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TomK,
Do you know if anyone on Mauna Kea will look for a space-Tesla Roadster tonight? Would it be large enough to spot while it's trajectory is a day out from earth?
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"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Right now, if it were dark and the clouds disappeared, we'd be able to track and spot it very easily!
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=43205
What an amazing sight watching it launch this morning and then seeing the two boosters simultaneously returning to the ground.
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Crap! I forgot to go out and watch the shot.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
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Were you near enough to hear the sonic booms when the boosters landed? I heard all four as the boosters landed (on the live TV feed) and as the shock waves had a long way to travel, they arrived just after the boosters actually landed.
Physics in action. I loved it!
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I doubt it but I don't know where it came down. As the crow flies we're a little over 100 miles South of the launch point. We can see launches but we're too far away for it to be spectacular. It's just interesting. My childhood home, which I still have to sell should anyone want a small waterfront fixerupper, was close enough to see the big Vehicle Assembly Building and actually feel the vibrations from the Saturn 5s and hear the windows rattle. I have heard sonic booms from the landing shuttles from that house when they were still flying. And we did hear the boom from the landing boosters one time when we were up checking on the old house.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
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The beauty of galactic cannibalism
Some recent stunning images from the CFHT on MK have shown that was once thought to be a relatively quiescent group of galaxies shows that there's a little more going on, specifically described as "galactic cannibalism".
https://goo.gl/NkeRjH
"
Due to its unique features, Stephan's Quintet has been widely observed across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and has been the subject of many complex numerical simulations. The team detected a red halo composed of old stars centered on a galaxy, NGC 7317. NGC 7317 was thought to be in a stable state or recently arrived near the group. The detection of red stars implies the contrary, that this galaxy has been interacting for a very long time with the other members of the group. Interactions such as the one seen in these observations are called galactic cannibalism. Galactic cannibalism occurs when the gravitational forces from a larger galaxy or group of galaxies slowly tear apart a smaller galaxy. Characteristic features of galactic cannibalism are streams or halos of stars orbiting the larger galaxy, like the halo of red stars seen around NGC 7317. A first implication is that Stephan's Quintet is far older than currently admitted. The models of formation and evolution of this emblematic system will have to be revised. This global case of galactic cannibalism should eventually lead to the formation of a giant elliptical galaxy."
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Rob Weryk, the Hawaiian astronomer who discovered Oumuamua, has provided a few updates on the red Tesla Roadster's orbit for Atlantic Magazine. The car will still head out to Mars, but is no expected to travel even farther (intentionally? unintentionally?) into the asteroid belt. When it's path brings it back towards earth in 11 years, telescopes here in Hawaii may be able to spot it:
“Musk’s message is a bit ambiguous,” Rob Weryk, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, said in an email.
Weryk has some experience in tracking unusual-looking objects in the solar system. He was the first to lay eyes on ‘Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system.
Powerful telescopes like Pan-STARRS may be able to see the Tesla if it crosses their field of view—and if it’s not too cloudy—“at least for a time until it is too faint,” Weryk said. If they don’t see it now, they can try again in 11 years, when the Tesla should approach the Earth, according to corrected data.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...lt/552719/
Recycle Puna. Humans, although probably not you personally, have already left 400,000 pounds of trash on the moon. - YouTube's Half As Interesting
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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"The car will still head out to Mars, but is no expected to travel even farther (intentionally? unintentionally?)"
My understanding is that they just burned the second stage as long as they could to demonstrate it could be restarted after being turned off in low earth orbit. In addition, it showed that it would be capable of taking a satellite into geosynchronous orbit (without a satellite having to do it itself). I think they originally estimated this would put it into a solar orbit that extended out to the distance of Mars but it actually went on a little longer and sent it into an even larger orbit.
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The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) used its telescope on Mauna Loa last night to image the Tesla Roadstar. They determined its distance at about 0.005 AU (about 465,000 miles) moving away from us at 2.2 miles/sec.
The dark patches are electronic artifacts on a small part of the detector:
https://goo.gl/Df8vgC
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That was brilliant marketing....
Assume the best and ask questions.
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