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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?
Yeah, what would the Klingons do without deactivated shooting targets?
One that hath name thou can not otter
..... and thanks.
The prior orbit was at the L2 point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point#L2 one of the very few stable points in the solar system. Leaving WMAP there would be a bad idea because it makes a very nice spot become more hazardous. We're already having serious trouble with spacejunk in Earth orbit. There's no good reason to star trashing up the rest of the system also.
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!
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.
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
Silly Christian propaganda! Islam provides a far more accurate view of the heavens than any man-made space doohickey . I bet Muhammed (Geese be upon him) got a pretty good look at space while he was traveling around on his flying mutant horsie, hobnobbing with all and sundry in heaven.
Hmm, come to think of it I think there may have been some man/horse love - at least if this excerpt is anything to go by:
"Hearing this he (the mutant horsie) was so ashamed that he sweated until he became soaked, and he stood still so that the Prophet mounted him."
-- Using the preview button since 2005
The orbit was *around* L2, not at L2. The orbit around L2 appears as loops with an apreciable extension wrt to the Earth-L2 distance.
The paradox is that L2 is actually unstable, but orbits can be found around L2 which are stable over a sufficiently long time.
And that's why it has to be moved to a retirement orbit. The fuel will run out soon and left where it was it would wander off into some unpredictable and perhaps inconvenient orbit, possibly cluttering up the L2 region and making it hard to use it for anything else. This way it's in a known, out-of-the-way orbit.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You know, despite being an atheist i'm finding these frequent and gratuitous anti-christian trolls tedious. They are not funny, they are not relevant, they are not informative, and they are not original. They are all crap.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
As a fellow athiest, I have to agree. I don't much care for the mythology believing folks calling me a devil worshipper (damned odd that you would think I believe in a fallen angel when I profess to not believe in a diety, but I digress). So, I try not to make fun of the believers. So, all you other non-believers, cut those folks some slack. There are in fact a number of very bright, well educated and yes, even articulate individuals that profess a belief in a god. They are not all slack-jawed, mouth breathing rednecks from the hinterlands.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy