The Space Thread

The main thing to talk about here would be solar eclipses...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

It belongs in World Building but "Like, would the laser beam be negatively affected by transition from the vacuum of outer space to Earth's atmosphere (which naturally gets denser as it approaches sea level)?"

The short answer is yes.

Astronauts on the Space Station Will See the Solar Eclipse 3 Times With Video!

Wow seriously cool.

Who watches the watchmen?

Lucky them.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

@Marq for space weaponry, there's this (Sci-Fi Weapons, Vehicles, and Equipment) thread. It's far more focused than the worldbuilding thread.

edited 29th Jul '17 6:24:13 AM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

Yeah, I had already found that thread and posted my question in it, if you haven't noticed. It's the very first post in the page you linked to, even.

Here's a more relevant question: Is it possible to have a planet that is much bigger than Earth (say, radius is 10 times bigger), but its surface gravity is barely different from Earth's?

edited 29th Jul '17 6:47:18 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That's possible, certainly. Gravity is a function of mass and distance, so you can finagle those numbers until you come up with something that works. How likely it is for such a planet to actually exist is a different question entirely; we don't really know enough about exoplanets to make that sort of judgement.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

A tenth of the density of Earth (if you replace the mass in Newton's gravity formula with density*volume of a sphere, you obtain g~d) is odd, especially for non-gas planet. A fifth or a quarter implies a poorly compacted iron-free planet and is more plausible.

If it's for a story a planet containing large quantities of negative mass would have the desired low density, and a readily available Plot Device since negative mass is needed for warp drives and stable-ish wormholes.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Building block of "life" found on Titan

Trump delenda est

"...but the membranes our biology uses simply wouldn’t work in the cryogenic methane seas of Titan. (They’d be far too rigid, and water-loving/water-repelling bits would have to be reversed.) So, what could cells on Titan look like? Two years back, researchers at Cornell University used chemical models to attempt to answer that very question. Through those models, they produced a functional cell membrane that remained stable and flexible at incredibly low temperatures, using none other than C 2 H 3 CN, or vinyl cyanide."

Guess what was just found in significant quantities on Titan?

De Marquis:

Seems bang on from the article.

Relevant part.

edited 29th Jul '17 7:32:36 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

The description of Titan's environment reminds me of the old Poul Anderson story Call Me Joe, about colonizing Jupiter.

Don’t get scammed — Safe, NASA-approved eclipse glasses and where to snag a pair

While the AJC is specific to Atlanta, the Solar Eclipse is coming. Don't miss it and poke around local newspapers to see who's offering (reliable!) free protective wear. As noted several times above, it's rather important...

edited 30th Jul '17 7:11:42 PM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

A Kickstarter has launched in order to restore the Apollo Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center.

They've already reached their $250,000 goal since starting on July 20th, but you still have until August 19th to donate.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."

Back in the day, I was taught to never look directly at the Sun, no matter the filter. Using a pair of binoculars or a low power telescope and projecting the image on a piece of paper, which then presents you with a picture of the sun you can look at safely is better anyway, because it allows you to magnify the image.

I'm weird; I've experienced two solar eclipses. And, each time... watching how insects, creatures and people reacted to the eclipse was more interesting than watching the moon block the sun.

Seeing how confused bees and butterflies react to the change is worth it.

I dunno, I've never been all that impressed with eclipses. An eclipse is just a really big shadow.

edited 2nd Aug '17 2:58:17 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised

For the eclipse, I was entirely sold on the "once a century" and the "Free glasses to view with" aspects. Though in general, I'm not too hard to impress, at least as far as natural phenomenon go...

Currently, not quite homemade rockets but I suppose club-made rockets are a-coming: Rocket launched from the Georgia coast

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

Let's say you wanted to build a floating city on a gas giant. Can there a hypothetical planet where, at a particular altitude, gravity, temperature, and pressure are habitable for humans?

Well for Venus a floating city is the only way to inhabit that planet. Beyond going for the insane option (said Venus), I know of no others.

Really...I'm right comfortable 260 million km away from the place. Whoever joins that colony must've really needed to get away. (True for any colony I suppose but Venus...)

edited 4th Aug '17 2:52:55 PM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

Wind-speed might be an issue... The bulkier the planet, the more interesting it gets, generally speaking (unless we're talking Neptune — weird things). Also, updrafts and downdrafts could be bitches. :/

edited 4th Aug '17 2:53:41 PM by Euodiachloris

Given that all of those things are closely related (gravity is affected by altitude, pressure is affected by gravity, temperature is affected by pressure), yes, absolutely. Venus we know for sure has a layer of the atmosphere like that since we've actually sent probes there (watch out for the sulfuric acid though, that's not much fun) and it wouldn't be unreasonable to believe that gas giants would have something similar as well (though likely with its own hazards, too).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Thank you. That's exactly the answer I was hoping for.

Bumping this, because on this day a major solar eclipse will happen over North America. I don't think the sun has yet risen on the west coast yet but the part shadow will be visible from everywhere, I think. And the full shadow from a belt ranging from Oregon to South Carolina, including some mid sized cities like Salem OR, Nashville and Charleston.

Such eclipses aren't rare but any given location does rarely see a full eclipse; the last eclipse over the continental US was in 1979 and the next will be in 2024.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman