Can we call them "potentially habitable planets" instead of going all the way to "habitable" that quickly?
No. The IAU can get cranky with designations.But even so, the original NASA announcement claims nothing of the sort- it is the attention-craving journalist that came up with his own interpretation of the announcement, and coined the title of TFA this way to hype it and get your attention.
Like that other time the paper had a sentence on its end mentioning something along the lines of "The possibility of biological origin [for methane observed in the Martian atmosphere] cannot be excluded" and the next day the media was all like "scientists confirm life on Mars".
Please stop being so harsh at NASA, at least they are trying to somewhat confirm something before they make any grandiose announcements and, frankly, journalists should be doing the same. NASA folks are much more worthy scientists than people like this are worthy journalists.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic, but some of them certainly do; many promotional phones (a.k.a. 'gifts' from some stores) that run a customized version of the OS have some dedicated 'connect' buttons, that are very easy to push, and use dial-up to connect to the net without warning, and with outrageous pricing- even more so if they happen to be pushed while abroad, where roaming surcharges apply.
After the lobbying for effectively banning access to streaming services (as if the providers have always had the right to decide how a customer may use his terminal, which is utter crap; they just aim at streaming video as a seperate 'service') I think this lawsuit is a very good move, may at least bring _some_ leverage.
Furthermore, this should open the subject of investigating commercials and scripting in this context; a webpage without them (i.e. through a flashblock / noscript / adblock combination in the browser) greatly reduces the amount of data transfered. And, to be more meticulous, the customer has to pay for the protocol's error correction data as well, and all that based on some obscure software somewhere that does the counting and the billing.
To put it plainly, you pay dearly for the amount of ad junk there is in a webpage you're loading.
Keep in mind that this is using off-the-shelf hardware.
It doesn't seem so. Plus, there is no technical info on the display system- basically, there is no technical info on anything, the whole FA seems totally popular. Where are at least some hints about the delivery system? And the laptop screen at 45" seems like it has been post-processed (doesn't make sense). And this is the worst actress ever (sorry). So what's the breakthrough here? Kinect? And parallax?
Combine all the above, and it is pretty obvious what audience this is intended for; the more you look at it, the more it seems like a publicity stunt- something MIT is an expert on. Not that something can't come out of it, but if you want funding, give out more information- until then, this gets filed under the fusion/flying cars-anytime-now category.
Finally, for the Nth time already, a little modesty wont kill ya- MIT's 'breakthroughs' are way overrated. Keep going with this assumed-breakthrough-then-nothing pattern and people will get officially sick of it. You got results? Publish them, otherwise shut up. Don't post a minute-long video on youtube and wait to see what happens.
Good topic; nice to see more "lifehacking" threads on./
I'm not that in to taking many photos anymore, but 4 years back when I got my first camera I came across the same line of thoughts, since I ended up having thousands at a very short notice. What I do (did) is make folders that follow the naming regime of yymmdd, so they present themselves nicely with 'sort by name' on any OS. And it makes it easier for a simple rule-driven backup software or script to 'sweep' for new files.
Since I run out of space pretty fast, I go for the external disk solution and/or cloning to my other storage. I delete only when I have to so in case of hardware failure I would maximize my chances of having the data elsewhere. Never thought of actually buying a new SD card, seems like a nice idea (unless you use Sony where you're out of luck)
There are reasons for going to the moon, He3 is not one of them. Anyone who talks about He3 is either ignorant, or lying to you to get funding.
I guess I was naive in deriving the economics- I can see now how the maximum 3He price will definitely be constrained.
As others have said, D/T fusion is easier than He3. The advantage of He3 fusion isn't that it's easy, it's that it's "Clean".
I assume by 'clean' you are referring to the comparatively low high-energy neutron 'waste'?
So if we crack self-sustaining He3 fusion, we'll already have D/T fusion.
I can't see why (but I'm no fusion expert) -I mean, isn't 3He fusion suppose to be 'easier to handle' because of the lower temperatures? What is the connection here that makes you assume that if we can fuse 3He, we will be already able to extract fusion energy from other reactions?
"Very high energy density" is a very broad observation- a proton has a very high energy density compared to vacuum, so what? How does it apply to this particular engineering challenge?
