Does this explain what generates gravity?

I couldn't care less if the Chinese or the Americans are the first back on the Moon, but doubtless they do when it comes to squabbling like children as to who owns the water supposedly at the South Pole.


Over to NASA headquarters:

"It's gone up in SMOKE!!!"

"What, our Space Program?"

"No, my career at NASA!" 🙁


The heatshield problems were evidently that NASA overcooked the return velocity, thus causing young Snoopy to skim like a pebble over the Earth's atmosphere.

Easy enough to fix surely? Why the delay? I suspect the problems lie deeper.

Astronaut safety remains NASA's guiding star. Well, that's not true. NASA executive's job security surely is a greater consideration. 🙄

Consider the hapless stranded Boeing Astronaut Sunita Williams having a bad hair day and struggling to eat her Muller Rice dinner in Zero G on board the rotting ISS Space station:

Scary Sunita Astronaut.jpg


More Cruella De Vil than 2001: A Space Odyssey, surely?

Space Hat.jpg


These Space Girls have things more under control. I rest my case. 🤣
 
The heatshield problems were evidently that NASA overcooked the return velocity, thus causing young Snoopy to skim like a pebble over the Earth's atmosphere.

The return velocity of Artemis 1 was not "overcooked", but was a consequence of a high-speed return from the Moon.

And the "skim" trajectory is an intended necessity to convert kinetic energy into heat as the capsule bounces off the atmosphere and comes back in again.

If there had been astronauts in Artemis 1 they would have been safe, so a new heat shield design is not required.

It is sufficient that the reentry trajectory be revised.

NASA say that the updated timeline for Artemis 2 is necessary to troubleshoot issues with an Orion battery and the capsule's life-support system.

I couldn't care less if the Chinese or the Americans are the first back on the Moon...

I think you should care more!

Like the original space race, there is now a race to control cislunar space, which is the area around the Earth extending from low Earth orbit (LEO) to just beyond the Moon’s orbit, and including all of the five Lagrangian points.

1733675437968.png


Cislunar space has strategic value in terms of national security: https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20200714_Kaplan_Cislunar_FINAL.pdf

I wrote earlier in this thread that there is a concern that the country that takes control of the Moon and cislunar space will take control of the world, and tensions are already surfacing surrounding the creation of Moon bases.
 
Is it not quite interesting that we apparently landed on the Moon 55 years ago, but now seem to have great difficulties 55 years later?
Did you know that some things regarding "Core Rope Memory" do not seem to be true ?
PS.
Colonize Marz seems to me to be absolute stupidity.
 
I am sure many forum members would like to colonize YOU @Mister Audio... 🙄

Given the vastness of the Universe, and the number of stars and galaxies in it, I am upgrading my operating system and antiicipating installing the latest High Bandwidth Memory (HBM):

Laniakea Cluster.jpg


My own efforts are still struggling to find even nearby M33 Triangulum:

The Search for Triangulum 3.jpg


Can you spot it? No, I can't either.

Anyway, armed with the Latest Linux magazine and all that nonsense about Kernels and whatnot, I have backed up all my files to a USB stick, and will be installing the VERY LATEST Kubuntu 24.10.

Linux Magazine and Kubuntu.JPG


Whilst I am offline, you might brush up on Gravity Waves with the famous Kip Thorne and Portsmouth's second most famous Physicist, Jim Al-Khalili:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0021qhv

I will be asking questions later to make sure you have done your homework.

I hope I'll be back soon with the superb and tasteful new Kubuntu desktop. Really, they should make a film about my life. Life is INTENSE as an Astrophysicist. 🤣
 
Hmm, that was easy enough. Just did what the screen told me. Answered a few questions. It's what is called a LIVE install. It can actually run off the CD to try, and can hack Windows password protection like a good 'un.

Some issue that my USB3 port wasn't working for my phone Internet tethering. Tried another USB2 port. I expect Linux will download the driver eventually.

Steve's Kubuntu.png


I now have a stock wallpaper appropriately called Galaxy, and everything is mousing along quite happily. Portsmouth's phone internet is a disgrace on ALL networks. Everybody knows.
 
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A very interesting article by Doctor (no less...) Ethan Siegel. What will happen when Betelgeuse blows up into a Type II Supernova?

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/when-betelgeuse-supernova/

Could be a long wait, but more impressive than the putative T CrB Nova for sure.


Screenshot_20241209_233157.png


I think a star of this size, about 15 Solar Masses, leaves a Neutron Star behind.

The last good Type I Supernova was SN 1572 in Cassiopeia. As bright as Venus. It upended certain, ahem, theories that the Heavens were unchanging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1572

It so happens that Astronomers know exactly what the surprising and unexpected light curve will be, having fortuitously seen one seen one around 2011 in a distant galaxy.

As bright as the full moon, but pointlike.

I wonder if looking at it would damage your eyes. It's a worry.
 
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What will happen when Betelgeuse blows up into a Type II Supernova?

That Big Think article is replete with interesting facts about Betelgeuse.

