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Showing results for tags 'astronomy'.
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Wish I had a good setup for photos, but got a nice clear view of Jupiter tonight and four moons; cheap reflecting scope on a city sidewalk was just enough in this perfect night in upstate NewYork. Best part was showing it to a gaggle of passing frat bros who walked off saying, "that was SICK!" So, if you're in the northern hemisphere right now and it's dark where you are--look up!
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So I was pretty disapointed that I missed the SpaceX landing and I've looked across the web for upcoming events, though I couldn't find a lot about spaceflight (like the spaceX landing)/ astronomy events. Could anyone give some things to look forward to in 2016?
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I've been imagining a fictional species(three, actually) for writing a story/game(whichever comes first), and a key point for them is that they reside in a world that is on risk of being destroyed by one of three risks - if a risk doesn't end up killing it, the other one(s) will - but are too stubborn to leave it behind. However, I want those to be as realistic as possible, and i'm not sure if I made them to work correctly - I was never that good in physics or chemistry - so, I'd like to discuss whether those disastrous outcomes would actually occur when in the right situation. • The main risk, and arguably the one who set everything moving foward, is when the planet's star, previously a red dwarf, suddently swelled into a red giant, consuming the inner worlds and causing the surviving ones to be burned into a crisp. The homeworld survived, but its temperature was far higher than normal, its plants have been withering away under the heat, the seas and lakes were drying up, and the ozone layer was being destroyed. In order to stop the chaos from happening, they created a force field to serve both as a makeshift ozone layer, and to hold up against the increased heat. This force field later ends up struggling a lot as the red giant continues to grow bigger. • Also in a bid to prevent the previous risk, they made artificial plant life to replace the previous one. Made to be far more resistant to the current climate *and* to filter hot air into cold air, they were spread across the entire planet to rebuild. Alas, even though it was a noble attempt, it did little to stop both the next risk and to calm down the population, which agreed that their homeworld was lost and that it'd be better off to just leave. This ends up being the risk that destroys the world, as one of the leaders - there being six in total, due to the government being a technocracy - grows rabid and too attached to his homeworld, and takes control of the plants to "assimilate" those who don't agree with him - at this point being everyone. • The final risk, while not exactly related to the star, was almost certainly caused by it. By mixing the tidal forces of the star with that of the homeworld's biggest moon, the result wound up being far, far more potent tidal forces storming against the homeworld, causing numerous cracks to open on its surface, releasing both molten lava and abominations which resided deep underground - and as they were primarily adapted to survive in such hostile conditions, the overground was easy prey for them, and became essentially an invasive species, taking over large swatches of land at alarming rates. The ravines also continued to crack open due to the relentless tidal forces, eventually taking down entire cities in the process. The planet was basically becomming swiss cheese. This all sounds pretty macabre, but my abilities to make characters suffer is not the key point in here - and most of the plot would not take in that world, anyway. Would those apocalyptic scenarios actually work in real life, presented in appropriate circumstances, or they ultimately end up being fantastic and unrealistic?
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I had a thought the other day. What would science be like if we were blind? Could we develop astronomy, and space travel? Would we even know there were other bodies? It's certainly possible to be an astronomer today, and blind - due to accident or from birth. But imagine a species just like ours, on a planet with a moon and sun just like ours, but that had never developed eyes (or lost them before the advent of civilization). What would it be like then?
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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasas-fermi-mission-finds-hints-of-gamma-ray-cycle-in-an-active-galaxy Nasa has been monitoring this galaxy for a while, lol, what I find funny is this is probabaly a gas cloud in a elliptical orbit, or i could simply be random star swallowing of the central black hole.