Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science |
Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science |
Jan 8 2007, 07:15 PM
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#501
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Member Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 7-December 06 From: Sheffield UK Member No.: 1462 |
I have just watched the BBC's report on the newly created 3D map of dark matter using Hubble data; and it made my heart sink.
I applaud the BBC for giving airtime to such discoveries, but for such a respected organisation their research was awful. It's no wonder the vast majority of people are either bewildered or disinterested the the universe as a whole when the facts they are given are completely wrong. It's a shame that tonight 60 million or so people in the UK and many other people around the world were told Hubble shone a beam of light out into the depths of the universe and studied how it was bent by the gravity of dark matter billions of light years away! And this was a report from the BBCs science correspondant! I remain downhearted that perhaps the most important story of the week was reported in such a shoddy manner. Does anyone else feel space is being let down by TV coverage? -------------------- It's a funny old world - A man's lucky if he gets out of it alive. - W.C. Fields.
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Feb 24 2014, 12:20 AM
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#502
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Member Group: Members Posts: 890 Joined: 18-November 08 Member No.: 4489 |
the crushing was not an issue once the 90 ATM was discovered
it is the 900C temp that plays ( to put it mildly ) havoc with the electronics . |
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Feb 24 2014, 11:20 PM
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#503
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 60 Joined: 1-August 06 From: Vienna, Austria Member No.: 1002 |
it is the 900C temp that plays ( to put it mildly ) havoc with the electronics . The Veneras recorded surface temps in the region of 455C-465C, but I agree temperature is a big problem! It is fairly common to run across the imagery in the press of Venusian landers being "crushed" to death within hours of landing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it's correct! QUOTE IIRC, what happened more is that the systems which maintained the internal Earth-normal pressurized spaces (which housed the electronics) failed and the internal pressures and temperatures rapidly equalized with the local environment. (Russian electronics in their space probes of the day were generally air-cooled and were maintained at sea-level pressure, often in plain air but sometimes in a nitrogen-only atmosphere.) The Venera landers had limited battery power [design life 30-32 minutes] and relied on the cruise stage/orbiters to relay data to Earth, once the battery failed or the orbiters flew out of range the mission ended. The JPL website states 'The landers’ capabilities were not the limiting factors in the surface survival time; instead, each mission terminated when its orbiter exited the communication range.’ http://vfm.jpl.nasa.gov/othervenusmissions/veneravegarussia/ What then happened to the landers after the data relay ended is speculation. QUOTE The pressure shells didn't dramatically implode (once they figured out about the surface pressure, as was noted below), but the effect was quite similar. And I believe that the ultimate failure of the pressure control systems often occurred due to implosion of connecting pipes and of windows in the sea-level-pressurized spaces used to look out onto the surface and connect to external systems. As the internal atmosphere warmed up, the internal pressure would increase thereby reducing the pressure differential and the loading! However I agree at some stage the internal and external must have equalised but whether that occurred dynamically (implosion) or by slow in-leakage, or by internal pressure build-up, we do not know. Nor whether it occurred within hours, or days or even years! To state that the landers were “crushed within hours” I believe is highly misleading and serves only to mis-inform. So the Veneras and others might still hold their original shape even after all these years on the surface? Difficult to say, but I think yes! |
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