brightest star in the history of the Earth (other than the sun) is Epsilon Canis Majoris (currently +1.5 and 22nd brightest). 4.7 million years ago it was -4.0 (the brightest Venus* gets is -4.7) and visible in the daytime.

The closest star in the history of the Earth (other than the sun) is WISE 0720−0846 (Scholz' Star). It is currently 22 lightyears away, but 70,000 years ago (a blink of an eye in galactic time) it passed 0.82 ly from us -- about 1/5th of the current distance to Proxima Centauri -- and entered the Sun's Oort cloud. The next star to pass through the Oort Cloud will be Gliese 710, in 1.2 million years. Neither of those stars were/will be visible.

* The first time I saw Venus in the broad daylight I was absolutely shocked, and it was a fluke. I was watching a plane and it eclipsed it. I had an idea of what I was seeing and stayed with it for several minutes until I lost it, and it was impossible to recover with no landmarks (skymarks?). But during the time I held it it was no strain whatever to see and obvious. You simply have to be looking exactly at it. After I lost it I ran inside (pre internet) and looked up the rise and set times and worked out exactly what I had seen. Venus' greatest elongation is 3 hours and 15 minutes when it is at almost 45 degrees in the sky.

[dxmnkd316]

passed 0.82 ly from us -- about 1/5th of the current distance to Proxima Centauri -- and entered the Sun's Oort cloud.

Holy ****. That's crazy.

[Kepler]

Has anybody ever seen the following idea in fiction: we eventually achieve FTL, but because of the compounding of speed all interstellar transits take almost the same amount of time. e.g., it takes 100 days to go 4 ly, 101 to go 40 ly, 102 to go 400 ly, etc. Everywhere in the universe is effectively equidistant in time from everywhere else, but any given trip is still a PITA.

[dxmnkd316]

Effectively, yes. Warp 10 episodes in Star Trek.

but not explored it in the way you were probably looking for.

[Kepler]

Effectively, yes. Warp 10 episodes in Star Trek.

but not explored it in the way you were probably looking for.

Yeah, I was trying to game out what consequences identical but not instantaneous travel would have.

[dxmnkd316]

Yeah, I was trying to game out what consequences identical but not instantaneous travel would have.

I imagine the same as international flights have done for terrestrial culture, health, and business.

[Kepler]

https://news.umich.edu/scientists-fi...o-dark-energy/

Searching through existing data spanning 9 billion years, a University of Michigan physicist and colleagues have uncovered the first evidence of “cosmological coupling”—a newly predicted phenomenon in Einstein’s theory of gravity, possible only when black holes are placed inside an evolving universe.

Gregory Tarle, U-M professor of physics, and researchers from the University of Hawaii and other institutions across nine countries, studied supermassive black holes at the heart of ancient and dormant galaxies to develop a description of them that agrees with observations from the past decade. Their findings are published in two journal articles, one in The Astrophysical Journal and the other in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The first study found that these black holes gain mass over billions of years in a way that can’t easily be explained by standard galaxy and black hole processes, such as mergers or accretion of gas. According to the second paper, the growth in mass of these black holes matches predictions for black holes that not only cosmologically couple, but also enclose vacuum energy—material that results from squeezing matter as much as possible without breaking Einstein’s equations, thus avoiding a singularity.

With singularities removed, the paper then shows that the combined vacuum energy of black holes produced in the deaths of the universe’s first stars agrees with the measured quantity of dark energy in our universe.

Kevin Croker's explanation of cosmological coupling:

“Here’s a toy analogy. You can think of a coupled black hole like a rubber band, being stretched along with the universe as it expands,” said study co-author and University of Hawaii theoretical astrophysicist Kevin Croker. “As it stretches, its energy increases. Einstein’s E = mc2 tells you that mass and energy are proportional, so the black hole mass increases, too.”

How much the mass increases depends on the coupling strength, a variable the researchers call k.

“The stiffer the rubber band, the harder it is to stretch, so the more energy when stretched. In a nutshell, that’s k,” Croker said.

[Kepler]

Back of the envelope estimation of frequency of goldilocks zone planets around red dwarfs. tldr: there are a metric buttload.

[Kepler]

Direct imaging of a planet at 87 light years. It is a pretty cool time to be alive.

[dxmnkd316]

Direct imaging of a planet at 87 light years. It is a pretty cool time to be alive.

jesus ****

The two teams of astronomers revealed the exoplanet is about four to six times the size of Jupiter and is orbiting AF Leporis at about the same distance as Saturn orbits the sun.

Edit: Ok, so they suck at writing articles. It's 4-6x the mass of Jupiter but "only" 1.3x the radius. WHich is still a big mother****er. But Wiki reminds me that the universe is insane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...est_exoplanets

Largest exoplanet in terms of radius is HD 100546 b @ about SEVEN times the radius of Jupiter. However, that likely includes an accretion disk. So the next on the list is at 3x the radius of Jupiter. Which is still insane.

In terms of mass, some of these are close enough to almost be considered brown dwarfs.


Edit 2:
THis is cool
https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltec...Tbls&config=PS

[Kepler]

And now before giving you the details of the battle, I bring you a warning: Everyone of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies.