What's happening in space (that's interesting)

[Menzo]

@jpinard

don’t say aliens

[HideousRex]

pleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealienspleasebealiens

[Romalar]

@ooomalley

It doesn’t say so explicitly (I guess it goes without saying) but the actual size of the planet must be (much?) less than one pixel, so we’re not seeing anything about the shape of the planet.

Yeah, apparently we’re at least a few decades (and some damn big telescopes) away from being able to image any exoplanets with a whole pixel or more.

Scientists are just excited to get direct readings at all instead of in past decades getting indirect info like the star being tugged around or more recently getting the subtraction of the star’s light when the planet’s atmosphere passes in front of it.

[Penny_Dreadful]

@vinraith

A Wolf-Rayet star producing bubbles of ejected material is standard business, but that would be a LOT of ejected material to create such a dense pattern. I’ll tell you what it’s not, though:

Might the squircle pattern not be caused by the binary nature of the system creating a jacked up gravitational field? Maybe it ejects material in sequence with periastron which would explain the consistency of the rings, as well as the non-circular nature of them.

[vinraith]

@Penny_Dreadful

Might the squircle pattern not be caused by the binary nature of the system creating a jacked up gravitational field? Maybe it ejects material in sequence with periastron which would explain the consistency of the rings, as well as the non-circular nature of them.

Maybe? That’d be pretty cool. Thing is Wolf-Rayets that are ejecting material usually look more like the Crescent Nebula:

Crescent Nebula

That’s a single shell of material and a couple of shockwaves running through it in opposite directions heating it (way) up so it glows. Whatever’s happening in that JWST image, if it’s a Wolf-Rayet, is one seriously messed up Wolf-Rayet. Multiple, periodic ejections of material would be… exotic. I’m not a star specialist (my doctoral work was on star forming nebulae) but I can’t immediately think of an obvious scenario that’d cause that. Then again, if I could we wouldn’t be talking about it!

[Strollen]

I’ve built numerous MOXIE in surviving Mars, pretty cool that NASA has a real one that is operating.

NASA’s toaster-sized device can make oxygen on Mars

[RichVR]

@jpinard

don't say aliens

[Starflightdream]

Really amazing

[Woolen_Horde]

Frank Drake, of the Drake Equation, has passed.

Dr. Nadia Drake

I saw him when EA did a Spore event with him at the California Academy of Sciences way back when.

[Woolen_Horde]

“I hate sand”

JWST has spotted sandy clouds on a distant alien world

[Djscman]

I’m looking forward to the Artemis launch today!

…aaaand it’s scrubbed.

NASA

Katie Mack

Maybe they’ll send it up on Labor Day?

[Jason_Levine]

How is it that they can’t fix this liquid hydrigen leak seemingly over and over again?

[Woolen_Horde]

Those cost overruns aren’t going to happen themselves!

[dtolman]

Because its a giant shambling mess - they never had a full “wet” dress rehearsal to shake out problems like this, instead combining it with the launch. Because of the way the vehicle is designed, they can’t fix issues with liquids inside the vehicle on the pad - instead if has to be laboriously moved back to the VAB and worked on there.

So there is a lot of incentive to let things slide as much as possible, as fixing issues could cost weeks. In general, because of the fact that launch vehicles take years to build, and the gap between launches are also years - there is a lot of incentives to launch regardless of risk. This program is a disaster waiting to happen.

[Strollen]

@dtolman

This program is a disaster.

FIFY

I was rooting for the Artemis, to make it to the moon this week. But my patience with the program is exhausted. Let’s shoot it now, and save taxpayers money

Miles O’Brian has been NASA/space cheerleader pretty much forever, but even he seems to have given up on it.

Years late and billions over budget, NASA’s most powerful rocket finally set for takeoff | PBS NewsHour.

[Woolen_Horde]

NASA chief says if they have to roll the rocket back to the assembly building then we’re looking at October.

[Houngan]

That does seem like the only reasonable action though, if you’ve fueled it twice and both times there were significant problems, then you’ve already exceeded some safety points, I would guess. Liquid O and N and whatever else are in there aren’t exactly friendly materials.

[jpinard]

@Strollen

FIFY

I was rooting for the Artemis, to make it to the moon this week. But my patience with the program is exhausted. Let’s shoot it now, and save taxpayers money

Miles O’Brian has been NASA/space cheerleader pretty much forever, but even he seems to have given up on it.

Years late and billions over budget, NASA’s most powerful rocket finally set for takeoff | PBS NewsHour .

I’d love to do that, but the alternative is looking horrendous. Imagine Elon Musk in charge of all of NASA’s rocketry as he leans more and more into right-wing fascism.

[vinraith]

@jpinard

I’d love to do that, but the alternative is looking horrendous. Imagine Elon Musk in charge of all of NASA’s rocketry as he leans more and more into right-wing fascism.

Right? But there is a long tradition of fascists in rocketry I suppose.

[jpinard]

@vinraith

Right? But there is a long tradition of fascists in rocketry I suppose.

Hehe yea I thought about that. But the other guy(s) renounced it and left it behind. This one is embracing it anew.