Anyone for an astronomy thread?

[Balderdasha]

Is this the best thread for NASA managing to crash a probe into an asteroid? I thought that was pretty cool having grown up on a Hollywood diet of Deep Impact / Armageddon / Don't Look Up. Slightly reassuring to know that we now potentially have the technology to deflect a civilisation destroying meteorite.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Is this the best thread for NASA managing to crash a probe into an asteroid? I thought that was pretty cool having grown up on a Hollywood diet of Deep Impact / Armageddon / Don't Look Up. Slightly reassuring to know that we now potentially have the technology to deflect a civilisation destroying meteorite.

Or create one ...

[ad hoc]

Did it work? I read that they'd successfully crashed into the asteroid but not whether it had made any difference to its trajectory

[Ginger Yellow]

I doubt they know yet.

[Ginger Yellow]

Per Scott Manley, it's going to take several weeks to get enough observations to have an accurate measurement of the deviation.

[torres]

What scope do you have?

Nothing too flash. Celetron with a 50mm lens.

[hobbes]

Cool. Celestron make nice kit.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Per Scott Manley, it's going to take several weeks to get enough observations to have an accurate measurement of the deviation.

Does that lad sleep? I mean where did he get the time to learn how to fly?

[ursus arctos]

Mission managers said at a post-impact press conference on Monday that it could be up to two months before it is known whether the force of the Dart impact was enough to move Dimorphos from its regular orbital path around Didymos.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...se-test-images

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

This big hurricane in florida has put the caip bhais/kibbosh on the latest attempt to launch the SLS. The next slot they're looking at is apparently around thanksgiving.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/KianSharifi/status/1582760645967347717?t=q5nITE1yDzxHbz03oWU3eA&s=19

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Probably the coolest thing I've seen this year.

[Discordant Resonance]

We'll never hear the end of it!

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1601155077674504194

[Ginger Yellow]

I imagine this is only slightly more likely to actually happen than the Mars One flight.

The trip is expected to launch in 2023 and take seven days in total.

Yes, "expected" in 2023, when the rocket being used hasn't managed not to catch fire/explode yet in tests, let alone, you know, reach lunar orbit.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Can't they test it on Eamonn Holmes first?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I imagine this is only slightly more likely to actually happen than the Mars One flight.



Yes, "expected" in 2023, when the rocket being used hasn't managed not to catch fire/explode yet in tests, let alone, you know, reach lunar orbit.

Nah, it's attached to something with too many artemis contracts for it not to happen eventually and this lad has already paid a big chunk of cash, two things which fundamentally separate it from Mars one.

That said the path to this happening is
1. Get to orbit for the first time.
2. Get to orbit enough times that they figure out how to return the booster to the launch pad and catch it,
3. get the ship back from orbit,
4 land it safely
5. Get good enough at all that to start to figure out how to refuel in orbit
6 master that
7. Send it out to the moon to see If the Heatshield can handle the spicy re entry from the moon,
8. Put people on it.
9 don't kill them
10 dear moon.

2023 seems entirely reasonable

[San Bernardhinault]

All Y’all mocked my hot tub. But I saw a Geminid last night and two tonight! Without freezing to death.

Meanwhile watching the Orion capsule retuning to earth felt so very, very retro. After decades of shuttles or Muskrockets returning in one reusable piece there was a conical top-of-the-rocket capsule floating down with three parachutes and a bunch of inflatable flotation balloons on top and it was like we were back in 1972 and I was 1 year old again.

[Discordant Resonance]

Impossible to miss Mars in the sky tonight, as it literally appears as though it were above the moon.

[Balderdasha]

An asteroid the size of a minibus will pass South America closer than our own man-made satellites later tonight.

But surely we have known about this for a while you might think? Haven't we got the technology to blast asteroids now after that whole fanfare over the successful DART / dimorphos mission? Well, we started planning the DART mission in 2015, so a mere seven years notice needed. We found out about this asteroid last weekend, when an amateur astronomer noticed it.

I, for one, feel very reassured about our planetary defence capabilities.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64411469

[torres]

There’s a comet visible at the moment just near the handle of The Plough. I attempted spotting it last night but the sky was too bright. Tonight looks a better bet for it.

[Guy Profumo]

I'm sure I've asked this before, but…


Is there an astronomical measure of distance which doesn't rely on the Earth as a reference)

(i.e. not AU, light year, Parsec)

?

[Ginger Yellow]

light year

I think I get what you're saying, but it's only Earth-related because of the unit of time you've chosen. Light second is independent of the Earth.

[Guy Profumo]

I think I get what you're saying, but it's only Earth-related because of the unit of time you've chosen. Light second is independent of the Earth.

Thanks!

That'll be the boy!

So are there terms for massive multiples of light seconds
(Though we've defined the second on our own biases, is there one that's independent we can use for when the "others" are involved in "first contact", he says, shifting the goalposts)

[Ginger Yellow]

Also, strictly speaking, a light year is 31,577,600 light seconds, so not technically reliant on Earth, though obviously it is derived from the Julian calendar

[Ginger Yellow]

s there one that's independent we can use for when the "others" are involved in "first contact", he says, shifting the goalposts

At a micro scale, there's the Planck length I suppose. Or you could use the size of atoms/subatomic particles, though that would be imprecise I would have thought. At a macro scale, in particular given the expansion of the universe it's hard to think of one that isn't going to be in some way shaped by our own dividing up of time. The second, at least, is defined in a way that we can (theoretically) communicate to "others" and have them come up with the same result.

The only thing I can think of is if there's some physically determined limit to size of something that we can be confident would be consistent across the universe. But that seems a lot wobblier than just using the speed of light.