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Astronomy General Space Discussion

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Starting with the facts. The JWST has shown early galaxies rotate clockwise 2/3rds of the time and anticlockwise 1/3rd of the the time. This was a surprise finding and the reasons for this are unknown. Now moving into an area that is possibly even beyond wild speculation, one explanation is it is because our Universe is contained in a blackhole.


I don't know about living in a blackhole but with the ways the world is going now, I'm pretty sure we are living in a sh*thole.
 
I just watched this about the Starliners failures and Boeings problems. Multiple failures, multiple times at multiple levels. Cultural decay. Most of the failures are in the service module, which get jettisoned and burns up in the atmosphere. Makes it hard to sort out. The vid is before Starliner returned unmanned safely in September 2024, unfortunately with two new technical problems, a glitch in Starliner's navigation system and one of the 12 thrusters used to orient the capsule failed to ignite.

Hard not to conclude that redundancy is a good thing, Boeing is stuffed, Butch and Sunni are very, very, brave.
 

Newly Discovered Comet SWAN25F​

Note: The object hasn’t been officially named yet, so for now, we’ll call it by its provisional name — SWAN25F.

  • Perihelion: May 1, 2025 (mag ~5)
  • Where to observe: Northern Hemisphere(before perihelion), Southern Hemisphere(after perihelion)
  • Visibility forecast: Comet SWAN25F will reach its closest point to the Sun on May 1, 2025, passing just 0.33 AU from it — inside Mercury's orbit. Around this time, it’s expected to brighten to about magnitude 5, making it easy to spot with binoculars. Right now, the comet is visible only from the Northern Hemisphere, low in the northwestern morning sky, with a current brightness of about magnitude 9. By the end of April, it will shift into the evening sky, but remain low on the horizon and set when astronomical twilight ends. After May 1, the comet will move into the Southern Hemisphere sky and no longer be visible from northern latitudes.
  • Description: Comet SWAN25F was discovered on March 23, 2025, in images from the SOHO SWAN spacecraft. It’s likely a dynamically old comet, meaning it has passed near the Sun several times before. Its nucleus is thought to be quite small — probably less than 2.5 km in diameter. Interestingly, the comet was already quite bright — about magnitude 10 — when discovered, which is unusual for a new find. So why wasn’t it spotted earlier? There are a few possible reasons: it might have had a recent outburst, suddenly becoming brighter, or its orbit may have made it hard to spot with sky surveys. You can locate this comet right now with the help of the Sky Tonightapp.
 

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Saw this one about detection of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS on an exoplanet named K2-18 b, 124 lya. On Earth these are mainly made by algae. mK2-18 b is 8.6 times as massive as Earth and has a diameter about 2.6 times as large. It orbits in the "habitable zone" around a red dwarf star
 
Saw this one about detection of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS on an exoplanet named K2-18 b, 124 lya. On Earth these are mainly made by algae. mK2-18 b is 8.6 times as massive as Earth and has a diameter about 2.6 times as large. It orbits in the "habitable zone" around a red dwarf star
Ive been watching this guy for a few weeks - very followable explanations

 
Another propellantless drive, let's hope this one does better than the Em Drive. Charles Buhler, ex-NASA engineer and founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies, unveiled an electrostatic engine based on what he calls the “New Force.” He asserts that this engine can overcome Earth’s gravity through an asymmetry in electrostatic pressure or a divergent electrostatic field.

"In 2023, after extensive research, the engine successfully produced sufficient thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity. Tests conducted from early 2022 until November 2023 confirmed this milestone achievement. It’s important to note that current prototypes weigh between 1.06 and 1.41 ounces, underscoring the potential for scalable applications."


There is some skeptical conversations on reddit ELI5.
 
Two Finnish physicists, Mikko Partanen and Jukka Tulkki, have released their attempt at a 'unified field theory', bringing gravity and the Standard Model (of particle physics) together. I'm going to call it the holy grail of physics, because for the last hundred years it has been. The very best have failed in attmpting to knit the two theories together. The theory is in it's early days and needs to be peer reviewed and tested. It's way beyond me, so I'll not even attempt a summary, you can read an easily understood article here at MSN or the original paper "Gravity generated by four one-dimensional unitary gauge symmetries and the Standard Model". I'll keep an eye on how this one goes. A hundred years of trying, it's about time someone cracked it.
 
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We were the seventh country to launch a satellite (WRESAT, 1967) and the only country to ever loose that ability. Gilmore Space Technology may reverse that as they are getting ready for their first launch. The payload includes a jar of vegemite. Peta Credlin would have been a better payload but you can't have everything I suppose. The headline by the ABC is just stupid.


 

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Recent study led by Monash Uni has been able to detect Exoplanets forming. Amazing stuff. Over 5000 exoplanets have been described.
 
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The headline is completely misleading. They have put nothing in orbit.

Spin launch is an idea that has been kicking around for a long time, my understanding was in a dense atmosphere and 1G gravity it was virtually impossible, mainly because the 'satellites' would have to leave the device at something substantially greater then orbital velocity (28,000 kph/7.8m/s). At those sort of speeds the heat they would be subjected to would be enormous, much greater than what space craft generate on reentry. There are a number of other technical problems. On the moon it would work, in fact they already have achieved speeds great enough to launch from the moon and mars.

On the other hand it would make a great hypersonic canon. Perhaps that's the aim.

Or maybe it's a con.
 

Double Kaboom for starship. Launch and separation went fine, all the engines fired properly. Having reached target altitude something went wrong and the craft underwent 'rapid unplanned disassembly'. They reused a super heavy booster for launch this time. It worked fine but it also exploded before entering it's landing phase. Note it was planned to ditch it in the ocean.
 

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I still want to see a centrifuge launch.

 

After 10 years of data collection NAS have evidence of 'Atmospheric sputtering', which is when large high energy particles from the sun collide with atoms in the loss of atmosphere. The solar wind and other nefarious activities from the sun have always thought to have been the cause of the loss of the Martian atmosphere, which caused the loss of Martian surface, Until now, no one had ant actual evidence of this happening, now we do.

 

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Astronomy General Space Discussion

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