astronomy

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Crackhappy, in This week, NASA will be sharing details on how it's preparing to receive the first set of asteroid samples ever gathered by the agency, an achievement seven years in the making.
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

I remember this movie based on the Michael Crichton book. In seriousness though I’m excited for this!

Ghyste,

The Andromeda Strain. Amazing book.

FlyingSquid, in The Closest Planet To Neptune Turns Out To Be... Mercury
@FlyingSquid@mander.xyz avatar

Mindblowing. I never even thought of things that way!

Mane25, in The Closest Planet To Neptune Turns Out To Be... Mercury

Interesting, I remember there was a CGP Grey video on this if anyone’s interested: vid.priv.au/watch?v=SumDHcnCRuU

DrMango,

Neato

CanadianCorhen, in James Webb Space Telescope gazes into the Whirlpool galaxy's hypnotic spiral arms (photos)

What an incredible picture! The scope of it always boggles my mind.

jayknight, in The Closest Planet To Neptune Turns Out To Be... Mercury

The linked source is way more informative: pubs.aip.org/…/Venus-is-not-Earth-s-closest-neigh…

niktemadur, in Time ran slowly in the early Universe, just as Einstein predicted - Advanced Science News

I have to wonder how this slowing down of time affected the Universe when it was still an inconceivably dense point that suddenly went into inflation mode, where and when time dilation must have been nearly as extreme as in the immediate proximity of an event horizon.

Saneless,

So did time even move at all at a single dense point?

niktemadur,

And how has any black hole in the Universe grown in mass at all in the past 13 billion years if time stops there? Any matter within the event horizon should be falling towards the singularity but frozen in time, frozen in its’ fall, never quite making it there.

How does any supernova ever even finish collapsing into a singularity?

acockworkorange,

The way I understood it way back when I was taking basic physics in college was thus (simplified): Time for the particle at relativistic speeds / gravities moves slower compared to a far away observer unbound by such influences. Like the twin siblings paradox. So a particle past the event horizon of a black hole would basically cease to experience time, but if we could see it, it would move otherworldly fast into it.

btaf45,

If time didn't "move" there would still be that single dense area (there was never a point).

No time -> no motion no movement no changes.

acockworkorange, in Time ran slowly in the early Universe, just as Einstein predicted - Advanced Science News

If time slows down but there’s no one outside to experience it, does it make a sound?

FauxPseudo, in We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago - JSTOR Daily

There are stories that I wish would go away because they are just completely unsubstantiated. This is one of them.

TWeaK,

The article offers an explanation of the Viking test results, why do you think it’s unsubstantiated?

FauxPseudo,

Because it’s without substance. I has no substant to be aited. This claim is actively harmful to science.

skeptoid.com/episodes/4754

TWeaK, (edited )

You didn’t answer the question.

It’s interesting how the article you linked presents the conclusion

microbial life is not ruled out by the new results; but the fact is that the original Labeled Release results make sense with the chemistry of Martian soil as it’s now understood, no microbial life needed.

Meanwhile the paper it references concludes

the chlorine component of the chlorobenzene is martian, and the carbon molecule of the chlorobenzene is consistent with a martian origin, though we cannot fully rule out instrument contamination.

Which would seem to be the same thing but with opposite probability biases. Your link is twisting its source material.

This claim is actively harmful to science.

This is hyperbole.

niktemadur, in Spanish astronomer discovers new active galaxy

I have several astronomer friends from Spain, from where I’m standing it’s one of the world’s great academic “hot spots” for good astronomy.
Not only that, but one of these friends specializes in Active Galactic Nuclei and Blazars, I even entered the article hoping it was my friend. Cue Ron Howard narration voice: “It wasn’t.”

realChem, in We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago - JSTOR Daily
@realChem@beehaw.org avatar

Some pretty interesting ideas. I was unaware that anything was living in the Atacama salt deposits, which certainly lends some credence to the idea that something could be pulling moisture out of the air on Mars, thin as it is.

athos77,

I remember reading some article about deserts, and how, even when they seem completely empty of life, they actually have entire tiny fragile ecosystems living just under the sand. The article was in favor of imposing restrictions on dune buggies in a couple deserts where the activity was growing out of hand, because wherever the buggies went, that fragile ecosystem was just wiped out. And with the harsh conditions, it takes a really long time for them to recover.

realChem,
@realChem@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, cryptobiotic crust! I’ve seen it in the Sonoran desert. It doesn’t look like much, I think if I hadn’t been warned ahead of time not to step on it I might have just done it without thinking. Given that just footprints can take on the order of decades to heal I think a dune buggy ban makes sense in areas where it grows.

I’m still surprised to learn about the microbes in the Atacama: it’s the driest place on earth, and I would have expected the salt deposits to make it even harder for anything to live there. Yknow what they say I guess: “Life, uh, finds a way.”

athos77,

cryptobiotic crust

Yeah, that's it! I couldn't remember the details, and cba to search for them. Thanks!

Chadus_Maximus, in Something in space has been lighting up every 20 minutes since 1988

Well as long as it keeps doing that we’re fine. If it randomly stops, just to restart after an arbitrary period of time, we should be concerned.

emmanuel_car,

Occasionally, a window will also go by without any bursts.

It looks like it does that already.

keeb420, in We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago - JSTOR Daily

If there was life there 50 years ago there's good chances it has survived til today. Afaik there hasn't been any change in mars that would eradicate whatever life there is. We mightve killed the single organism we found but if we found one we can find more.

Aimhere, in We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago - JSTOR Daily

At first, the title of the post made me think that we killed all (possible) life on Mars, not just in the samples taken, just by having landed there and contaminated the planet. Now that would have been a true tragedy.

AllonzeeLV,

I mean, to be fair, it would be quintessentially human if we did.

It’s kind of our thing to fuck up thriving ecosystems for no good reason.

We’ve even managed to turn our once vacant exosphere into a high velocity garbage dump, now that’s commitment to pollution.

RubiksIsocahedron, in We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago - JSTOR Daily

That tracks.

ToroidalX, in Zooming Black Holes Can Reach ~10% The Speed of Light, Scientists Say

I can’t even fathom something like this. There’s so much energy involved. Can you imagine how bright matter around the black hole is? And there’s people who believe reaching relativistic speeds will be possible soon…

teft,
@teft@startrek.website avatar

Black holes aren’t luminous except when matter is falling into the event horizon. So unless one of these was tearing through a nebula we probably wouldn’t see it.

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