The Space Thread

[johnsusername]

1 hour ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

SLS: Nasa 'megarocket' assembly begins in Florida

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55070302

Did someone say MEGAROCKET?

[dockers_strike]

The Wow! signal back in the news!

 

When the Big Ear Radio Telescope in Delaware, Ohio, was disassembled in 1998 having operated for over 30 years, it was replaced by a golf course. Big Ear was never the world’s biggest radio telescope, nor its most sensitive. But Big Ear nevertheless made one of the most famous observations in the history of astronomy, one that till this day has never been explained.

 

Throughout the 1970s, Big Ear searched for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. And on Aug. 15, 1977, it found one — a strong, intermittent signal lasting for 72 seconds, that stood out from the background noise like a searchlight.

The team quickly ruled out a terrestrial origin or a broadcast from a satellite. Nevertheless, the signal was so powerful and unusual that Jerry Ehman, the astronomer who analyzed the data print out, annotated the signal with the word “Wow!”.

 

The director of the observatory, John Kraus, later gave a detailed account of the observation: “The WoW” signal is highly suggestive of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but little more can be said until it returns for further study,” he wrote, in a letter to the astronomer Carl Sagan.

 

The Big Ear team continued to observe the same part of the sky, as have others, but the Wow! signal never returned. Nor has anything like it been observed in any other part of the sky.

 

Kraus and others have even searched for stars that could be the source of the signal: “We checked star catalogs for any sun-like stars in the area and found none,” wrote Kraus. To this day, the Wow! signal remains unexplained and unrepeated.

 

Which is why the discovery this week of a potential source is significant news. The finding is the result of some clever sleuthing by an amateur astronomer and the creation of a fabulous new 3D map of the galaxy.

 

First, some background. Back in 2013, the European Space Agency launched the Gaia space observatory to map the night sky — to determine the position, the distance, and the motion of stars with unprecedented accuracy. So far, Gaia has mapped some 1.3 billion stars, allowing astronomers to begin creating the most detailed 3D map ever made of our galaxy. The mission is expected to continue until 2024.

 

Gaia’s new star map has significantly improved our understanding of the galaxy and the stars within it and this gave amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero an idea. The Gaia database is now significantly more detailed than the star catalog that John Kraus studied in the 1970s. Perhaps the new database might reveal the source of the Wow! signal, he reasoned.

(Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American Astrophysical Observatory)

So Caballero repeated the search, looking for Sun-like stars among the thousands that have been identified by Gaia in this region of the sky. By Sun-like, he means stars that share the same temperature, radius and luminosity .

 

The search returned just one candidate. “The only potential Sun-like star in all the WOW! Signal region appears to be 2MASS 19281982-2640123,” says Caballero. This star sits in the constellation of Sagittarius at a distance of 1800 light-years. It is an identical twin to our Sun, with the same temperature, radius, and luminosity.

Of course, Caballero’s work does not mean that 2MASS 19281982-2640123 must have been the source. He points out that there are many stars in that region of the sky that are too dim to be included in the catalog. One of these could be the source.

(Credit: PanSTARRS/DR1)

 

And there are some 66 other stars in the catalog that Caballero identified as potential candidates but with less strong evidence. These match the Sun’s temperature but data about their luminosity and radius is currently incomplete. So future data releases from Gaia and other mapping projects might yet reveal them as matches.

 

But for the moment, 2MASS 19281982-2640123 is our best bet and a good candidate for future study. Caballero says an obvious goal would be to look for signs of exoplanets orbiting this star. It could also be prioritized for study in the radio part of the spectrum.

 

In the meantime, astronomers might amuse themselves by finding a friendlier name for 2MASS 19281982-2640123. Perhaps during a round of golf on the course that now sits on the site of the Big Ear radio observatory.

Ref: An Approximation to Determine the Source of the WOW! Signal: arxiv.org/abs/2011.06090

 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/sun-like-star-identified-as-the-potential-source-of-the-wow-signal

[Bjornebye]

23 hours ago, johnsusername said:

Or maybe they're here already?

 

The Mystery of the Metal Monolith: Obelisk found in Utah desert has been there for YEARS, according to Google Earth - sparking theories it could be the work of extraterrestrial guests or late minimalist artist John McCracken

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8986163/amp/Mysterious-monolith-Utah-desert-2016-Google-satellite-images-show.html

Thats fucking nuts. Shows how much earth is pretty much undiscovered. If you hiked past that you wouldn't exactly not shout about it. Defo aliens that. 2020 is only missing two things. A giant flying shark and an alien attack. 

[Dougie Do'ins]

44 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

In the meantime, astronomers might amuse themselves by finding a friendlier name for 2MASS 19281982-2640123.

