Scotius

Still sooty Badge of the veteran. I'm so glad to be able to see rockets returning from space... and to space again.

Try playing some sort of calming, ambient sound in your bedroom at night. On YT there are numerous, several hours long files of rain, sea waves, train wheels etc. When i was commuting to school by train, steady rhythm of the wheels always made me sleep like baby

You didn't. Maybe ESA does have plans for Moon exploration, but they are in nebulous stage for now.

Grazing ruminants and termites produce prodigious amounts of methane. We got nothing on them

This discovery means that A: or instruments and observations methodology is finally reaching required levels of precision for detection of exomoons. Or at least biggest of them. B: now that we (almost) have direct confirmation of existence of one exomoon, we can really start looking for more. And we know what to look for.

Excellent analysis satnet. I would also add ease of transporting, storing, producing etc. of methane on Earth. SpaceX openly states their intent of entering the business of long distance transport on Earth. I wouldn't be surprised if BO had similiar plans. Ubiquitous, cheap and storable fuel available pretty much in every place in the world is a huge boon for such enterprise.

Are you sure about it? Neptune - sized planet moon with comparable mass would have pretty hefty gravity well on its own. Huh. What do you know. Scott Manley already did a video about latest discoveries - including this exomoon. In a nutshell: if it exists, it actually can have its own moons - despite super-Jupiter's closeness.

Ugh. I can already imagine ruckus it will cause among certain circles of internet community.

A Neptune - sized moon That could have its own moons. Some of which might be habitable. This system might have some truly spectacular sky views.

So. That means Mr. Steven will be... armed and ready.

So. Astronomers can find 300 kilometers big "breadcrumbs", huh? But where is the whole loaf?

" Zymomonas is an unwanted waterborne bacteria in beer, creating an estery-sulfury flavor due to the production of acetaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide. This can be likened to a rotten apple smell or fruity odor. Zymomonas have not been reported in lager breweries due to the low temperatures (8–12 °C) and stringent carbohydrate requirements (able to ferment only sucrose, glucose, and fructose). It is commonly found in cask-conditioned ales where priming sugar is used to carbonate the beer. The optimum growth temperature is 25 to 30 degrees Celsius." You would have to be very, very thirsty to even try drinking something stinking like rotten apples.

"Payment in liquor", huh? If you can call this low quality slush of water, mashed grains and yeast a liquor. As a part of a daily food ration? Yes - absolutely. It was an additional source of calories and microelements. Certainly a better drink than water from the Nile. And surely a great morale booster But in a hot climate it wouldn't stay drinkable for more than a couple of days. You wouldn't be able to take it home. You could trade your jug of beer for something offered on place - but you wouldn't be able to take it to marketplace and buy a pair of sandals with it. Besides, it was ubiquitous - every village would have its own small brewery (usually adjacent to local tavern) producing fresh batch every week or so. Which means that heavy, fragile clay jug of beer you carried for several miles for trade would be worth very little. Same thing happened in Mesopotamia. Locally brewed beer was used as a part of daily ration of food. Which in many cases actually was the pay for the local workforce. But no one hauled (or produced) huge amounts of beer to use it as a proper trading commodity. They would send a load of grain instead. Only tradeable liquor was wine, which could keep just fine for months if it was properly made and stored. Grain. Textiles. Leather products. Ceramic vessels. Pieces of metals of differing values. Sometimes livestock. Those are items widely used as trading goods and "payment" across the ancient world. Things you could store, use yourself or exchange for other products. Not beer that would spoil in less than a week and was produced everywhere. You could as well try to pay workers repairing your house only with hot coffee

It always amuses me when people spout "We wouldn't be able to build pyramids today! Therefore Aliens!" stuff on internet. Conveniently overlooking several large scale projects that are much more complicated than Great Pyramid. Things like Burj Khalifa, colossal Three Gorges Dam, Channel Tunnel, several artificial islands and so on. We are able to build a copy of Gizeh complex today. It's just no one wants to finance such folly

I will answer with a meme too: We should take care of the one planet we can live on. There is no question about it. But... what if a 'dinosaur killer' class asteroid or a comet comes a-knocking one day? It would be good for humanity to have a backup somewhere safe, hmmm? Also, Mars makes handy staging area for exploration and exploatation of the bonanza of Asteroid Belt. Which might help take the pressure off Earth's ecosystem when we start digging (drilling) there, instead of here. In a nutshell: Let's do both

There was no embalming in Mesopotamia, as far as i know. And frankly, it would be hard to do on the low lying, muddy ground between Euphrates and Tigris. Egyptians had it easier - a stone throw away from the Nile there was bone dry desert and rocky hills. Same in Americas. Aztecs and Mayans did not practice embalming. Aztecs lived mainly on the shores of a great lake, Mayans in a tropical jungle - both environments aren't really conductive for long preservation of bodies. Incas on the other hand lived in dry, mountainous areas - for them keeping their dear departed as mummies wasn't hard.

No. Just... no. Logistics, man. To mass produce whatever, you need to first deliver a mass amount of raw materials. Grain, in this case. Then process it by hand. That would require another, equally large facility with its own workforce quarters, supply lines and army of workers. You would have to feed them, pay them etc. And don't tell me you would pay them with beer - because that is not feasible too. In reality it probably looked like that: "Overseers of villages A,B and C - you will make sure workers on my pyramid buildplace will receive 500 casks of beer." "Overseers of villages D, E and F - you will deliver 500 baskets of bread to my workers." "Overseers of villages G, H an J - you will provide my workers with fish, onions and oil in sufficient amounts." And so on and so on.

Beer was not storable in ancient Egypt. It was by modern standards a low quality, low alcohol drink with very short "shelf life". That's why it was produced locally, by local artisans who covered the needs of local population. And it remained that way for thousands of years to come - until pasteurisation and advanced methods of production available to industrialised society allowed it to be brewed in standarised method, from standardised products, with high sanitary standards. And then packaged in metal or glass containers which could be stored and transported over long distances and periods of time. I repeat: In ancient Egypt no one would brew a batch of beer meant for 10 000 people in one huge facility. Because that huge batch of drink would spoil before it could be distributed to population by porters, rowboats and oxen carriages. It just wasn't feasible.

Depots of what? They are just mounds of piled up stones, clay bricks or soil. There is no bulk storage space anywhere. And smaller items of high value usually do not require building a small mountains over them.

And yet we do have three big pyramids. And many smaller ones. King Djoser alone built three, before he died (mostly because first two were of... questionable quality). And we have pyramids\ziggurats in Mesopotamia, built since Sumerian times. And pyramids in Mesoamerica. Honestly, building artificial hills seems to be favourite hobby of our ancestors

Ah. But kings from early dynasties\Old Kingdom weren't just kings. They were gods to their subiects. And archpriests of other gods. Their word wasn't just the law - it was an order from the divine. Defy such order would be equal to a christian meeting an angel armed with burning sword, hearing what celestial messenger has to say... and replying "Nawww." If king said "Build a pyramid over there. About that high." people made it happen. Of course, it rarely was that simple. There are many examples of unifinished or plain abandoned pyramids, tombs and mortuary temples. And many others who were ruthlessly dismantled later, building materials recycled to raise other buildings. Realpolitik and all that

Let's get real. You are a priest-king-pharaoh-god personified-whatever. You want to commemorate your greatness and awesomeness with something truly outstanding. What will you do - spend large chunk of your country (yours - you are lord and master of everything you survey) to raise a ginormous, monumental pile of stone higher than anything anyone before you ever built? Or maybe you will take a sensible route and build something less awe inspiring, but more useful to your subiects? Like enormous granary\mill\booze factory? A small hint: "I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” Or something modern: Not many take sensible route.

I really, really hope no one is stupid enough to store rocket propellant anywhere near housing areas of the city. Because "complying with safety regulations" does not instill any trust in me. There are plenty of articles about industrial accidents happening on supposedly well secured sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPCON_disaster

Hehehe. I would bring a sack of potatoes. Hermetically sealed and covered in thermal insulation. You never know when extra sack of potatoes might come in handy.

Isn't it sad? ESA and Arianespace are lagging behind US companies and Chinese space agency. Shame.