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Waterfall said:
Hopefully they redirect it the way they want to.
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In this case, it is actually a small asteroid that is a moon of a larger one so they are only going to nudge it enough to change its orbit around the "parent". So no risk.
 
When we ship bulk products from one part of the world to another, does that distort our gravitational fileld a little bit?
 
jimkenney12 said:
When we ship bulk products from one part of the world to another, does that distort our gravitational fileld a little bit?
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Probably not enough to be detectable save on very sensitive measurements. And usually there are multiple bulk shipments going in multiple directions so probably all evens out in the end. Now, I do wonder how much the displacement of water by all those massive ships affects the water levels, esp. in confined waterways like the St. Lawrence Seaway. In the ocean it is probably negligible but in more confined spaces, it could be significant.
 
A good piece on DART (the asteroid deflection mission) from Scott Manley. He explains rather well why they are using this two-asteroid system rather than a standalone asteroid. Also makes the point that is the first real interplanetary mission launched by a SpaceX Falcon rocket. Launch is set for tonight from Vandenberg AFB in California.

 
FYI, Dart lifted off successfully the other day and is now off on its mission. The actual impact is due to happen in September 2022, with a cubesat provided by ESA watching the fun.
 
And the countdown for the last big space story of this year is on. If all goes well, on December 22 at 7:20am EST, the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched. While it is a NASA project, part of the ESA's contribution is to have it launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from the ESA's space centre in French Guiana. Once in space, it will be positioned in deep space at the second Lagrange point in Earth's orbit, approx. 1.5 million km from Earth. That makes it inaccessible to current crewed spacecraft, so unlike the Hubble, there will be no servicing by astronauts. If JWST fails or has problems, it is game over. Assuming all goes well, though, it will be capable of being used in some absolutely amazing research into the most distant visible objects in the universe and into the origins of the universe.

jwst.nasa.gov

Where Is Webb? NASA/Webb

During Webb's launch, deployment and commissioning, 'WhereIsWebb' tracked Webb's 'flight' to L2 orbit, its state and progress during its deployment and commissioning process, and finally the release of its first images. This process is now complete. During this process, the page constantly...
jwst.nasa.gov
 
I listened to an interview on CBC of a Canadian astronomer who is involved in the project. All going well, they will be able to analyse the atmosphere of planets orbiting around other stats as well as look back to when the universe was a few hundred million years old. At least a month for the telescope to unfold and another five to six months to get it operating. One Canadian instrument is involved in positioning it and one in finding a target to examine. An amazing project something like ten years in development.
 
jimkenney12 said:
I listened to an interview on CBC of a Canadian astronomer who is involved in the project. All going well, they will be able to analyse the atmosphere of planets orbiting around other stats as well as look back to when the universe was a few hundred million years old. At least a month for the telescope to unfold and another five to six months to get it operating. One Canadian instrument is involved in positioning it and one in finding a target to examine. An amazing project something like ten years in development.
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Imagine the length of the thermometer required ... requires a great stretch of the abstract containing what we don't know ... something to fall into if you're troubled with the ignore function! It is said the abstract is a dark hole thingy ... some even say there is one in the great human gonad ... the brain! It may collect denied information and intelligence that's alien ... weird!
 
The Parker Solar Probe, which is doing very close-up observations of the sun had its closest run yet back in April, but the data has only now been received. It became the first spacecraft to enter the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun. At one point it was tearing through it at approx. 100 m/s for five hours. The mission was launched in 2018 and recently made its 10th close pass (the April one was the 8th). Scientists are still gathering data from the 9th pass in August, but think it passed through the corona on that run, too. Parker will do several more close passes before the mission wraps in 2025.


To teach us more about Parker, here's Scott Manley

 
And I am debating whether to start "2022 in SPAAAAACE!" in a few weeks or just rename this thread and keep it as an ongoing thread about this particular obsession of mine.
 
Mendalla said:
The Parker Solar Probe, which is doing very close-up observations of the sun had its closest run yet back in April, but the data has only now been received. It became the first spacecraft to enter the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun. At one point it was tearing through it at approx. 100 m/s for five hours. The mission was launched in 2018 and recently made its 10th close pass (the April one was the 8th). Scientists are still gathering data from the 9th pass in August, but think it passed through the corona on that run, too. Parker will do several more close passes before the mission wraps in 2025.


To teach us more about Parker, here's Scott Manley

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I wonder how mankind is going to mess up our sun now? Dump our garbage there and lithium batteries.
Sometimes I have little faith in what some will use this information for.
 
Waterfall said:
I wonder how mankind is going to mess up our sun now? Dump our garbage there and lithium batteries.
Sometimes I have little faith in what some will use this information for.
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Frankly, anything we dump into the sun will be well and truly gone but @jimkenney12 nailed it.

And we need this data badly. The better we understand the sun, the more likely it is we can predict, and survive, coronal mass ejections and other solar events. The Carrington event was a warning. Other than telegraphs, electronic communications was still largely non-existent. Imagine our wired world without communication satellites and with f-d up hydro grids.
 
I just looked up the Carrington event. How wide a swath does a CME usually make as it zooms away from the sun?
 
The story continues ... don't get too close or thou with be burned ... folk do fall for it ...

Defines the pits ... a gravid item of contention ... can it be conceived?
 
jimkenney12 said:
I just looked up the Carrington event. How wide a swath does a CME usually make as it zooms away from the sun?
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I shall have to look that up, but I know some have missed us just because on the position of the Earth relative to the CME's position on the sun meant it went away from, or bypassed, us.
 
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