 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/sun-like-star-identified-as-the-potential-source-of-the-wow-signal

In keeping with the times, I'm going for Stary McStarface.

[Bjornebye]

1 minute ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

In keeping with the times, I'm going for Stary McStarface.

You need two 'r's unless you're implying its a bit of a creep 

[Dougie Do'ins]

China's Chang'e-5 Moon mission probe touches down

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55148998

[Numero Veinticinco]

Touches down... in Truro.

[Davelfc]

Great, now there's Covid on the moon. 

[dockers_strike]

SpaceX launch ready to go.

 

 

[dockers_strike]

So close to a successful landing!

[Paulie Dangerously]

You can see what Hubble took a picture of on your birthday. 

 

 

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-did-hubble-see-on-your-birthday

[Rico1304]

10 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

You can see what Hubble took a picture of on your birthday. 

 

 

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-did-hubble-see-on-your-birthday

Stringers gets a singularity 

[Section_31]

Mine is Charlie Adam's penalty.

 

 

[KMD7]

Mine shows a scar on Jupiter from an asteroid crashing

[Harry's Lad]

Mine was a comet hurtling towards the Sun at 48000 mph.

[dockers_strike]

Andromeda for me! One of the furthest objects you can see with the naked eye apparently. Not me though, cant see that far!

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

39 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Andromeda for me! One of the furthest objects you can see with the naked eye apparently. Not me though, cant see that far!

 

That’s so amazing when you zoom in. The potential is awe inspiring. 

[Scooby Dudek]

On 12/12/2020 at 18:47, Paulie Dangerously said:

You can see what Hubble took a picture of on your birthday. 

 

 

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-did-hubble-see-on-your-birthday

Hmmm....

August

 

[dockers_strike]

Wow, no literally wow! I was musing while waking this morning about writing yet another piece on the Wow! signal and what do I find, this! https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/18/scientists-looking-for-aliens-investigate-radio-beam-from-nearby-star

 

Very interesting although the information is a bit light. Im not convinced a technological alien civilisation is sitting within 4 light years of us but wouldnt it be a fantastic discovery if it was?

 

Astronomers behind the most extensive search yet for alien life are investigating an intriguing radio wave emission that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun.

The narrow beam of radio waves was picked up during 30 hours of observations by the Parkes telescope in Australia in April and May last year, the Guardian understands. Analysis of the beam has been under way for some time and scientists have yet to identify a terrestrial culprit such as ground-based equipment or a passing satellite.

 

It is usual for astronomers on the $100m (£70m) Breakthrough Listen project to spot strange blasts of radio waves with the Parkes telescope or the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, but all so far have been attributed to human-made interference or natural sources.

The latest “signal” is likely to have a mundane explanation too, but the direction of the narrow beam, around 980MHz, and an apparent shift in its frequency said to be consistent with the movement of a planet have added to the tantalising nature of the finding. Scientists are now preparing a paper on the beam, named BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen, the project to search for evidence of life in space, the Guardian understands.

The beam that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star 4.2 light years from Earth, has not been spotted since the initial observation, according to an individual in the astronomy community who requested anonymity because the work is ongoing. “It is the first serious candidate since the ‘Wow! signal’,” they said.

The “Wow! signal” was a short-lived narrowband radio signal picked up during a search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or Seti, by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in Ohio in 1977. The unusual signal, which gained its name after astronomer Jerry Ehman wrote “Wow!” next to the data, unleashed a wave of excitement, though Ehman cautioned about drawing “vast conclusions from half-vast data”.

An artist’s impression of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. Photograph: ESO/M. Kornmesser/Reuters

Launched in 2015 by Yuri Milner, a science and technology investor based in Silicon Valley, the Breakthrough Listen project eavesdrops on the million stars closest to Earth in the hope of detecting stray or intentional alien broadcasts. The 10-year effort was announced at the Royal Society in London when the late Stephen Hawking called the work “critically important”. Speaking at the event, Hawking, who saw humanity’s future in the stars, said: “Mankind has a deep need to explore, to learn, to know. We also happen to be sociable creatures. It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark.”

The challenge for astronomers on Breakthrough Listen, and others devoted to finding intelligent life in the heavens, is to spot potential “technosignatures” among the relentless babble of radio waves from equipment on Earth, natural cosmic phenomena, and orbiting hardware that circles the planet. It is no easy task. In 1997 the US alien hunter Jill Tarter, who inspired the character of Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, detected a potential signal but it was later found to be broadcasts from an antenna on the Soho spacecraft, a joint mission to observe the sun by Nasa and the European Space Agency.

