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SOFIA Sees Jupiter's Ancient Heat
astroengine writes "The flying telescope SOFIA took its maiden flight on Wednesday, and its 'first light' images have already been released. The cool thing about SOFIA is that it flies high enough (integrated inside a converted 747, taking it to an altitude of 41,000 ft) to carry it above 99% of the atmosphere's infrared-absorbing water vapor. This means it can collect 80% of the IR radiation that hits orbital telescopes (like NASA's Spitzer) but without the huge cost of being launched into space. Also, SOFIA is expected to last 20 years, many times the operational lifespan of space missions. Already, SOFIA has returned stunning results, including the observation of heat leaking through Jupiter's clouds, heat that was generated billions of years ago when the gas giant was forming."
Really? I could swear the hubble has been up for 20 years.
I heard about this a while back and am still puzzled as to how you isolate a space telescope from vibrations while its still somewhat within the atmosphere. Is there very little or no turbulence at its flight altitude?
IT never fails to amaze me that NASA does not send a balloon to 100,000 feet and load it up with all kinds of scientific equipment. That way, they would have advantages of being almost in space, but for a fraction of the cost of sending anything in space.
It obviously does have advantages so far as costs go, though only time will tell just how many observing hours it clocks up
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
First of all, this is a news article, not a research paper, so it doesn't need to provide evidence for something that isn't even primary to the article in the first place. Secondly, the OP spent much of the rest of his/her post referencing an alternative theory of the universe that has not been supported by evidence and certainly doesn't compete with the current models. His post reeks of the same kind of persecutionism that bullshit artists typically use when those who know what they are talking about call them out on their bullshit.
Personally I am attracted to the alternative Electric Universe theory because they recognize a need to back up their statements with laboratory experiments, and with theories that do have a great deal of proof behind them, such as the behavior of plasma.
LOL.
Electric Universe holds that the solar wind is caused by the sun's electric charge, creating a current of protons outward.
Actual experiment indicates that the solar wind is comprised of roughly equal amounts of protons and electrons traveling outward from the sun. With no net movement of charge there is no current, and Coulomb's Law says an electric field cannot move oppositely charged particles in the same direction, both indicating (though it's really one thing, the Theory of Electromagnetism) that the Sun has no net charge.
As one would expect from the well-verified theory of plasma behavior, the majority of which are quasi-neutral, with those that aren't being necessarily non-dense.
So, yeah, they ignore experiments that prove their most basic premises wrong, and don't even understand the well-established theory their ideas are allegedly based on.
But hey, I can't tell you who you should be attracted to.
The enemies of Democracy are
Jupiter's heat is not billions of years old - the planet keeps shrinking, and thus keeps producing heat.
The U-2 can reach 70,000 feet, compared with the 474's 40,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2 There should be U-2s available now that they've been retired. Assuming it has enough payload capacity to carry the SOFIA, more resolution would be available.