That's also why it's a great rocket fuel.
It's a particularly crappy fuel, highly volatile and inefficient, and cumbersome in the sense that the Oxygen used for combustion has to be carried along. One wrong move, and the whole thing turns into a very expensive and deadly firework. But for very large payloads, it's the only one there is.
I think you are missing the point which, if I am not missing it, is to produce a very efficient battery for an electric-powered (using H fuel cells) drone- NOT a H-burning jet that goes 'whooosh'.
Most of the Moon comes from Earth in the first place
I wouldn't be that fast to advocate that- I haven't seen other evidence that support that theory besides a 'missing' iron Moon core, a computer simulation, and some statistics that give a collision a 'high chance' of happening.
But if you are arguing with your spine, then you also have to make the theory tell you why there is no Moon around, say, Venus.
My point; you can't just accept the parts that are convenient, and attribute the rest to randomness.
Worse, the moment you drop 100kg onto the commercial market, there will be a sharp price drop, so you won't get $400M anyway.
Not if you're the only dude dropping it into the market- you would want to drop the price a bit to get competitive, but your clients are buying anyway. I can't see a reason for a 'sharp' drop (unless the market floods with cheap, Chinese Helium-3)- and there is always price-fixing.
Plus, I don't see where you get that there is no Helium-3 fusion. The internet says otherwise- granted, it is just for research, but that's what all fusion nowadays is about, until a plant gets built that the energy output is more than the input and we can charge batteries "for free" or scale it down or whatever.
And besides, which would make you feel better? magically appearing in a black void? Or looking out and seeing the insides of a Bird of Prey?
I would prefer either, especially if the alternative was to be suddenly called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet, against all probability.
OK so I see it was a project, not just an extra factor or two. Interesting to hear about the story of the 'habitable zone', and also the distinction between 'habitability' and 'biostability'- it is not hard to envision that a 'biostable' planet can still be colonized (though some science fiction technology is going to be needed!). Just a few points though;
at least 10% of the surface of a planet, with an Earth-like atmosphere, in that zone
Well, to get 10% of a planetary surface, that would be some fraction of its radius in terms of distance; on Earth-like planets that would be a couple of thousand miles at most- working with AUs, that's within the error margin. I guess your point is just to define it so you have something to start with?
Most have also considered planetary albedo
IMO adding that (and solar evolution) makes the model way more respectful- but still, as far as I know the Earth's albedo is under great dispute, due to its great variability (mainly clouds/no clouds, and also snow) making it computationally very expensive to add to numeric models.
Since you mentioned 'snowball Earth' and photolysis I think you will probably find the following interesting; several authors are approaching habitability via studying long-term climatic stability via Milankovic cycles and others are studying magnetic field generation through the so-called 'dynamo' mechanism on sub- and super-Earths. The former may be giving opportunities to planetary bodies to escape their snowball status, whereas the latter may produce a planetary magnetic field that would somehow shield the planet's atmosphere from the devastating stellar wind (and, in their case, they find that for super-Earths the dynamo mechanism is inhibited)
We could go on for hours; the habitability zone means exactly squat if, f.i., the parent star is in the middle of a cluster of erupting supernovae- so then we would need to extend the definition to include stellar environments.
Slashdot Mirror
Can we call them "potentially habitable planets" instead of going all the way to "habitable" that quickly?
No. The IAU can get cranky with designations.But even so, the original NASA announcement claims nothing of the sort- it is the attention-craving journalist that came up with his own interpretation of the announcement, and coined the title of TFA this way to hype it and get your attention.
Like that other time the paper had a sentence on its end mentioning something along the lines of "The possibility of biological origin [for methane observed in the Martian atmosphere] cannot be excluded" and the next day the media was all like "scientists confirm life on Mars".
Please stop being so harsh at NASA, at least they are trying to somewhat confirm something before they make any grandiose announcements and, frankly, journalists should be doing the same. NASA folks are much more worthy scientists than people like this are worthy journalists.
Oh yeah they totally do this on purpose
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic, but some of them certainly do; many promotional phones (a.k.a. 'gifts' from some stores) that run a customized version of the OS have some dedicated 'connect' buttons, that are very easy to push, and use dial-up to connect to the net without warning, and with outrageous pricing- even more so if they happen to be pushed while abroad, where roaming surcharges apply.