Though too faint to be seen with the naked eye, Proxima Centauri has come under intense scrutiny from astronomers. At least two planets are known to orbit the star. One is a gas giant and the other is believed to be a rocky world about 17% more massive than Earth. Known as Proxima b, the planet circles its star every 11 days and lies in the so-called “habitable zone”, where the temperature is right for water to flow and pool.

But that does not mean water is present on Proxima b. Despite its apparently cosy location, the planet may well be hostile to life. In 2017, Nasa scientists used computer models to show that if Proxima b had an Earth-like atmosphere, it could easily be stripped away by the intense radiation and solar flares unleashed by its parent star. Under this battering, the 4bn-year-old planet could have lost its entire atmosphere in 100m years.

Pete Worden, the former director of Nasa’s Ames Research Center in California and executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives, said it was important to wait and see what the project’s scientists concluded: “The Breakthrough Listen team has detected several unusual signals and is carefully investigating. These signals are likely interference that we cannot yet fully explain. Further analysis is currently being undertaken.”

Others are cautious, to say the least. “The chances against this being an artificial signal from Proxima Centauri seem staggering,” said Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist and professor of science communication at the University of Westminster. “We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities.

“If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.”

It is not only the statistics that look bad. Proxima b is so close to its parent star that it is tidally locked, like the moon is to the Earth. One side is eternal day, the other in perpetual darkness. “It’s hard to imagine how you can have a stable climatic system and all the things you need to get from bacteria, which are hardy, up to intelligent animal life forms, which certainly are not,” Dartnell added. “But I’d love to be proved wrong.”

Is there anybody out there?

1899 The search for life elsewhere has been long and profoundly unproductive, at least in terms of trying to find alien civilisations. At the end of the 19th century, the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla believed he had intercepted radio messages from Mars. As far as scientists know from countless observations and decades of visits by robotic probes, there is no life on Mars.

1967 The astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was poring over a mountain of data from a new radio telescope she had helped to build when she spotted an unusual signal. It was faint but repeating steadily. After ruling out interference from Earthly sources, the team considered little green men. The real source turned out to be a pulsar, a spinning neutron star that emits beams of radio waves like a heavenly lighthouse.

1977 It happened to be the year Star Wars was released when Jerry Ehman, an astronomer at Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope, found something curious while scanning the heavens for alien broadcasts. The telescope was observing a group of stars called Chi Sagittarii when it recorded a 72-second pulse of radio waves. Ehman circled the data and wrote “Wow!” on the readout, giving the signal its name. Scientists have proposed possible sources but the signal remains unexplained.

2003 The Seti@home project, run by the University of California in Berkeley with observations from the Green Bank radio telescope and the recently collapsed Arecibo telescope, also discovered an intriguing signal. The 1420MHz burst of radio waves, known as SHGb02+14a, was observed three times before vanishing. The signal lies in the “water hole” quiet zone of the electromagnetic spectrum, which scientists consider an attractive band for alien civilisations to broadcast interstellar signals.

[Bjornebye]

I'd love them to intercept an alien signal that just said "Swivel you fucking maniacs" 

[Dougie Do'ins]

Christmas star: Planets set to align in the night sky

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55364664

[Bjornebye]

I'm pretty certain I've never actually seen another planet. I don't think I've seen ammeter either. I remember that Comet that was in the sky for days in the 90s. 

[KMD7]

49 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

I'm pretty certain I've never actually seen another planet. I don't think I've seen ammeter either. I remember that Comet that was in the sky for days in the 90s. 

Think Mars is visible to the naked eye.

[dockers_strike]

54 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

I'm pretty certain I've never actually seen another planet. I don't think I've seen ammeter either. I remember that Comet that was in the sky for days in the 90s. 

It's quite easy to see Mars with the naked eye. You can even see its redness. Same with Venus especially in the early morning, hence it being called the morning star. It stands out so much it gets confused for a star.

 

All you need to know is the approximate area in the sky to be able to see Mars, venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

4 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

Think Mars is visible to the naked eye.

Deffo plus the other planets mentioned above.

[Bjornebye]

Just now, dockers_strike said:

It's quite easy to see Mars with the naked eye. You can even see its redness. Same with Venus especially in the early morning, hence it being called the morning star. It stands out so much it gets confused for a star.

 

All you need to know is the approximate area in the sky to be able to see Mars, venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

Deffo plus the other planets mentioned above.

I'm fascinated by that stuff but I've just never looked properly. I've sat and star gazed on clear nights so I've probably seen them but not realised the significance. Might take a trip to Pex-Hill on a clear night. Might get a bit of dogging in while I'm at it. 

 

"I saw Mars last night"

"was it nice?"

"shot it all over her face"