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Mission Complete! WMAP In 'Graveyard Orbit'
astroengine writes "The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has, quite literally, changed our view of the Universe. And after nine years of mapping the slight temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, its job is done and NASA has commanded the probe to fire itself into a 'graveyard orbit' around the sun. WMAP measured the most precise age of the universe (13.75 billion years), discovered more evidence supporting dark energy and dark matter theories, and found one or two mysteries along the way."
That project was supposed to go on for a few more months I thought... The cooling system exhausted prematurely, didn't it?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
So Dark Matter was a theory invented to explain why stars orbit a galaxy's core like they were on spokes around the hub of a wheel ...instead of how we observe the motion of object orbiting our sun. So if Dark Matter exerts such a huge force to keep huge objects (stars) moving in such a manner, how come that same force doesn't affect the objects going around the star? Or, in other words, if it's powerful enough to keep the outer-most stars in a galaxy moving in the same period as inner stars, how come we can't detect it here? Or have we detected such tidal forces already?
We put it in the Graveyard and wait for night to send it all the way.
It would be very expensive to do so. The probe would have to lose a massive amount of momentum for its orbit to decay far enough for it to pass through the Sun.
It would actually require a lot of delta-v; you need less to get to other stars (time of travel being what limits us in this case)
One that hath name thou can not otter
They could just as well send it plunging to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. It actually takes more energy to send it on a safe Earth-bound trajectory, and a lot more to send it on a sun-bound trajectory, than it does to move to a graveyard orbit higher up. That way they can keep running the satellite until it's fuel tank is closer to empty.
What if the cosmic background "warmth" which hovers just above 2 Kelvin isn't the remnants of the Big Bang but rather a physical phenomenon produced by some more general aspect of our universe. Like goldfish in a bowl, the limits of our experience are defined by our universe, so the phenomena we experience define and are defined within that framework. But like a human outside the goldfish bowl, we can understand why certain phenomena (such as bending of light through the glass) occurs at a simpler, more general level than the goldfish within could grasp.
Our bowl tells us that there is a background radiation permeating the universe, that unknown and unobservable matter and energy are pulling the universe this way and that, and that time and space exist. We send our tools out to study and measure this bowl. We come away with a great deal of understanding of our bowl, but for some reason things don't all fit together.
Outside this bowl of ours there is probably a simple and elegant description of the phenomena we experience here. But for the time being, I'm glad to see us working so hard to learn about this little bowl we live in.
Probably on the off-chance that it discovers something while in a graveyard orbit. You never know what sort of crazy stuff happens when you just leave a camera running. Sure, the odds are pretty low, but the satellite's already in space, so why not?
Probably on the off-chance that it discovers something while in a graveyard orbit. You never know what sort of crazy stuff happens when you just leave a camera running. Sure, the odds are pretty low, but the satellite's already in space, so why not?
Or some SciFi writer discovers it and the damsels appear, followed by the evil tentacled villains . . .
Home of The Suki Series
Yeah, what would the Klingons do without deactivated shooting targets?
One that hath name thou can not otter
..... and thanks.
Yea I know its failing, but instead of sending it on a death mission couldnt it just float around till it crapped out? maybe get every single last ounce out of it, and besides what is it going to hit?
of course my wife picks on me about how clean my plates are after eating so I am just that way
Economics at the most basic.
Sunk costs are sunk. May as well get the most of what you have.
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Or some SciFi writer discovers it and the damsels appear, followed by the evil tentacled villains . . .
Sounds like a day in the life of my Adamantine miners.
Yes, we're waiting for it to become a zombie, and then start killing satellites that are still working, turning them into zombies as well...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Now it can go hang out with Veejer and taunt alien races.
Table-ized A.I.
Ever since Bush, people say mission "complete" instead of "accomplished". Then again, the word "stimulus" is tainted also, replaced with "recovery program".
Table-ized A.I.
Based on all the band-aides on the map, I'd say God is a clumsy shaver. I hope he doesn't try to create a sentient being.......oh
Table-ized A.I.
This stupid thing would have accurately reported the age of the universe as 6,000 years (give or take a little) if only they hadn't launched it with a rocket (Satan's Gravity Sled).
Obviously shooting it off into space like that wrecked its sensors. They should have done it the way god said...by having Jesus throw it toward the dinosaur Adam and Eve were riding to church and letting it use its tail to blast it on its way like Babe Ruth done with them baseballs.
Who says us Creation Science people don't know what we're talking about!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Because it costs money and consumes personnel, communications, etc., resources.
It would be very expensive to do so. The probe would have to lose a massive amount of momentum for its orbit to decay far enough for it to pass through the Sun.
I see now that WMAP is at an L2 point, whereas I had naively/foolishly assumed it was at an L3 point.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Does this mean we are going to another darker universe, were the weak forces are strong?
