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that is a kick ass picture.
one thing I wonder is how there is enough light for a image like that? its pretty damn far from the sun, and I would think a long exposure would be blurry since its moving kinda fast. |
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one thing I wonder is how there is enough light for a image like that? its pretty damn far from the sun, and I would think a long exposure would be blurry since its moving kinda fast. View Quote Gee it's almost like the engineer specifically designed LORRI work under those conditions. Amazing! LORRI |
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This is from NASA's Planetary Fact Sheet:
PLUTO Mass (1024kg)0.0146 Diameter (km) 2370 Density (kg/m3) 2095 Gravity (m/s2) 0.7 Escape Velocity (km/s)1.3 Rotation Period (hours)-153.3 Length of Day (hours)153.3 Distance from Sun (106 km)5906.4 Perihelion (106 km)4436.8 Aphelion (106 km)7375.9 Orbital Period (days)90,560 Orbital Velocity (km/s)4.7 Orbital Inclination (degrees)17.2 Orbital Eccentricity0.244 Axial Tilt (degrees)122.5 Mean Temperature (C)-225 Surface Pressure (bars)0 Number of Moons5 Ring System?No Global Magnetic Field?Unknown What stands out to me is the mean temperature = -225 deg C (-337 deg F). At that temperature, most things we think of as gases (nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane) are liquids or solids. Also, it's spin axis is tilted 122.5 deg from north. How can it be tilted more than 90 deg from north, it's not as if there's a big "North" printed on the pole. |
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I'm just going to keep posting. I'm guessing people are reading it but not many have much to contribute. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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This thread continues to deliver! Howdy! |
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Newest high resolution images from New Horizons have been made public: New Horizons Images http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/Spherical-Mosaic-9-10-15.jpg View Quote As the data slowly trickles in we see more amazing pics. Of note, when we look at objects in solar system it amazing just how pummeled the average surface is. Our Moon, Mercury, now Pluto, etc. We are so lucky that our Moon takes hits for us and that our atmosphere either burns the meteors up or they bounce off the thick air, without the protection the Earth would be a pummeled mess also. Odd thing, years ago it was thought that Pluto's surface would be smooth do to the freezing of the atmosphere in cycles as the little guy orbits the sun. Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that during the year the atmosphere freezes onto the surface when it farthest from the sun and boils off to form a nice haze when it is closer to the sun. Like a, well, a, umm, comet. LOL. Pluto as a smooth object was taught in astronomy as recent as 2012, now in 2015 we know different and the books are being rewritten. Science is cool like that, we learn new things and boom, they get changed. In fact while I was in first year astronomy, data came out that changed the size of observable universe. My professor had us change the info in our text books as part of the lecture, specifically to teach us that information and our knowledge about the universe is constantly changing and to learn to accept and love that change because it reflected the basic reason why the scientific process works. |
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Quoted: As the data slowly trickles in we see more amazing pics. Of note, when we look at objects in solar system it amazing just how pummeled the average surface is. Our Moon, Mercury, now Pluto, etc. We are so lucky that our Moon takes hits for us and that our atmosphere either burns the meteors up or they bounce off the thick air, without the protection the Earth would be a pummeled mess also. Odd thing, years ago it was thought that Pluto's surface would be smooth do to the freezing of the atmosphere in cycles as the little guy orbits the sun. Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that during the year the atmosphere freezes onto the surface when it farthest from the sun and boils off to form a nice haze when it is closer to the sun. Like a, well, a, umm, comet. LOL. Pluto as a smooth object was taught in astronomy as recent as 2012, now in 2015 we know different and the books are being rewritten. Science is cool like that, we learn new things and boom, they get changed. In fact while I was in first year astronomy, data came out that changed the size of observable universe. My professor had us change the info in our text books as part of the lecture, specifically to teach us that information and our knowledge about the universe is constantly changing and to learn to accept and love that change because it reflected the basic reason why the scientific process works. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Newest high resolution images from New Horizons have been made public: New Horizons Images http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/Spherical-Mosaic-9-10-15.jpg As the data slowly trickles in we see more amazing pics. Of note, when we look at objects in solar system it amazing just how pummeled the average surface is. Our Moon, Mercury, now Pluto, etc. We are so lucky that our Moon takes hits for us and that our atmosphere either burns the meteors up or they bounce off the thick air, without the protection the Earth would be a pummeled mess also. Odd thing, years ago it was thought that Pluto's surface would be smooth do to the freezing of the atmosphere in cycles as the little guy orbits the sun. Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that during the year the atmosphere freezes onto the surface when it farthest from the sun and boils off to form a nice haze when it is closer to the sun. Like a, well, a, umm, comet. LOL. Pluto as a smooth object was taught in astronomy as recent as 2012, now in 2015 we know different and the books are being rewritten. Science is cool like that, we learn new things and boom, they get changed. In fact while I was in first year astronomy, data came out that changed the size of observable universe. My professor had us change the info in our text books as part of the lecture, specifically to teach us that information and our knowledge about the universe is constantly changing and to learn to accept and love that change because it reflected the basic reason why the scientific process works. Other objects in the solar system which have active geological processes or other similar things also show little cratering. IO's volcanoes resurface the moon frequently. I'm not talking geological time frames... Our most recent pictures of it likely aren't accurate any more. Europa has an Ice crust with liquid water underneath... any impacts are going to disappear in short order. Titan with its methane rain and lakes... and now Pluto with its carbon monoxide plains. The solar system is a shooting gallery of rocks running into everything. The places with out craters are thus due to having some sort of active process to resurface and "heal" the scars. |
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If it weren't for plate tectonics and erosion Earth would look just as pummeled moon or no moon. Erosion softens craters but some big ones can still be seen... usually with lakes in them. And volcanoes spew out lava covering others or creating new land as the old gets subducted at a plate boundary. Other objects in the solar system which have active geological processes or other similar things also show little cratering. IO's volcanoes resurface the moon frequently. I'm not talking geological time frames... Our most recent pictures of it likely aren't accurate any more. Europa has an Ice crust with liquid water underneath... any impacts are going to disappear in short order. Titan with its methane rain and lakes... and now Pluto with its carbon monoxide plains. The solar system is a shooting gallery of rocks running into everything. The places with out craters are thus due to having some sort of active process to resurface and "heal" the scars. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Newest high resolution images from New Horizons have been made public: New Horizons Images http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/Spherical-Mosaic-9-10-15.jpg As the data slowly trickles in we see more amazing pics. Of note, when we look at objects in solar system it amazing just how pummeled the average surface is. Our Moon, Mercury, now Pluto, etc. We are so lucky that our Moon takes hits for us and that our atmosphere either burns the meteors up or they bounce off the thick air, without the protection the Earth would be a pummeled mess also. Odd thing, years ago it was thought that Pluto's surface would be smooth do to the freezing of the atmosphere in cycles as the little guy orbits the sun. Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that during the year the atmosphere freezes onto the surface when it farthest from the sun and boils off to form a nice haze when it is closer to the sun. Like a, well, a, umm, comet. LOL. Pluto as a smooth object was taught in astronomy as recent as 2012, now in 2015 we know different and the books are being rewritten. Science is cool like that, we learn new things and boom, they get changed. In fact while I was in first year astronomy, data came out that changed the size of observable universe. My professor had us change the info in our text books as part of the lecture, specifically to teach us that information and our knowledge about the universe is constantly changing and to learn to accept and love that change because it reflected the basic reason why the scientific process works. Other objects in the solar system which have active geological processes or other similar things also show little cratering. IO's volcanoes resurface the moon frequently. I'm not talking geological time frames... Our most recent pictures of it likely aren't accurate any more. Europa has an Ice crust with liquid water underneath... any impacts are going to disappear in short order. Titan with its methane rain and lakes... and now Pluto with its carbon monoxide plains. The solar system is a shooting gallery of rocks running into everything. The places with out craters are thus due to having some sort of active process to resurface and "heal" the scars. Yes, two processes are going on. A good example of a planet with very few craters but no tectonics is Venus. The atmosphere provides all the protection there. There are areas on the earth that see very little tectonic activity but they still very few craters, the southwestern area of the US are a good example. |
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If it weren't for plate tectonics and erosion Earth would look just as pummeled moon or no moon. Erosion softens craters but some big ones can still be seen... usually with lakes in them. And volcanoes spew out lava covering others or creating new land as the old gets subducted at a plate boundary. Other objects in the solar system which have active geological processes or other similar things also show little cratering. IO's volcanoes resurface the moon frequently. I'm not talking geological time frames... Our most recent pictures of it likely aren't accurate any more. Europa has an Ice crust with liquid water underneath... any impacts are going to disappear in short order. Titan with its methane rain and lakes... and now Pluto with its carbon monoxide plains. The solar system is a shooting gallery of rocks running into everything. The places with out craters are thus due to having some sort of active process to resurface and "heal" the scars. View Quote BINGO We get hit just as hard by the big ones, as often as they do, but our atmosphere erases the evidence. |
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another Score for the team, Free science courses presented by the world's finest. If only Brian Greene did not present like a baptist preacher. ;P
World Science U |
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NASA just released new images of Pluto, taken within 15 minutes of New Horizons' closest approach.
