Slashdot Mirror
NEAT Comet Crossing: Internet Telescopes
An anonymous reader writes "During a large solar coronal mass ejection, this week's NEAT Comet crossing, gave some spectacular film footage. While no comet with such a small nucleus has ever survived that kind of close solar approach (one-fourth of Mercury's orbit) without fragmenting, this one did-- and is now outward bound on its 370 century roundtrip. These new comet discoveries have filled the log files of the now 70 big robotic telescope projects, most of which are being connected to the internet. The largest ($3 M) research-class one for public use--the Hawaiian Faulkes Project--will see first light in 45 days."
70 big robotic telescope projects, most of which are being connected to the internet
Extra credit to the first apache/IIS hacker who points one of these directly at the sun and blows out the camera's retina.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
This is obviously old news. Duh ;-).
Does anyone have any theories as to why this comet never tore itself completely apart once it got so close to the sun?
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
The Hawaiian Faulkes Project telescope's servo motors ripped the telescope apart today due to an extraordinarily large amount of users trying to point the telescope at various points in the sky at the same time.
Rumor has it that the trouble started approximately 5 minutes after a story on the telescope appeared on the website "Slashdot.org", something commonly refered to as "/.ing".
A representative by the name of "CmdrTaco" of slashdot.org said only "No Comment" when asked about issues of liability.....
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather
because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
My balls on your nose, sir.
I posted this story 37,000 years ago, the last time the comet came through. You'd think Taco'd get these things straight.
Now these guys will have to worry about having their telescopes DoS'd. What happens when you slashdot a telescope? Does it invert itself and become a microscope? Interesting.
For those of you who haven't quite followed along, that was:
Just when scientists think it has barely passed us by, it will hit a tiny speck of dust that will cause it to bounce off and head directly for some big, black asteroid that we can't see in our telescopes. This asteroid will then head directly for Earth. I believe that this asteroid is going to land right on top of Slashdot's server and we're all going to die. Not from the impact--the asteroid will be composed of styrofoam--but from the lack of Slashdot.
I am going to begin building my comet shelter immediately, in which I'll put a big server with lots of hard drives, and I'm going to download and preserve all the knowledge of humankind from the Internet. That means using wget to store all Slashdot comments moderated at -1 or less. This is no laughing matter.
...is whip it round a second time so those of us that missed it can see it again! how inconsiderate. now ive missed the window for my ritual suicide and ill have to stay alive for ANOTHER 370 centuries. GOD, this solar system gives me the headaches, oy...
Dont ask me, im just the bass player!
#include <stdio.h>
/* nothing like some K&R C of a Sunday morning, is there? */
main()
{
int n1, n2, n3;
n1 = 370;
n2 = 100;
n3 = n1 * n2;
printf("The answer is %d.\n", n3);
printf("\n-Mark\n");
}
Does anyone have any theories as to why this comet never tore itself completely apart once it got so close to the sun?
It passed the sun during the night.