“Researchers think an in-depth study of Uranus can help them better understand the many similarly sized objects now being discovered around other stars.“
Uranus’s strange tilt is probably due to getting smacked by a very large body a long time ago…
Uranus is weird. It has rings. It has 13 moons, some of which may harbor life beneath their icy surfaces.
It has a funny name.
I get it. But learning more about how its formation affects planet formation is just not that important.
“Pure” researchers probably are interested, but frankly, if NASA wastes its time doing this, they will miss the opportunity to settle the Moon and Mars, mine asteroids for valuable resources, and explore other moons like Titan and Europa.
China will get there first.
Pure research is all fine and dandy, but it’s also incredibly expensive — taxpayer dollars should be spent on projects with more tangible benefits.
“Perhaps most intriguing among the documents are the several dozen Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs), which discuss the viability of various “advanced technolog[ies].” This collection includes reports on “traversable wormholes, stargates, and negative energy,” “high-frequency gravitational wave communications,” “warp drive, dark energy, and the manipulation of extra dimensions,” and many other topics that will sound familiar to fans of science fiction.”
(Note: You won’t be able to see the planets actually looking like these photoshopped images…unless you happen to have a really powerful telescope in your backyard.)
Not sure why I first got this info from a site based in New Jersey. The info about what time of day and in what part of the sky is only relevant to people living in the NJ_NYC area.
Still, it’s an interesting phenomenon that occurs once every few years…
2005. 2016. 2020. And 2022. Not exactly a regular pattern, it seems.
And, no, there is no “spiritual significance” to a planetary alignment. It’s an illusion, an imaginary lining up of the solar system that doesn’t affect you personally. Sorry.
But it’s still fun to watch. Er, if you enjoy getting up before dawn (I don’t).
According to nj.com, “The planetary parade of sorts will occur when Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn all appear to be lined up in a row above the horizon during the pre-dawn hours — starting Saturday morning, April 23. The alignment will also be visible during the next few mornings, and April’s crescent moon will soon join the parade, according to experts from LiveScience and AccuWeather.”
Yeah, lots of web sites are covering this. At least the one I linked above doesn’t have automated videos, flashing ad gifs, and other random pop-ups that drain your smartphone battery.
“‘The understanding gained from the properties of Oreo cream could potentially be applied to the design of other complex fluid materials. My 3D printing fluids are in the same class of materials as Oreo cream,’ she says. ‘So, this new understanding can help me better design ink when I’m trying to print flexible electronics from a slurry of carbon nanotubes, because they deform in almost exactly the same way.'”
C/2014 UN271 on the far right has a nucleus 50 larger than the average comet.
“Its size, which NASA noted is larger than the state of Rhode Island, is an estimation because the comet is still too far away for Hubble to tell for certain.”
Note that the original title was “…toward the Inner Solar System”…and yet the article goes on to explain that it won’t come any closer than a billion miles from the Sun, “‘slightly farther than the distance of the planet Saturn,’ NASA said in a statement.“
Uh. The inner solar system is *no where near* Saturn. Try again, fear-mongers.
Sigh.
Anyway, it really is the proverbial “tip of the iceberg,” since this was seen with Hubble, and we have yet to see just what the new James Webb telescope can do. The Oort Cloud is a big place. There must be millions upon millions comets just waiting to be discovered.
In short, the algae will use sunlight to transform CO2 into sugars that are then enhanced by bio-engineered E.coli into 2,3-butanediol. Interestingly, 2,3-BDO is not entirely conceptual as it currently exists and is mainly used to produce rubber components. It has just never been thought of as fuel before.
Well, looks like once again I got way behind schedule on my science fiction posts.
And my science posts.
And basically any of my posts.
Sorry.
The school year in Japan ends in March and then starts up again little more than three weeks later in April. And with two elementary school age kids (one soon to be middle school aged!) things were quite hectic.
And during the “break” (more like a breather than a real break) they always had friends over, or wanted to do something that required attention.
Anyway, I should be able to start regular posting in a few days once I figure out how to do more than two things at once. Apologies to you all for the “break” in the action!
Ya know, I’m pretty sure we need to figure out “this whole food-air deal” first (to quote comedian Bill Hicks).
“The US space agency confirmed that there were currently no plans for a field or project office to explore the topic in any detail but that could change as we get closer to putting humans on Mars.“
Psyche is an asteroid that was probably once the heart of a planet in the early system, one that didn’t survive the violent process of planet formation.
Yep — that “worth more than the global economy” rock in space.
But we’ll have to wait a few years to find out if it’s “less metal and more hard rock” — the Psyche Mission rockets off in August 2022 and the probe won’t arrive for four more years.
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