The Space and Astronomy Thread

The brilliant HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon has been remastered and is released on Blu-Ray on 15th July.
Worth buying because it really is excellent.
 
Al Reinert’s classic documentary film For All Mankind is on BBC4 next Sunday night.
It really is the definitive film about the Apollo missions. Beautiful viewing, fantastic soundtrack.
 
Dont know if this has been posted before, but its well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.



Not the best quality I am afraid, and BBC catchup has axed it, but if you look it might be on tinternet elsewhere. The DVD is still available.
 
Couple of good buys on iTunes. For All Mankind is £3.99 and the awesome HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon is only £9.99.
 
"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has posted a unique, uninterrupted view of Falcon 9’s latest landing, completed by booster B1056 on July 25th after successfully launching Cargo Dragon on its 18th mission (CRS-18) to the International Space Station (ISS).

Combining four separate views, the video also happens to feature an extremely rare instance of audio clearly recorded from a microphone on Falcon 9 itself, capturing the roar and violence of engine ignition and putting sound to the booster’s hypersonic dive through Earth’s thickening atmosphere."
Short but dramatical!
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-posts-uncut-falcon-9-landing-video/
 
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"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has posted a unique, uninterrupted view of Falcon 9’s latest landing, completed by booster B1056 on July 25th after successfully launching Cargo Dragon on its 18th mission (CRS-18) to the International Space Station (ISS).

Combining four separate views, the video also happens to feature an extremely rare instance of audio clearly recorded from a microphone on Falcon 9 itself, capturing the roar and violence of engine ignition and putting sound to the booster’s hypersonic dive through Earth’s thickening atmosphere."
Short but dramatical!
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-posts-uncut-falcon-9-landing-video/

I find that totally amazing, the fact that they can land rockets like that.

Incredible engineering/wizardy
 
I find that totally amazing, the fact that they can land rockets like that.
Incredible engineering/wizardy
I guess you can do almost anything if you put your mind to it. When I say mind, I mean lots of money.

Actually we knew in the 60's they'd be landing rockets backwards like this. They used to do it all the time on Dan Dare and Thunderbirds. We've had to wait all this time for Musk to catch up with Jeff Tracy. Musk hasn't got the eyebrows for it.

Jeff-Tracy.jpg
 
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Saw that, all the posts say he was a lovely person. RIP
 
Here’s a heads up for you. Sky Atlantic is shortly going to show the excellent HBO/Tom Hanks/Ron Howard miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.
I can’t recommend it enough.
 
Has everyone seen the latest update from NASA about the Artemis project? It's tremendously exciting.

2020 - first uncrewed test flight
2022 - first crewed test flight
2024 - moon landing (and more each year)
2028 - establishment of sustainable lunar exploration
20?? - Mars

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/
 
This could shake up the world of cosmology; a new study shows that the evidence for the existence of dark energy may actually be based on an incorrect assumption.


New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error https://flip.it/SRsBdb
 
This could shake up the world of cosmology; a new study shows that the evidence for the existence of dark energy may actually be based on an incorrect assumption.

New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error https://flip.it/SRsBdb
Crikey. Obviously it's early days, but that new study does look persuasive.

The discoverers of the (alleged, I guess we might now say) accelerating expansion of the universe shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011. Is there a protocol regarding what happens if/when the award turns out to have been made on false premises?
 
Does this mean the expanding universe may not actually be accelerating, and the Big Bounce theory is on the table again?
 
If it's not accelerating, universal gravity should eventually stop everything, and start pulling it back in.
In trillions of years everything smashes back into everything else, and you get another big bang as it all starts over again (ad infinitum), so Big Bounce.
Constant acceleration meant everything would keep on heading outwards, fundamental particles would eventually decay, and there'd be nothing left of the universe but an ever expanding cloud of gamma photons.
 
If it's not accelerating, universal gravity should eventually stop everything, and start pulling it back in.

I don’t think that’s right. I think what’s in doubt is the speed of universal expansion. The belief that it was expanding faster than light speed was attributed to dark energy. If it’s still expanding, there is not enough matter, and therefore gravity to stop and reverse the process.
 
If it's not accelerating, universal gravity should eventually stop everything, and start pulling it back in.
In trillions of years everything smashes back into everything else, and you get another big bang as it all starts over again (ad infinitum), so Big Bounce.
Constant acceleration meant everything would keep on heading outwards, fundamental particles would eventually decay, and there'd be nothing left of the universe but an ever expanding cloud of gamma photons.

I think I'll stay in bed all day when that happens.
 
I don’t think that’s right. I think what’s in doubt is the speed of universal expansion. The belief that it was expanding faster than light speed was attributed to dark energy. If it’s still expanding, there is not enough matter, and therefore gravity to stop and reverse the process.
I was under the impression that none of it was actually going FTL , but that opposite sides of the expansion may be travelling at > .5C so their relative speed is FTL.
Dark energy was being used to explain why it was expanding faster than we thought it should be, and in fact accelerating, but that seems to be the bit that's now being brought into question.
Not sure yet exactly what that means yet regarding whether or not expansion will eventually reverse.
 
If it's not accelerating, universal gravity should eventually stop everything, and start pulling it back in.
Not necessarily. That depends on the overall density of the universe.

Trouble is, this new result on supernovae is so fundamental, it's really hard to know which bits of modern astrophysics would survive if it were true, and which wouldn't. I mean, for example, if the supernovae result is correct then our understanding of the relationship between red shift and distance is faulty, which means that we need to recalculate how big the universe is, and having done that the flatness problem might go away, which means that one of the main underpinnings for inflationary theory goes, which means that perhaps there is no such thing as dark matter or dark energy ... there's almost no end to it. The whole of modern cosmology (post 1980-ish) is an elaborate artifice built on a surprisingly small number of pieces of observational evidence, and the supernovae result threatens to pull the rug from under it.
 
It is a remarkable piece of equipment that has survived the early debacle of there being a mix up of imperial and decimal units and produced some superb images.

The image, on the link, that is full of galaxies, is mind boggling.

Dave
 
Current forecast for Monday night is "Mostly Cloudy" :( . Not sure where to take Mrs Nod for her birthday supper on Star Wars day - Chez Nous is our best bet!
 
Don't forget Star Wars day ," May the 4th be with you "
 
One of the neighbours is clearly an astronomy nut. Knocked on all the doors last night to invite us for a viewing of the ISS as it passed over us. Turned out to be travelling very fast - I initially thought it might’ve been a plane. Also wished I’d had something to zoom in with.
 
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