JoeSchmuckatelli

Daaaaamn! I'm guessing they were tracking Didymos and not the craft? Because - that was a Ton of ejecta... Now I'm even more excited about the Hubble and Webb images!

While we are waiting for the impact pictures... Mars. Webb’s instruments are so sensitive that without special observing techniques, the bright infrared light from Mars is blinding, causing a phenomenon known as “detector saturation.” Astronomers adjusted for Mars’ extreme brightness by using very short exposures, measuring only some of the light that hit the detectors This infrared spectrum was obtained by combining measurements from all six of the high-resolution spectroscopy modes of Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). Preliminary analysis of the spectrum shows a rich set of spectral features that contain information about dust, icy clouds, what kind of rocks are on the planet’s surface, and the composition of the atmosphere. The spectral signatures – including deep valleys known as absorption features – of water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide are easily detected with Webb. --from the Blog. @Shpaget Who was it who said that all we needed to do was visit a planet to confirm Webb's findings? Looks like they were listening!

I suspect that there are planetary remnants out there that are the solid metal rich dinosaur killing asteroids of legend, as well as the amalgamated gravel piles seen recently. Just because today's mission and Bennu and the weird KBO we've imaged in the last decade are not hard cratered remnants does not mean those things are not whizzing about looking for a city to flatten Of course, having written that - those dense buggers could have cloaked themselves in a nice blanket of gravel and be virtually indistinguishable... --- - - - - - - "As for the details of that impact, we'll have to wait. The best images we'll get are from an Italian Cubesat called LICIACube that has been trailing DART since the two separated a few weeks ago. LICIACube will be about 50 km from the point of impact and will get even closer over the three minutes after impact before passing behind Dimorphos. But it will take some time to transmit images to Earth—possibly a day or more for processing and release." https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/dart-goes-silent-after-hitting-an-asteroid/%3famp=1

This is true - and not just for us! You can look at the renders NASA put out and see the 'catered rock' that is the classical image of an asteroid, not the rubble pile seen tonight.

Looking like we can expect Webb and Hubble images at some point! https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/webb-telescope-being-aimed-asteroid-090108605.html " images of the Dart mission that will be captured by JWST, and the Hubble space telescope, could shed more light on the physics of the spacecraft’s impact with the asteroid, and also on the asteroid’s debris post-collision."

The search for nothing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/26/physics-particles-physicists

I'm guessing those go in the category of 'colony and mega-ship' parts. Example: each of the road segments likely count as a part. New science, resource extraction and power generation, structural members, etc... You can start eating up large numbers of parts with just that stuff.

1969? Should be safe from moderator action. IIRC something 'on topic' happened that year!

It worries me that you knew that reference. Some things should be forgotten! ;D

https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-puzzled-james-webb-stuff Such behemoths emerging so rapidly defies expectations set by cosmologists’ standard model of the universe’s evolution. Called Lambda CDM (LCDM), this model incorporates scientists’ best estimates for the properties of dark energy and dark matter, which collectively act to dominate the emergence of large-scale cosmic structures. (“Lambda” refers to dark energy and “CDM” refers to dark matter that is relatively sluggish, or “cold.”) “Even if you took everything that was available to form stars and snapped your fingers instantaneously, you still wouldn’t be able to get that big that early,” says Michael Boylan-Kolchin, a cosmologist at the University of Texas at Austin. “It would be a real revolution.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwsts-first-glimpses-of-early-galaxies-could-break-cosmology/

"Selenium is right below sulfur on the periodic table, and in many ways it's a "sulfur but even more so" case. For example, got a sulfur molecule that smells awful? The selenium analog will almost certainly smell worse. It's an element that balances on a toxicological tightrope. It's an essential trace nutrient - you will get into trouble if you don't have enough selenium in your diet. It is also toxic - you will get into trouble if you have too much selenium in your diet. The dose really does make the poison" https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/selenium-who-d-have-thought "the Lamentations on Chemistry blog referred to it as "The biggest stinker I have run across. . .Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material." https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-selenophenol Fun!

New island in Tonga Home Reef https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/24/world/baby-island-pacific-ocean-scn-trnd/index.html "a seafloor ridge that stretches from New Zealand to Tonga has the highest density of underwater volcanoes in the world... On September 14, researchers with Tonga Geological Services estimated the area of the island to be 4,000 square meters (1 acre) and the elevation to be 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level. By September 20, the island had grown to cover 24,000 square meters (6 acres). The new island is located southwest of Late Island, northeast of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai, and northwest of Mo‘unga‘one " https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150368/home-reef-erupts

Well... Thanks to you, I got to read this descriptive: From the associated binocular O. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_O That said - I'm now wondering about these multi ocular seraphim... As that sounds much more Cthulian than Seraphin

Umm... https://imgur.io/a/yaHIFph I'm not up on the photo lore... But this ship looks familiar. Is this also an 'old photo'?

We had those in my time - and we referred to them as R2D2 or AD (air defense) exclusively. Be interested to see the etymology of CIWS being the used term for those and the other systems - but I literally never heard CIWS from any of my Navy brethren

Yeah - I recognized that in my original reply... But they are not the primary

O. M. G. I had to Google 'CIWS' to discover that I have a hidden bias / blind spot! The acronym 'CIWS' in my mind was purely used for 'Commander's Independent Weapon System' - (an independent of the main weapon system used targeting pod to enhance offensive capabilities) but I discovered that it's presently used to mean 'Close In Weapon Systems' which are defensive (what I would have called AD 'air defense' - but the CIWS term (and targets /capabilities) has been been extended beyond merely 'A' threats to include boats, drones... Heck anything 'Close In' that a defensive 'Weapon System' might target. In light of this - my prior response reads as incomprehensible babble! Sigh. I'm out of date. SMH.

Kites attack from above

Man I got all excited b/c... Reasons

Ok that works... Would the orientation be towards the planet or in the direction of the fall / orbit?

I get that... but... Remember: I'm the resident neanderthal. What does that look like?

...and the stars look different from the 'tipped over lander' photo we saw last week. Hmmm....

You know... now I'm worried about the 'random generation' thing. If you successfully land a rover amidst randomly generated scatter, where 'rocks above a certain size' are collidable, what happens the next time you load into that area? Will the rocks be in the same space? Or is it possible that once the system 'unloads' the area and has to reload (whether via a save or a subsequent landing) do the 'rocks above a certain size' get randomly distributed again? This brings up a possibility of rocks clipping into a previously landed ship - or even bouncing/knocking over the thing you managed to land or left the last time you were here. So many questions! Ummm... this picture doesn't say "Pre-Alpha Capture"