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Are we really made of star-stuff? I don't buy it completely.. I like the romantic notion... but what about cell division, etc. as the human zygote forms and creates atoms itself, not atoms from exploded stars. Thoughts?
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Are we really made of star-stuff? I don't buy it completely.. I like the romantic notion... but what about cell division, etc. as the human zygote forms and creates atoms itself, not atoms from exploded stars. Thoughts? View Quote The human zygote doesn't "create" atoms -- it uses molecular building blocks provided to it by the mother, who in turn gets them from eating, breathing, etc, and all the stuff she ingests in turn is made up of atoms that originated in stars. There is no transubstantiation in human embryonic growth -- i.e. a growing human does not create matter out of nothing via cell division or any other means. |
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Are we really made of star-stuff? I don't buy it completely.. I like the romantic notion... but what about cell division, etc. as the human zygote forms and creates atoms itself, not atoms from exploded stars. Thoughts? View Quote Creates atoms? No. We ingest the atoms/molecules and the body uses them as needed. |
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Conservation of energy. You don't get something from nothing, it is just changed from one form to another. Nuclear reactors and Nuclear bombs both create new forms of matter but they do that by changing what is already there.
A mother's body just takes in the same fuel we need to live (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and some minerals/metals which are reformulated into our organic bodies) and her body uses it to fuel the fetus's stem cells into the child. She and the fetus basically rearrange the matter she takes in to form the baby. This is why stem cell research can make such huge gains in healthcare, stem cells can be used to grow new tissue to replace destroyed or deceased tissue. For example, nerve tissue to repair the spine of a quadriplegic or a new heart to replace an injured or sickened one. Done ethically, stems cell research and therapy could become a game changer in health care. Stems cells don't come from aborted fetuses either, they can be grown in petri dish using gametes from male and female but NEVER form a fetus. I digress.... |
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Quoted: NASA just released new images of Pluto, taken within 15 minutes of New Horizons' closest approach. http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-wows-in-spectacular-new-backlit-panorama View Quote awesome stuff. love the mountain ranges. |
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Amazing. I hope we get more robots, or even better astronauts, out there on other planets in our lifetime.
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http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-announce-major-discovery-regarding-mars-monday
NASA to hold press conference on Monday and announce major discovery re: Mars. |
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Quoted: Are we really made of star-stuff? I don't buy it completely.. I like the romantic notion... but what about cell division, etc. as the human zygote forms and creates atoms itself, not atoms from exploded stars. Thoughts? View Quote This is true of heterotrophic organisms (organisms that eat food and convert it into energy and molecules that they need and can use), as well as photosynthetic ones (which use energy from the sun to convert the molecules into molecules that they need and can use). In the end it doesn't matter if the organism "breathes" in the molecules, or it ingests them. Either way they are pre-existing molecules used to build the organism. Then why don't we run out of these molecules? Well, because there are cycles on earth. The nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, etc. that keep these molecules recirculating (thing of the water cycle, except more complicated and with atoms). What this means is, just like your glass of water can have water molecules in it from a glacier on Everest, some water from the dead sea, and some evaporated sweat from Raquel Welch. You could have a few carbon atoms in you that were part of Thomas Jefferson, some that were in Sequoia cut down in the 1950's, some that were in an ancient fern that turned to coal and was burned in a steam engine in 1872, and a few that were in a T-Rex. |
