Green Baron

Nope, everything is fine ! I didn't hit the right tone, apparently, sorry for that ! It wasn't meant as a hint, just an intro for my blabla. Will look where that was. Sorry again ! Edit: it was here, page 118 of the pinned thread:

We have shortly discussed that. It is a review of existing data and simulations. Some people think they have seen what might eventually look like fungi, or cyanobacteria and wrote that down. Critique: Morphology alone is not a valid criterion for the analysis of life as it carries too many expectations from the observer. The "stromatolites" are not even remotely similar to their earthly analogies, and ALH84001 does not contain biological residues. So, in principle this is guessing from blurry pictures with the backup of simulations. Iow, these guys saw want they wanted to see. Sorry, but no sorry. That is not a valid evidence of life, though nobody can exclude life atm, neither in the far martian past nor today, though the former is more probable than the latter. At least they admit that it is not proof of life, but support for the hypothesis that there may be life. I say there is little support for life on Mars until now, as long as we can't exclude sedimentary, mineralogical or meteorological processes, and in these cases i would certainly assume those above life. Patience we must have. Hopefully maybe 3 or 4 more years :-)

An announcement for a presentation of first results: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/media-advisory-first-results-event-horizon-telescope-be-presented-april-10th Starts at 13:00 UTC, links to channels that will stream the press conferences online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Dr20f19czeE east and: https://www.youtube.com/c/VideosatNSF/live west of the pond.

3541

Genesis - The Battle of Epping Forest (couldn't find an official video) Takes 12 min. Track has a real life background. The whole album is one of favourites since ... errr ... since ehm .... a long time

Queen & Bowie: Under Pressure damdamdamdadadada

The EHT page has been updated by some pop science articles and presentations, as well as an outlook to future observations, when new telescopes in France and Greenland join (2020). https://eventhorizontelescope.org/ Haven't watched yet, maybe tonight. Took a break and watched the SXSW 2019 video. To me, there was some really good info in it.

3529

According to Wikipedia, there are >100 million pieces smaller than 1cm, and <1 million of 1-10cm, 34000 > 10cm of space debris flying around. Nationalities aside, we do need a mechanism to clean up.

Not sure if that isn't a politically motivated thing. The sources don't seem too trustworthy to me ....

Yes,it is. For all ships that take stability from weight rather than form. All hatches must be closed when in heavy weather or dynamic seas and a documented weight distribution must be maintained. The positive thing is that they are designed to right up in a certain time even when capsized. It is a construction thing, and categorization for sailing boats depends on this ability. A stability curve of the forces (angle against righting moment) documents that, of course only when a certain weight distribution is maintained. I'd rather be in a storm with a keel yacht than with catamaran. They can finish upside-down and right themselves up again, and that does not necessarily end the journey ;-)

As @ARS has meentioned: in those times not, moving ballast was a recipe for disaster. Modern sailing boats carry the ballast outside the hull in form of a ballast bomb made from high density metal and as deep as reasonably possible to keep the boat light (sails better ;-)). The resulting draught may keep the boat from entering shallow waters. Some modern sailboats can lower and rise the keel, for example to be able to fall dry in ebb time, or even swing it to the side to keep the boat upright, the keel bing almost horizontal (very sporty :-)). Some boats are constructed so that they assume an optimal speed at a certain heel angle. Classical Tall Ships still carry ballast inside the hull and it must not move. Other boats (multihulls) only have little ballast, they ise their form for stability. Modern large ships indeed can pump water in ballast compartments for stability, passenger ships frequently have stabilizer fins that they can hydraulically control. Keeps some passengers from reconsidering their last meal :-) Complicated matter, that is ....

3499

There are rumours that the European version of the gunpowder was "accidentally" invented when someone (some guy named Berthold Schwarz) tried to transform coal into cold (and paid for it). This, of course, is no defence for alchemy. And it is just an unclear tell-tale, its not clear if he even existed. And one can debate whether the invention of gunpowder was an advancement.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astonishment-skepticism-greet-fossils-claimed-record-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact There's no original text on the PNAS site yet. where the original paper should be published ...

Checking train length in the future station. Yes, i sort my trains by colour, not by epoch :-)

A synestia is a (hypothetical) planetary body, a doughnut shaped cloud of vapour and molten rock resulting from a high energetic impact of two solid planetary bodies. A synestia has not been observed yet. If i am not mistaken, an accretion disk forms around massive (e. g. white dwarfs) or supermassive bodies (neutron stars, black holes, active galactic nuclei) that have one or more companions from whom they draw material, or in the case of active galactic nuclei, from objects that come too close while orbiting. Accretion disks have been observed, even Sag A* while digesting a cloud, and there is more to expect in the near future (gnawing fingernails since more than a year now for a @!§ photo from Sagittarius A*). A protoplanetary disk is a cloud of interstellar gases (H, He) and small dust particles, leftover from Supernovae or just clouds of interstellar gases, that start to contract because of an external impulse, conserving its impulse and momentum in the bodies that form inside of it. Several protoplanetary disks have been observed by now, especially by the VLT. Just recently the case of a binary star casting its rotating shadows on the disk surrounding it was published. Beautiful. Imagine we had half sun :-)

Guys, if you have followed the links upthread and read what others wrote here you should have understood that this sort of uneducated critique and the "we know nothing" attitude, leaves a bad taste, don't you think ? People who work on the matter are actually taking not only the obvious differences between earth and moon in account, but also the tiny bits that makes them distinguish between for example material that condensed out of a cloud or formed under certain pressure/temperature regimes, where exposed to impact shock or radiation, measure the isotopic composition, be it stable or unstable isotopes, and draw conclusions about origin and age. Existing uncertainties are taken into account and the resulting open questions left over for future work. Which makes science incredibly thrilling :-) You could easily read up and understand why samples from the moon's surface tell much more about the moon's overall composition than the same from an earthly stratigraphic unit.

Immediately, the upper part would drift away, the lower wrap around the earth. Depending on the counterweight and mass distribution the upper part might assume an elliptical orbit, return to mama later, or escape, i'd say.

"i love you" :-)

This ... 't is French

Cool :-)

Scanning the journals for April jokes, like another Earth in orbit behind the Sun, the AC battery, alien distillery on a KBO identified by a bright "Happy Hour !" sign, but none found so far. But looks like downvotes have been activated. So, if anyone (and i'd be surprised if there were none) has open invoices with me, that's the opportunity :-) To the rest of us living in the northern hemisphere: there is a certain chance of rising temperatures, longer daylight and in general better weather for the coming months. I find that inviting :-)