No, no, no... graveyard = night... they have to wait for the daytime to send it to the sun. Everyone knows the sun goes out at night.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
It'll come back as W'AP looking for the creator.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Speaking of very expensive, don't we spend lots of money to build these complicated telescopic and other satellites? Don't we use quantities of rare materials to create the sensitive instrumentation onboard? Why, then, are we sending them off into a graveyard orbit whose FINAL DESTINATION (hahemm, scuse me, didn't mean to shout, too much hollywood) is destruction? Shouldn't we try to find some way to stash all the defunct satellites somewhere in space for future (as in when we have facilities set up to do so) recycling of the rare component materials? This just seems like more of the arrogant human "Gimme all the resources, me use once then throw away forever" attitude that gets us into trouble ON the planet. (singing): 'In the year 2525, if man is still alive, he'll be wondering, why did I have to go and fire all those grams of neodymium into the sun? Now we can't build any more sentient teddy bears.' Call me a hippy, and flame away for my lack of concrete knowledge about the subject, but it just seems like a waste.
I've heard that it's actually quite hard to just shoot something into the sun, even though it sounds simple--big target, lots of gravity. Can someone explain why, or point to a link that does?
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Don't we use quantities of rare materials to create the sensitive instrumentation onboard?
Yes, we do use quantities. Very small quantities relative to the amount here on earth. Let's put it this way:
The energy cost to keep these satellites 'stored' and then reactivate/repair them from storage would be MUCH more than the energy cost to mine whatever rare mineral you might need that is currently available here on Earth.
Or look at it another way: If it was so valuable as to put these into a non-useful, but accessable orbit and then build another device to go out there, dock, collect, repair, and refuel them... You could just send that collection robot to an asteroid and mine all the rare materials you could want.
And with respect to minerals being rare: They are only rare based on the cost it takes to extract them from the Earth. If their 'value' increased due to demand and decreasing availability, then people would mine the harder to reach deposits.
Now, I haven't done the calculations, but I would be VERY surprised if we had the capability to deplete our planet of ANY resource that doesn't deplete itself on its own (like helium in the atmosphere or radioactive elements)
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I've heard that it's actually quite hard to just shoot something into the sun, even though it sounds simple--big target, lots of gravity. Can someone explain why, or point to a link that does?
It wouldn't be hard if that was your initial goal, but making something that isn't currently on that trajectory or very near to it would be tough.
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I'm absolutely not a physicist. At all.
But from what I basically understand :
- we're shooting from our Earth location.
- before shooting it, it's more or less following earth around the sun.
- so, relatively to the sun, both Earth and the satelite have the same orbital velocity around the sun (because both follow earth's orbit, instead of plunging into the sun).
- this velocity comes for free as we launched the satelite from Earth.
- to plunge the satelite into the sun, we have to decelerate it well under the orbital velocity of earth.
- that deceleration doesn't come free because we have to slow down something which currently travels at 30 kilometer pro second and has quite a mass: 840kg.
- (Quick napkin estimation tells that's 378 Terajoules (= 90 kilo tons of TNT) (= 5x Little Boy nuke) worth of kinetic energy)
- instead of slowing it almost completely down, so it gets into the sun, it's much cheaper and pragmatic - energy wise - to accelerate it a little bit up and move it to another orbit farther to the Sun, away from us so it doesn't pose collision risks where we are.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As an analogy, think about playing tetherball as a kid. If the ball is already in motion, you have to hit hard enough to cancel all the rotational velocity so it can hit the pole. In the case of a spacecraft, the initial motion is actually the motion of the Earth around the sun -- that's a lot of velocity to make up for.
That's not to say that going to the Sun is impossible. Actually, a recent press release says that NASA will be doing just that in an a mission launching in 2018.
The problem, however, is that the earth is moving quite fast. To get to the sun, a spacecraft has to slow down. A lot. Otherwise, it'll just keep orbiting a little bit closer.
In fact, the early concept for the Solar Probe Plus was to send it to Jupiter (!!!) first in order to slow it down enough. Think of it like using the slingshot effect, only backwards. It seems that's been scrapped in favor of multiple Venus flybys, much like MESSENGER (which is uses a pass by Earth, two by Venus, and three by Mercury before it finally orbits around Mercury).
And if you don’t hit the pole exactly, it whips around and comes back to hit you in the face.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
...which would make virtually no difference (and anyway, when was the last time we put anything at L3? Plus probably we won't live to see it)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Amounts of raw materials involved are miniscule; our spacecraft tend to LIGHT. And as for creating a dangerous debris field with high risk of collision / Kessler syndrome...
One that hath name thou can not otter
West takes you In, In takes you East, East takes you Out, Out takes you West.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Why would you reactivate/repair the satellite? The GP is saying to harvest the rare materials from the defunct satellites, not repurpose the entire satellite.
Why would you reactivate/repair the satellite? The GP is saying to harvest the rare materials from the defunct satellites, not repurpose the entire satellite.
You would probably get more benefit from that than the minuscule amounts of materials that go into creating them. Rare is relative with respect to these minerals.
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