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Every cell in every living being comes form pre-existing atoms that were ingested into that organism. The main building blocks of these materials are carbon, but others such as nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen are very important well. These atoms must originally from outside of the organism. Every single one of your 7*10^27 atoms came from outside of your body originally, Essentially all of these atoms have existed for billions of years. This is true of heterotrophic organisms (organisms that eat food and convert it into energy and molecules that they need and can use), as well as photosynthetic ones (which use energy from the sun to convert the molecules into molecules that they need and can use). In the end it doesn't matter if the organism "breathes" in the molecules, or it ingests them. Either way they are pre-existing molecules used to build the organism. Then why don't we run out of these molecules? Well, because there are cycles on earth. The nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, etc. that keep these molecules recirculating (thing of the water cycle, except more complicated and with atoms). What this means is, just like your glass of water can have water molecules in it from a glacier on Everest, some water from the dead sea, and some evaporated sweat from Raquel Welch. You could have a few carbon atoms in you that were part of Thomas Jefferson, some that were in Sequoia cut down in the 1950's, some that were in an ancient fern that turned to coal and was burned in a steam engine in 1872, and a few that were in a T-Rex. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Are we really made of star-stuff? I don't buy it completely.. I like the romantic notion... but what about cell division, etc. as the human zygote forms and creates atoms itself, not atoms from exploded stars. Thoughts? This is true of heterotrophic organisms (organisms that eat food and convert it into energy and molecules that they need and can use), as well as photosynthetic ones (which use energy from the sun to convert the molecules into molecules that they need and can use). In the end it doesn't matter if the organism "breathes" in the molecules, or it ingests them. Either way they are pre-existing molecules used to build the organism. Then why don't we run out of these molecules? Well, because there are cycles on earth. The nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, etc. that keep these molecules recirculating (thing of the water cycle, except more complicated and with atoms). What this means is, just like your glass of water can have water molecules in it from a glacier on Everest, some water from the dead sea, and some evaporated sweat from Raquel Welch. You could have a few carbon atoms in you that were part of Thomas Jefferson, some that were in Sequoia cut down in the 1950's, some that were in an ancient fern that turned to coal and was burned in a steam engine in 1872, and a few that were in a T-Rex. Taking it back a step further, it is theorized that the universe was originally nothing more than helium and hydrogen. When gravity caused large lumps of these elements to coalesce in large masses, they "ignited" as stars. Stars are big nuclear reactors pumping out all sorts of new elements as they fuse together hydrogen and helium into other elements and those elements with other fusion products. Eventually the star exhausts itself, and if conditions are right, it explodes in a nova or supernova. The explosion ejects all of that matter (elements) into space where gravity acts on it again to eventually form other stars and planets and all of the goodies found on those planets. So basically, the theory is that all of the elements that comprise the plants, minerals, animals, and you, everything, were originally forged from hydrogen and helium, in a star. Whether it just happened that way, or God made it happen that way is up to your personal belief system, but that's what the current theory puts forth. |
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Liquid water flows on Mars!
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars |
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They have suspected it for a long time. It is interesting that it does not boil off as soon as it hits the atmosphere (low pressure lowers the boiling point of course). More intriguing is the water had to come from sub-surface deposits. There must be a lot of water trapped in the soil and below because there is no precipitation to replenish it. It perks to the surface, flows and vaporizes, never to rain back down like out water.
They are already rethinking the missions that will launch in the future and were they are going to land the rovers, probes and astronauts. |
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Oh, I know. I just feel like a kid who woke up on Christmas morning and found only three presents under the tree. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Only one new closeup of Pluto, a pretty cool shot of Charon and a blob of pixels for Hydra? If so, call me underwhelmed. I was hoping for at least a few pics of Pluto after all the build-up. The data transmission rate is very low that far out, they expect it'll take about 16 months to transmit everything it took in that few hours. We'll be getting a lot of very nice pictures, just be patient. Oh, I know. I just feel like a kid who woke up on Christmas morning and found only three presents under the tree. |
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Fantastic shot! Yours? |
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Quoted: Liquid water flows on Mars! https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars View Quote |
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Of interest.
