http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ing-Planet
First "free-floating planet" discovered.

So apparently Curiosity discovered something "for the history books" in a Martian soil sample. They're still analysing it further before they make any definite announcements, but this looks really interesting so far.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165513016 ... um-for-now
http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/20/3671 ... ecret-data

It should be interesting to see what they found if it turns out to be as big as those articles make it sound. I'm looking forward to hearing more.

I have cautious optimism on this one. I really hope it is 'Earth shaking', as they put it, and will make the people of the world pause their trivial, over-dramatic lives for even but a moment

I bet it turns out to be something only scientist can understand and/or appreciate, but still interesting none the less.

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-bu ... warp-drive

My BSc in Physics isn't enough to tell whether this is nonsense or not. My gut feeling is that it's not practical yet but could still be a possibility. I mean the guy behind this idea must have some sort of clue as to what he's doing... In any case, I'm all for looking further into this technology - any advances in space travel are a fantastic thing in my book.

Sorry guys, the hype over Curiosity's supposed discovery was just a misunderstanding.




Wow, that sounds amazing. A bit hard to believe in fact, but I assume NASA doesn't give research funds to complete kooks... I can imagine there will be years or decades of work to put into it before it's actually practical, but hopefully they can find out for sure if it's feasible or not with current experiments.

So everything as usual between science and the media

D'oh! ...for want of a better phrase. Still, the misquoted quote was right in that it will be (is?) a historic mission - and there's still lots to do for Curiosity so there could well be something amazing on the horizon. Literally.

Uhhh... guys?...
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lif ... to-go-out/

I'm gonna leave that there.

We are very small. Very very small:

http://jackadam.net/misc/radio_broadcas ... dcasts.jpg

Read and be awe struck!

http://www.exitmundi.nl/eternity.htm

Doesn't that violate the laws of thermodynamics? What do they turn into?

That's incredibly misleading to just say that those things will just disappear. They'll turn into other things, which could randomly collide with other particles and create new particles if they have the momentum. (probably, don't quote me on that lol)
Protons could decay into a neutral pion and a positron... there's probably a few other combinations of neutral and positive particles that would work. Photons (I'm guessing) could decay into W+ and W-. But I don't really know. Also, no-one has ever seen a proton or photon decay, they're just theories. Probably correct, but theories nevertheless.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ancient-quasar-imaged-when-the-universe-lacked-heavy-metal/

Pre 1960's?

I just got my first telescope the other day. Once the skies clear up I'll use it for the first time. I'm incredibly excited.

Nice! I'd like to have my own telescope but there's too much light pollution in my area, and I wouldn't get to use it too often anyways.

Nice, I got one a month or so ago but haven't had much chance to use it because of the weather. But I did manage to see Jupiter and 4 of its moons. I felt like Galileo. ^^

Tomorrow I'm going to start my cross country move (California to Maryland) and every night out in the mid west and the central states (Nebraska) I'm going to be using it.

You'll definitely be able to get some dark skies as you cross the country. I live in Virginia, close to DC, and you can't see much at all in this area.

I'm close to st.louis and if you drive just outside a small town, it can be so dark that you only see the road.

Had a good look at Sirius, Rigel and Jupiter last night - gonna try and get a decent view of the Orion Nebula and Betelgeuse tonight. Fingers crossed for a clear night!

I am so jealous of you right now. I always wanted one and I think my next purchase, after my modular synth is payed off (Bit off more than I could chew on that one ) is a quality telescope for sure. A quick trip out of the city and the sky is ripe for stargazing. Have fun.

I know nothing of astronomy and telescopes. Tell me, how clearly do you see the planets? When you say you saw Jupiter could you actually make out its topographical features or is it just a little shiny dot?

Oh, and keep an eye out for Planet X and let us know. Y'know, so I can know whether I should stop bothering with this essay.

I couldn't make out any of the features, but the telescope I've got isn't that great - I got it 2nd hand with very vague instructions and have only used it 3 or 4 times for not very long because it's too damn cold. I find it hard to keep it perfectly still and only move it slightly, but it goes up to 233.3x magnification which is good enough. I haven't really got used to it yet though and I think Jupiter was unusually bright last night, it was white rather than the orangey yellow I was expecting. Jupiter's diameter was about a third of the viewing area so I think I should have been able to see things fairly clearly. Maybe I need a polarising filter or something, I dunno. I could make out some moons fairly clearly as well (at least 4) but I couldn't keep the damn thing still enough. Gonna have to look into that... As I said I wanted to have a look at the Orion Nebula - if I can see that fairly clearly then I'm definitely gonna try and use it more often! Nebulas are so cool.

Hope that helped, but you do need some patience when it comes to astronomy I'm finding more and more. As for tonight, it's foggy. Damn you! *shakes fist at sky*

Wow, a third of the viewing area... I should find a friend with a telescope.
And yeah, it was pretty damn foggy today in Reading.

I may have unintentionally misled you... I focused on Jupiter again last night and it was more like a tenth of the viewing area (which still isn't too bad!). I think the problem was I wasn't wearing my contacts and the best focus I could get on it was still crap. Or I should stop using the telescope while I'm inside, but it's so cold! I'm still convinced I need a polarising filter if I want to make out any details though.

It's the Geminids [seemingly coming from just above and to the left of Orion in the constellation of Gemini] meteor shower tonight by the way. Apparently it starts around 9pm for people around the GMT time zone, but the best viewing will be between midnight and 1 am.

The geminids are supposed to be great viewing. Also, they start early enough for those of us who get sleep , and the sky is apparently moonless tonight.

I'm going to check it out.

I was looking forward to them with the kids, but we have heavy overcast and it's snowing. They were nice last year, though.

I have a decent view of the eastern sky from my backyard, so I'm gonna try to see some of the geminids, but we'll see if that works out or not.

His description of how it alters space-time around the ship reminds me of the Planet Express in Futurama which moves space around it rather than moving itself. Really interesting theory nonetheless, I hope it gives way to some concrete results. Although I'm a little shocked that the energy required went from the mass of Jupiter all the way down to the Voyager in his calculations.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

A nice little website that posts up an astronomy related picture and a small description every day. I get plenty of desktop backgrounds off there - today's picture is definitely a candidate!

Speaking of that:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... verse.html

Just... gorgeous, jaw-dropping stuff. The first one of the sun just blew my mind. I thought it was a painting...

The last picture just looks like a friggin' skull

So I guess now we know what'll devour us on friday.

Thanks for that link. That sun picture is indeed amazing.

Neil deGrasee Tyson is talking to the American Senate, but his words ring true for any nation. I want to see humanity itself constantly push forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKlA_UnX8c

I can't disagree with anything he said here. The newest phones make life convenient. The best game consoles make life fun. But nothing makes us dream like seeing what goes on in space.

of course
http://gifs.gifbin.com/1232024489_The_s ... lanets.gif

Snake River on Mars:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/pia ... er-br2.jpg

does not look very much different from some spots on Earth.

"Neutron stars are about 10 - 20 km in diameter (they cannot collapse further as this is the closest the neutrons can pack together) and have the mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun (which is over 1 million km in diameter). This means that a neutron star is so dense that on Earth, one teaspoonful would weigh a billion tons"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvHHZO2wmmg

If a star were to go supernova 30 light years away from us, the radiation would kill us. Luckily the closest star nearing this stage is 400 light years away (Betelguese).