The Space Thread

Your second link says there's no such page.

Your second link is mistyped. !!

edited 7th Mar '14 7:28:28 PM by BlueNinja0

I don't know what you guys are talking about.

Did anyone get a chance to watch the new Cosmos?

Loved it

Great show.

Indeed, I liked it

I just said this in another thread, but I finished watching the first episode just now and it was so perfect I actually cried.

Awesome show. The original was on all day before and I was watching a lot of that.

I loved the Solar System tour but I kind of feel bad that Tyson didn't spend a bit more time talking about Pluto. The animated segments and cosmic calendar were pretty interesting too.

eh, most planets only got a few lines. mercury was almost just "hey, mercury"

That also bugged me. It's not a big deal but mentioning an interesting fact about them like Mercury lacking an atmosphere and Pluto being a former planet would have been nice. Something more than "Hi Mercury/Pluto. Moving on..."

At one point Tyson mentions rogue planets which brings up something I've been wondering about. Doesn't the definition of a planet specify that it must orbit a star? I'd think that would disqualify them from actually being planets.

Maybe they were planets but then gravity shit happened and now they're out floating about doing rogue planet things.

I dunno, just my guess

edited 10th Mar '14 1:13:19 PM by LeGarcon

I think that's what scientists think happened. I'm just commenting on the fact that technically they aren't planets anymore. Of course the definition of rogue planet could just say that it used to orbit a star or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_planet#IAU_definition

I get the feeling this episode was meant as an overview, and that it will get more detailed later on. Assuming Fox doesn't goairing episodes out of order and then cancel it half way through.

What? Still pissed about firefly? No, not.Me

Somehow I doubt that will happen. It aired on ten channels and in over 100 countries. Fox seems to have a lot of faith in it.

I think they made it over 2 years or something, and shot the whole thing before they showed the first episode. You don't tend to cancel shows like that.

This is two years old? If they discuss the LHC at some point wouldn't that mean they wouldn't be able to discuss the discovery of the Higgs Boson?

I read up on it. The decision to go through with filming the series was basically made in 2009 or so, and the scheduled release this spring was announced in 2011 - so for at least 3 years Fox and the other studios involved have been committed to having it done by now and airing at this point in time.

If they weren't filming any of it 2 years ago - which I presume they weren't - they were in any case probably producing scripts and such by then. (In other words, pre-production.) I don't know when the actual filming of Tyson's segments occurred, though. If they shot all 13 episodes before they broadcast the first one it probably would've been over the last 6-12 months that it was filmed. (You can film faster than that but there's plenty of on-location stuff and such, and I presume there will be things that can only be shot during a particular time - eggs hatching and so on - so that's why I think it would've been more of a long-term effort, even for filming.)

'Death stars' in Orion blast planets before they even form

Weirdness in cosmic web of the universe: Faint strings of galaxies in 'empty' space arranged in way never before seen

Am watching "Cosmos" on Nat Geo right now. The visuals are... awe inspiring. The Great Spot on Jupiter was exceptional. The content is nothing you cant find in a standard intro science textbook. The Giordono Bruno cartoon went a little long. For someone who remembers the original Cosmos, noticing the call-backs is fun: "Starstuff!" Looks like they ran out of animation budget as they were going through the cosmic calender. One CGI animal- no dinosaurs? After that incredible Big Bang sequence, the meteor that ended the Triassic was disappointing.

Nice tribute to Sagan at the very end. All in all, a worthy successor to the original series. I will be watching the rest of the episodes.

edited 10th Mar '14 7:58:51 PM by DeMarquis

The bruno bit was a bit long. I think it was a good part, could have used some trimming though.

I think they kept us waiting for dinosaurs on purpose. They'll probably star in a later episode, in which case that sequence in the pilot would've been a kind of teaser.

Hey! I just thought of something. They totally have to make an amusement park ride based on the universal calendar. Imagine a long tunnel, completely lined with TV panels, as you sit in your "ship of the imagination" and travel from the Big Bang to today.

I think a rogue planet is anything big enough that it would be a planet if it had a star.

The region between "brown dwarf" and "humongous gas giant" is a bit fuzzy as it is.