I did some intern work on this subject in 2012. You don't want to be in line with the poles of the the SMBH. The article is misleading, the SMBH did not vomit the start, the poles are ejecting from magnetic field lines the charged particles from the star. Much like the process that forms the northern lights here on earth. SMBH has GRB detected |
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View Quote The wheels sure look like the moon gravity design, they are compressed a great deal. |
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A cool look at our solar system, while accounting for the motion of the sun.
https://youtu.be/0jHsq36_NTU?list=PLrhU-AowtrRhfdIo8k1Nw86cJyDUFPWV2 |
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Great talk on APLs newest craft Solar Probe Plus.
Skip the guy introducing the speaker (one of the Principals on the mission) for a great talk on the mission. Around 30:00 into it he discusses how they will get the craft into solar orbit and around 34:00 he discusses how the craft is designed (earlier he talks about other proposed designs). Sending a Probe into the Atmosphere of our Sun |
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I read this article today from BBC with a sort of unassuming title and then as I'm reading along it makes some astonishing claims, basically almost direct evidence for dark matter http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151215-the-most-violent-events-since-the-big-bang-itself But thanks to the Bullet Cluster, scientists can enjoy a front-row view of the mysterious stuff. The collision has exposed the dark matter, separating it from the regular matter of stars and gas – producing one of the best pieces of direct evidence that dark matter really exists. View Quote |
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X-ray image of Tycho’s Supernova Remnant:
Of particular interest is the faint lines on the right side of the "bubble": The X-ray stripes are thought to be regions where the turbulence is greater and the magnetic fields more tangled than surrounding areas. Electrons become trapped in these regions and emit X-rays as they spiral around the magnetic field lines. Regions with enhanced turbulence and magnetic fields were expected in supernova remnants, but the motion of the most energetic particles -- mostly protons -- was predicted to leave a messy network of holes and dense walls corresponding to weak and strong regions of magnetic fields, respectively. Therefore, the detection of stripes was a surprise. View Quote http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/tycho/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1572 And some aurora for good measure. |
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Looking at the closeout around the motor you can see it almost ruptured there also. It is absolutely amazing those guys were not blow into space ice and dust when the SM blew up.
Do you have any idea what the clamp like section is at the front were the capsule was attached. I suspect it is a wire harness conduit but I really don't know. |
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Quoted: Looking at the closeout around the motor you can see it almost ruptured there also. It is absolutely amazing those guys were not blow into space ice and dust when the SM blew up. Do you have any idea what the clamp like section is at the front were the capsule was attached. I suspect it is a wire harness conduit but I really don't know. View Quote |
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Quoted: That's the clamp that held the capsule in place for the duration of the mission. I'm guessing in addition to being a clamp it held the O2 hoses and electrical leads due to the bottom of the capsule needing heat shielding. I need to do a little more research to verify that. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Looking at the closeout around the motor you can see it almost ruptured there also. It is absolutely amazing those guys were not blow into space ice and dust when the SM blew up. Do you have any idea what the clamp like section is at the front were the capsule was attached. I suspect it is a wire harness conduit but I really don't know. |
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View Quote Very cool, I must have watched it a dozen times. |
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Quoted: Yup, clamp and wire harness conduit: https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a2fdc170bb91f95348ab62fccc01ddd2?convert_to_webp=true http://www.apollosaturn.com/block1/block1t.gif View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Looking at the closeout around the motor you can see it almost ruptured there also. It is absolutely amazing those guys were not blow into space ice and dust when the SM blew up. Do you have any idea what the clamp like section is at the front were the capsule was attached. I suspect it is a wire harness conduit but I really don't know. https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a2fdc170bb91f95348ab62fccc01ddd2?convert_to_webp=true http://www.apollosaturn.com/block1/block1t.gif |
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View Quote I can't believe you didn't bother to post the SpaceX rocket takeoff/landing in this thread. You need to find cool stuff more often than once every 6 months pal. You want a good 40 page thread that isn't full of crap, you gotta put some work into it. |
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I can't believe you didn't bother to post the SpaceX rocket takeoff/landing in this thread. You need to find cool stuff more often than once every 6 months pal. You want a good 40 page thread that isn't full of crap, you gotta put some work into it. That's better. |
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How about this: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/innovations/011916-webt-spider.html
Lockheed Martin is developing a technology that will decrease the weight of telescopes by 10-100x and the volume by even more than that. It does this by using interferometry to eliminate the long focal lengths traditional telescopes need to focus. If they succeed this technology will drastically decrease the cost of putting telescopes in space. |
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