PakledHostage

Are you my Balkan twin, Lajos? I fully agree with you that this announcement is over hyped. Sure it is great that Kepler is continuing to make these sorts of discoveries, but I wish they wouldn't oversell the "habitability" of these worlds before we can get a look at the atmospheres with bigger and more capable space telescopes.

I'm curious? What does this have to do with New Horizons? OK, I'll bite: The only Georgian phrase I know is "sheeee-hit Bubba!" It is used to express surprise. Probably the wrong Georgia though...

I'm with Lajos. Bear in mind that Philae is generating heat that would conduct into the comet through any contact points with the comet's surface. It also has a reflective surface that will reflect the incoming solar radiation back onto some areas of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's surface while shading it in others. Philae is very likely shifting as those effects cause the surface that it is sitting on to sublimate away at uneven rates. We know that Philae came to rest in an uneven location to begin with. It is unlikely that that uneven surface would sublimate away uniformly.

It is here: [Physics] Observation of pentaquarks. It just didn't get any traffic for some reason.

All road users have a responsibility for the safety of the roads we all use. For every dumb thing one group of road users does, there are just as many anecdotes about dumb things that some other group of road users have done. Statistically, though, motorists and not the motorcyclist are more often at fault in collisions between motorcycles and automobiles. Mark Garner's Bikewriter's blog has a good analysis of a fatal accident that occurred in the UK a couple of years ago. The motorcyclist was killed in the collision and the motorist was charged and convicted for his role in the accident. The accident fueled debate specifically because both parties were at fault, but it also highlighted that the guy on two wheels is more prone to loose out.

I guess it is a bit of a mixed bag... It sounds like your quick thinking and your bike's ability to accelerate saved you from serious injury (or worse), whereas I'd have been screwed even if I'd been quick thinking enough. For that reason, I don't ever make left turns from out in the middle of the road on my bicycle unless there's a left turn lane. I'll stop on the shoulder and then cross like a pedestrian when there's a break in traffic. At traffic lights, I'll ride through the intersection then stop and turn 90 degrees by the curb and wait for the light to go green in the new direction. It is a defensive tactic I adopted after similar (although not as severe) close calls to yours. But the reason I chimed in on this thread is that those of us who travel on two wheels do share a lot of the same concerns. We're more vulnerable than cars and, statistically, when we get hurt on the road it is the motorist's fault more often than our own. I once crashed into a car on the front quarter panel and landed on the hood (bonnet) after she made a left across my lane. Another time, a guy made a right turn just after coming up beside me and caused me to scrape along the side of his truck. Luckily I didn't fall off and end up under his wheels. Other times I've come close to getting hit when people run stop signs (especially so on quiet residential streets) or when they make a right turn on a red light (allowed in much of North America) and enter my lane while I'm already in the intersection. In Canada, bicycles have to follow the same road rules as other road users do. They are also entitled to the same rights as other road users have. I have to stay to the right in my lane, but I am also entitled to a whole lane if I need it. On narrow residential streets, it may not be possible for a car to pass me safely because I have to ride far enough out from the parked cars that I won't get doored when someone opens a door. That often doesn't leave enough room for a car to get by. That doesn't stop them from trying though. It has happened often enough that some SOB in a SUV decides to play chicken with me because he can't wait for me to clear some 1/2 block section of narrow road with cars parked on both sides. He'd have to wait if I was driving a car. Why does the fact that I'm on a bike give him the right to endanger my life so he can save a few seconds? Motorists need to pay more attention to cyclists and motorcyclists. Sure there are bad apples who flaunt the rules when they are on their bikes and motorcycles, but as I said above, more often than not it is the guy on four wheels' fault when someone on two wheels gets hurt on the road.

I'm not a motorcyclist but I am a cyclist. It takes me as just as long to drive to work as it does to ride my bicycle, so I ride my bike. For the most part, riding the bike is more enjoyable and lower stress than driving, but I do have my share of war stories. A lot of the time when problems happen, it is the motorists who aren't paying attention. They change lanes, pass at inappropriate times, make left turns across my lane, run stop signs, etc, etc. The most dangerous situations occur when they misjudge my speed and do something stupid that forces me to take evasive action. It probably has a lot to do with why I've never purchased a motorbike. I might hit a top speed of 50kph on my bike but motorcycles are obviously much faster. If motorists can't see and avoid me when I'm doing 30-50kph, I'd hate to be even more vulnerable at higher speeds.

I have an account but I'm just a supporter. I don't have any of my own projects.

Tamarian?

Well buonanotte and thanks for keeping us updated!

Just search YouTube for the NASA livestream. I have it up on my TV. Edit: here's the link - https://youtu.be/OX9I1KyNa8M

The people who would say that are too focused on manned exploration, IMHO. As we've seen today with these results from New Horizons (and indeed this year with the results from the Rosetta/Philae and Dawn missions), there is plenty of amazing and inspirational stuff happening in space exploration these days.

Congratulations to the New Horizons team!!! I followed the launch live nine and a half years ago, and I'm happy to be here watching the livestream of the first post flyby telemetry. Hopefully the team has some time to celebrate tonight.

I intentionally slept through the livestream of the flyby this morning because I thought it was a bit contrived, but I saw all the hype this morning. What surprises me is that there's so little hype surrounding this imminent data link? For me, this is where the rubber meets the road. Fingers crossed that we receive the signal on schedule and that New Horizons is healthy.

Erm... You mean diameter. Today's new diameter measurement differs from a 2014 estimate by a mere 2 km and it differs from a 2011 estimate by only 10 km. Today's measurement is also 20 km SMALLER than a 1993 estimate. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

That one's going to get some plays on the home entertainment system via Chromecast , first chance I get. Thanks for sharing the link!

I didn't remember off the top of my head and the version I posted here has been molested many times over by being compressed, uncompressed, resized, etc so I had to rummage around for the original to read the EXIF data. The original says I used 30 seconds at f/4.5 and ISO 6400 for an EV of between -7 and -6 (suitable for objects under starlight, away from city lights). The photo was taken at about 03:00 am.

Since we're on the topic of star gazing, light pollution and the Milky Way, I thought I'd share the photo below. I took it last May while camping in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. It's not a composite image. My wife used the light of her phone's screen to light paint the tent from the inside while the camera's shutter was open.

How the heat is transfered depends on the gas that the atmosphere is composed of. Radiative heat transfer has a net cooling effect on objects entering the Earth's atmosphere (ever wonder why the hottest parts of the shuttle's tiles were black?), while there's a net heating due to radiative heat transfer during Mars atmospheric entry.

(1) Because re-using parts saves money which helps improve profit margins and/or allows those companies to remain competitive, even if there is no change in launch rates. (2) Because the space business is glamorous... The air travel business is glamorous too. There's already never a shortage of investors who are willing to put money into an airline but that doesn't mean it is smart. Consider Richard Branson's quip when he was asked how to become a millionaire. His answer (reportedly) was that it was simple: All you have to do, if you're starting out as a billionaire, is to buy an airline.

No, an Australian patent lawyer named John Keogh managed to get a patent on the wheel back in 2001 using that countries (at the time) new "Innovation Patent" provisions. He did it to show the flaws in the system, recognizing full well that his patent would not withstand a legal challenge.

True enough, but I think it is fair to say that (to my point) those ideas are supported by extraordinary evidence. But I don't want to derail the thread any further. Hopefully we'll hear from Philae again soon!

You could make the same argument about the famous assertion that there's a teapot in orbit somewhere between the Earth and Mars. Sure, lets be open minded! But the burden of proof is on the person making the claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far, there's no such evidence to support the idea of life on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Fixed that for you.