Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science Options

[PFK]

Until a few days ago, when I logged on and looked at the right hand side of my screen it would say "Bright supernova explodes in..djellison". Is Doug OK?

[djellison]

I survived long enough to get a picture of M99's supernova as well.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[TheAnt]

I survived long enough to get a picture of M99's supernova as well.

Glad to hear that!

And yes, nice cap, the supernova at 5 o'clock clearly seen in your image.
(I actually tried to do a bit of amateur astronomy myself last night, but.... it turned out to be one the worst aurora nights I had this year.)

[Leither]

From NASA page on the Venus “hot flow anomaly”

''... an atmosphere so dense that spacecraft landing there are crushed within hours, ....”

Was not the functional life of the Venera landers limited by battery life and possibly over heating? Crushed within hours, umm??

[JohnVV]

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 .

[dvandorn]

It is fairly common to run across the imagery in the press of Venusian landers being "crushed" to death within hours of landing. 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 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.

-the other Doug

[Explorer1]

So the Veneras and others might still hold their original shape even after all these years on the surface? A bit surprising!
Presumably they're not puddles either, but only one way to find out how well that engineering held up...

[dvandorn]

As something of a non-sequitur, the Science channel runs a program called Futurescape, with James Woods as narrator. The advertising tag line for this show is "What happens in the future starts right now." However, my mind keeps wanting to merge this into a different ad line from a different ad campaign, and thus making it a cosmologically more-correct statement:

"What happens in the future, stays in the future!""



-the other Doug

[Leither]

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!

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.

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!

[PaulH51]

According to this blog posting by the University of Leicester, regarding "drilling in progress" by Curiosity, it appears as though we have a new (smaller diameter) drill on the rover

Puts a whole new spin on the phrase 'mini drill'

LINK to the report

Here is a MastCam image of drilling in progress. This is the first 'minidrill' hole at Windjana......

[Explorer1]

Don't know if any other thread is a better place to put this, but July 2nd's xkcd is a pretty cool, especially for all you mappers.

Big version: http://xkcd.com/1389/large/

Unfortunately Europa isn't likely to replace Greenland anytime soon.

[ollopa]

Can someone please reassure me that ESA did not Tweet: “Signal confirming closest approach has just been received". It is being quoted by the NYT and countless other outlets, via AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE.

[stevesliva]

The local NBC affiliate here in Seattle had terribly cynical copy about Philae's "battery dying" vs expectations of the battery lasting 90 days-- something that could be fact-checked by googling "philae mission nominal" and reading the FAQ which is currently the second result.

The Rosetta lander, called Philae, will touch down on the comet's surface on 12 November 2014. The science observations will start immediately. During the first 2.5 days the first series of scientific measurements will be completed. During this phase the lander will operate on primary battery power. In a second phase that may last up to three months, a secondary set of observations will be conducted, using backup batteries that will be recharged by the energy from the solar cells on the lander. However, no one knows precisely how long the lander will survive on the comet.

Sigh.

[Astro0]

Oh, that didn't take the nutters very long.

Comet not a comet but an alien spacecraft and the Rosetta/Philae mission an attempt at first contact.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/...e-1227127884068

[Explorer1]

On the bright side, at least the 'electric comet' theory has been conclusively debunked by Philae's end... not that it makes a whiff of difference to those folks.