After the lobbying for effectively banning access to streaming services (as if the providers have always had the right to decide how a customer may use his terminal, which is utter crap; they just aim at streaming video as a seperate 'service') I think this lawsuit is a very good move, may at least bring _some_ leverage.
Furthermore, this should open the subject of investigating commercials and scripting in this context; a webpage without them (i.e. through a flashblock / noscript / adblock combination in the browser) greatly reduces the amount of data transfered. And, to be more meticulous, the customer has to pay for the protocol's error correction data as well, and all that based on some obscure software somewhere that does the counting and the billing.
To put it plainly, you pay dearly for the amount of ad junk there is in a webpage you're loading.
Balls to them!
you missed e) they have actually built one themselves.
How can you underestimate 1.4e9 people like this? There are bound to be several brilliant engineers among them.
Even so, what if they start using it to
a) spy on you,
b) knock down your birds,
c) bomb you, or
d) all of the above,
what are you going to do, start crying out 'doesn't count', 'fake' and 'I'll sue you for copyright'? See how ridiculous this sounds?
Be more responsible, don't underestimate people.
timothy had a couple of drinks, so what
Keep in mind that this is using off-the-shelf hardware.
It doesn't seem so. Plus, there is no technical info on the display system- basically, there is no technical info on anything, the whole FA seems totally popular. Where are at least some hints about the delivery system? And the laptop screen at 45" seems like it has been post-processed (doesn't make sense). And this is the worst actress ever (sorry). So what's the breakthrough here? Kinect? And parallax?
Combine all the above, and it is pretty obvious what audience this is intended for; the more you look at it, the more it seems like a publicity stunt- something MIT is an expert on. Not that something can't come out of it, but if you want funding, give out more information- until then, this gets filed under the fusion/flying cars-anytime-now category.
Finally, for the Nth time already, a little modesty wont kill ya- MIT's 'breakthroughs' are way overrated. Keep going with this assumed-breakthrough-then-nothing pattern and people will get officially sick of it. You got results? Publish them, otherwise shut up. Don't post a minute-long video on youtube and wait to see what happens.
Or you use a copyrighted image for fb that you don't own the copyright to
Like, say, a picture of you? By uploading it to facebook, don't you relinquish your 'copyright' to them?
Good topic; nice to see more "lifehacking" threads on ./
I'm not that in to taking many photos anymore, but 4 years back when I got my first camera I came across the same line of thoughts, since I ended up having thousands at a very short notice. What I do (did) is make folders that follow the naming regime of yymmdd, so they present themselves nicely with 'sort by name' on any OS. And it makes it easier for a simple rule-driven backup software or script to 'sweep' for new files.
Since I run out of space pretty fast, I go for the external disk solution and/or cloning to my other storage. I delete only when I have to so in case of hardware failure I would maximize my chances of having the data elsewhere. Never thought of actually buying a new SD card, seems like a nice idea (unless you use Sony where you're out of luck)
There are reasons for going to the moon, He3 is not one of them. Anyone who talks about He3 is either ignorant, or lying to you to get funding.
I guess I was naive in deriving the economics- I can see now how the maximum 3He price will definitely be constrained.
As others have said, D/T fusion is easier than He3. The advantage of He3 fusion isn't that it's easy, it's that it's "Clean".
I assume by 'clean' you are referring to the comparatively low high-energy neutron 'waste'?
So if we crack self-sustaining He3 fusion, we'll already have D/T fusion.
I can't see why (but I'm no fusion expert) -I mean, isn't 3He fusion suppose to be 'easier to handle' because of the lower temperatures? What is the connection here that makes you assume that if we can fuse 3He, we will be already able to extract fusion energy from other reactions?
.. he walks past and lets it happen.
God does not take sides, Gaius.
Liquid hydrogen has a very high energy density
"Very high energy density" is a very broad observation- a proton has a very high energy density compared to vacuum, so what? How does it apply to this particular engineering challenge?
That's also why it's a great rocket fuel.