You're a betting man, Steve. What do you think of Ethan's odds?

"Statistically, there’s around a 1-in-4000 chance that Betelgeuse has already exploded, and we’re just awaiting the arrival of its light."

I wonder if looking at it would damage your eyes. It's a worry.

Shades of The Day of the Triffids you mean?

1733842936994.png


Don't tell me you've been nurturing plants of the carnivorous variety in your garden, Steve! :yikes:
 
Portsmouth's phone internet is a disgrace on ALL networks. Everybody knows.
I am lucky enough to live 200 m from a startup credit card procession company, Heartland Systems. They started in an old bowling alley in the shopping mall down the street. That means ATT put a fiber drop at the end of my street. So my internet twisted pair runs 200 m. Great service. Heartland moved out to the industrial park on the old Dupont ammo plant (River Ridge Commerce Center), so I don't have to put up with rush hour traffic, either.
I also live 240 m from Papa John's pizza #1, and 260 m from Rally's #1 (soyburgers). Both now NYSE listed corporations. Pity none of that talent rubbed off on me. But with 3000 new jobs going in the Commerce Center (Meta data center, Canadian solar panel factory) my real estate is appreciating nicely.
 
You are lucky you only crossed ME when you talked about 'Apparently landed on the Moon'... 🤣

This man would give you a right-hander if you said that to his face, and HAS:

Buzz Aldrin.jpg


No, accept your admonishment, resolve to be a better person, an' all that. No-one will care in a 100 years time anyway. And if you have solved Quantum Gravity, we are all ears.

Why, only yesterday I made a complete fool of myself. 😳

I was explaining to Pistol Pete (retired Maths teacher who hangs with us at Horse Club) that an EQUILATERAL Triangle has two sides equal.

'No Steve, you are thinking of an ISOSCELES Triangle... an equilateral triangle has 3 sides equal!'

'Well what do you call a triangle with one side equal then?'

'That is a trick question,' he said 'but the correct answer is a SCALENE triangle!'

'Ya still got a good little Maths brain in that noggin of yours.' I conceded with embarrassment.

How did we get onto that. Well, I had just pulled off a considerable and exact coup in the 1800 at Southwell. A fine win a and a predicted 40-1 3rd place.

Thing is Kylian, which beat Equilateral by 3.5 lengths last time was carrying 7Lb more for this time. That's worth 7 lengths over a mile. It's how it works.

Also Rossa Ryan is a very top jockey who won the Prix De L'Arc on Bluestocking. Richard Fahey (A fine trainer IMO) wouldn't send a horse to Southwell without thought of good prize money in a Class 2 race either. Pictures or it didn't happen, eh?

Equilateral.png


Now I will probably get told off by Galu for off-topicness. 🙁
 
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Steve, you are way off topic when you discuss the nags! 😉

P.S. In writing that I was prompted to investigate the connotations of the term "nag":

"The term is often associated with a horse that is old, weak, or difficult to handle, and can be seen as disrespectful or insulting. However, others see the term as a simple descriptor of a horse’s behavior or temperament, and do not find it offensive."

As you know, Steve, I strive not to be offensive on this thread so will offer you the winged horse of love:

1733925234118.png


May it fly past the finishing post!
 
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Now we are back on-topic, I can apply my unique and useful knowledge of betting odds to Astrophysics.

Consider this somewhat rash statement by Ethan Siegel and his fellow hacks at The Big Think:

Betelgeuse Odds.jpg


Even without peer review from Pistol Pete, I can confidently find the quotient of a window of 100,000 years and a distance of 640 LY as around 150-1.

Of course, you might have to wait 640 years at worst for the payout. Only the legendary Methuselah would likely benefit from such a wager IMO.

More realistically, the odds of us seeing this thing in the next 25 years are, indeed, 4000-1 with regular exercise and good diet.

For comparison, 10-y-o old nag Rufio set off at 100-1 in the Christmas Comes Early handicap at Musselburgh on Monday before unseating Lucy Brown (Wasn't she Mack the Knife's girlfriend?) at the fourth, running another lap just for the exercise and jumping the perimeter fence before cantering around the town. He was reined in when he dutifully stopped at the traffic lights. This is surprising since horses are red/green colour blind. Everything looks grass coloured to them.


Rufio 7 Musselburgh.jpg


https://www.racingpost.com/news/bri...re-declared-all-good-by-trainer-ajBve8Y1X5gW/

Hope that is all nicely on-topic. You can see I am a changed man. 😛
 
It's a small world in Astronomy:

The Great Dark Horse and SN 1604 remnant.jpg


I have just done the calculation of Kepler's Supernova SN 1604, which was as bright as Jupiter. RA 17h 31m, Dec -21 degrees 29 minutes.

This in French:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1604#

The remnant is around the top of the Dark Horse's neck. Whole large 10 degree square thing is centred around Theta and Xi (the squiggly thing) Ophiucus.

Ophiucus.jpg


You will recall I photographed the Comet A3 when it was near Kappa and Lambda Ophiucus. Never write off a constellation as boring! 😛
 
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