Thread: Space Events

Voyager Exits Solar System To Enter Interstellar Space, Spacecraft Data Suggest

I'd just like to take this moment to reflect on how bad ass mankind can be, when we're not f'cking everything up...lol.

Yeah, humanity can really make you proud at times. We can be unbelievably stupid and destructive, and that may eventually be what ends us. But this kind of stuff offers a glimmer of hope. Pushing the boundaries, more discovery, more innovation. This is what will save us from fucking things up too severely.

Let's hope we live long enough and progress to a certain degree, that we see Voyager again one day.

Knew you'd get on that before me haha, didn't have time to post yesterday. Thanks!

I was.... pretty close to crying yesterday, thinking about the whole thing. One of our machines has been traveling for 35 years out in space. And may, some day, after we're all dead, be found by another intelligent species and they will interpret the golden record.

It's a huge testament to our species, even if only for the way it was set up to capture images of our planets.

Just came across this article:

Milky Way's Black Hole to Swallow Giant Cloud Soon | Space.com

Happened 26,000 years ago, old news

Nah that's awesome! Wonder if we'll get good shots of it!

Thanks man!

Curiosity will be landing on Mars in 7 days

Here is all the info you will need:

Landing: 5-6 August 2012
10:31 pm Pacific, 5 August
11:31 pm Mountain, 5 August
12:31 am Central, 6 August
01:31 am Eastern, 6 August
05:31 am Universal, 6 August

Some public viewing spots - Museum Alliance - Events

Online
NASA TV - NASA - NASA Television in High Definition on UStream
NASA TV, view from ISS - NASA - NASA Television in High Definition on UStream

Curiosity Cam - Curiosity Cam, Ustream.TV: Follow the Curiosity rover on Twitter (@MarsCuriosity) and Facebook. FAQsGet answers to some of the most common questions about...

NASA JPL - NASA JPL Live, Ustream.TV: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory invites you to watch live and chat about everything from Mars rovers to monitoring asteroids to...

Good luck, Curiosity. Hope everything goes as planned.

Mars One
Big Brother in space it is. Not until 2023 though

Less than 24 hours to go and the NASA websites are having errors all over the place.
Lets hope they get it working :S

Also some Voyager news http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-225

August 03, 2012
Two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space have changed faster than at any other time in the last seven years, according to new data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

For the last seven years, Voyager 1 has been exploring the outer layer of the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. In one day, on July 28, data from Voyager 1's cosmic ray instrument showed the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system jumped by five percent. During the last half of that same day, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our solar system dropped by half. However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels.

A third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction. Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space. A preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month.

"These are thrilling times for the Voyager team as we try to understand the quickening pace of changes as Voyager 1 approaches the edge of interstellar space," said Edward Stone, the Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "We are certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly. But we are not yet able to say that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space."

The levels of high-energy cosmic ray particles have been increasing for years, but more slowly than they are now. The last jump -- of five percent -- took one week in May. The levels of lower-energy particles from inside our solar system have been slowly decreasing for the last two years. Scientists expect that the lower-energy particles will drop close to zero when Voyager 1 finally crosses into interstellar space.

"The increase and the decrease are sharper than we've seen before, but that's also what we said about the May data," Stone said. "The data are changing in ways that we didn't expect, but Voyager has always surprised us with new discoveries."

Voyager 1, which launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun. Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 9.3 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) from the sun.

"Our two veteran Voyager spacecraft are hale and healthy as they near the 35th anniversary of their launch," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "We know they will cross into interstellar space. It's just a question of when."

The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager .

I'm so very glad this thread exists. Was gonna start one to draw attention to the Curiosity, but it's already here. Very exciting.

Originally Posted by ccrinbama

I'm so very glad this thread exists. Was gonna start one to draw attention to the Curiosity, but it's already here. Very exciting.

Start another one anyway man. Needs more attention. Maybe put it in The Lounge.

Extremely excited about curiosity. Here's hoping that everything goes off without a hitch (or too big of a hitch).

NASA - NASA TV
You can all watch it on mobile too if you check the links beside this video(can't remember if I posted this one).

William Shatner is currently talking.

A whole heaps of people are on the ISS stream - 4000+
I'm pretty sure that's not gonna show it haha. So just making sure y'all go to the right place.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Watching this is quite impressive, seeing all the NASA folk busily going about their work. So much intricate planning and innovative solutions to big challenges, all culminating in this moment. It's really amazing what people are capable of when they put their minds to it.



Seeing this statistic, you can't help but wonder what these guys could do given just half of what's spent on the military. Then imagine what they could do working in closer partnership with others, like the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency. Then add private space companies like SpaceX, and there's no telling how far we could advance. All of these organisations achieve so much working independently of each other. Just think how things would be if they were all working together as a single global force, with a budget numbering in the trillions.

Mission successful. Everything went perfectly. Fantastic!

That was awesome watching. Everything moved so quickly once it entered the atmosphere, it was so tense waiting to see if the next stage had been a success... and the emotion in the control room when it landed; some of those guys were weeping, hah.

Nice one NASA

That was so incredible.
Link to first images from Curiosity:

NASA - First images from Mars will appear when available

NEW IMAGE CAME IN!



Contrast adjusted




There should be a comma between.... "SCIENCE, BITCH!"

RAW images will be here soon, I think they're having some problems hehe
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

That was just incredible to witness. The celebrations at every phase of the landing really made you appreciate everything that went into this event. You could cut the tension in that room with a knife. Haha.

And that .gif, Tommo. LMAO. Good stuff.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut Zero

That was just incredible to witness. The celebrations at every phase of the landing really made you appreciate everything that went into this event. You could cut the tension in that room with a knife. Haha.

And that .gif, Tommo. LMAO. Good stuff.

haha, yeah that was really amazing. Got pretty overwhelmed when they were getting so excited lol

Here's some more pics that were sent back!



Parachuting down

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity rover, still connected to its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 meter) parachute, descended toward its landing site at Gale Crater on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover.

The rover is descending toward the etched plains just north of the sand dunes that fringe "Mt. Sharp." From the perspective of the orbiter, the parachute and Curiosity are flying at an angle relative to the surface, so the landing site does not appear directly below the rover.

A scaled-up version



If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape.

Curiosity and the ejected heat shield down the bottom. Heat shield is probably still in free-fall.



Hi-res from Hazard-detection cam on the bottom of Curiosity.



Heat shield (4.5 meters diameter) 16 meters away, 1.5 minutes before touch down.


Hi-Res Mount Sharp (Curiosity's main science target)




This is one of the first images sent back, but in Hi-Res. Looking back at the crater rim.


Larger color images are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed.


Here is a movie put together with images from the landing - Beautiful....

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/video...a_id=149974611

Whoo! I almost lost all that when firefox couldn't find DV for some reason.

Man, this is incredible. Can't wait for color images.

Guys we put a fucking robot on Mars.