It's a particularly crappy fuel, highly volatile and inefficient, and cumbersome in the sense that the Oxygen used for combustion has to be carried along. One wrong move, and the whole thing turns into a very expensive and deadly firework. But for very large payloads, it's the only one there is.
I think you are missing the point which, if I am not missing it, is to produce a very efficient battery for an electric-powered (using H fuel cells) drone- NOT a H-burning jet that goes 'whooosh'.
Most of the Moon comes from Earth in the first place
I wouldn't be that fast to advocate that- I haven't seen other evidence that support that theory besides a 'missing' iron Moon core, a computer simulation, and some statistics that give a collision a 'high chance' of happening.
But if you are arguing with your spine, then you also have to make the theory tell you why there is no Moon around, say, Venus.
My point; you can't just accept the parts that are convenient, and attribute the rest to randomness.
So all that is needed is a space elevator, a several thousand mile long pipe built on the moon, and some nuclear explosion powered craft.
Okay, but hold your horses- I'm busy Thursday.
Worse, the moment you drop 100kg onto the commercial market, there will be a sharp price drop, so you won't get $400M anyway.
Not if you're the only dude dropping it into the market- you would want to drop the price a bit to get competitive, but your clients are buying anyway. I can't see a reason for a 'sharp' drop (unless the market floods with cheap, Chinese Helium-3)- and there is always price-fixing.
Plus, I don't see where you get that there is no Helium-3 fusion. The internet says otherwise- granted, it is just for research, but that's what all fusion nowadays is about, until a plant gets built that the energy output is more than the input and we can charge batteries "for free" or scale it down or whatever.
.. and the Coulomb barrier isn't as high as with Boron.
Besides, nobody ever likes molten Boron.
So what do they call the thing at Sea World that they keep the whales in?
I don't know, Desmond? Alfred?
There is no such word in dictionaries, how can I stress that more?
Know your quotes. It is against all probability, not against "likely" ones.
And besides, which would make you feel better? magically appearing in a black void? Or looking out and seeing the insides of a Bird of Prey?
I would prefer either, especially if the alternative was to be suddenly called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet, against all probability.
*Yes, I am aware that you were making a Star Trek joke. However, whales are not fish, they are mammals.
Are you also aware that there is no thing called "whaletank" ?
So there, and 'Pbhrrrbt' right back at you.
Plus, at the start, where it reads "We detail the significance of the emerging field of astroinformatics to the next decade of Canadian astronomy"
How many decades is a "Canadian astronomy decade" in SI units?
Careful; if you die in Canada, you die in real life too.
Yes, Worms! That's an incredible just-one-more-and-then-I-quite-seriouslah game!
Parabolic, wind resistance, thrust, what a physics project that was.
Btw my little brother replaced the voicesets- Imagine hearing Worf throwing intimidations in-game.
It also looks that there is further evidence on another post;
New Study Links Video Games and Mental Problems
Maybe the defence strategy should be along the lines of 'mental illness'?
No grounds to sue, so all there's left is crying about it.
.. which is to find a solution WITHOUT disturbing the cat.
OK so I see it was a project, not just an extra factor or two. Interesting to hear about the story of the 'habitable zone', and also the distinction between 'habitability' and 'biostability'- it is not hard to envision that a 'biostable' planet can still be colonized (though some science fiction technology is going to be needed!). Just a few points though;
at least 10% of the surface of a planet, with an Earth-like atmosphere, in that zone
Well, to get 10% of a planetary surface, that would be some fraction of its radius in terms of distance; on Earth-like planets that would be a couple of thousand miles at most- working with AUs, that's within the error margin. I guess your point is just to define it so you have something to start with?
Most have also considered planetary albedo
IMO adding that (and solar evolution) makes the model way more respectful- but still, as far as I know the Earth's albedo is under great dispute, due to its great variability (mainly clouds/no clouds, and also snow) making it computationally very expensive to add to numeric models.
Since you mentioned 'snowball Earth' and photolysis I think you will probably find the following interesting; several authors are approaching habitability via studying long-term climatic stability via Milankovic cycles and others are studying magnetic field generation through the so-called 'dynamo' mechanism on sub- and super-Earths. The former may be giving opportunities to planetary bodies to escape their snowball status, whereas the latter may produce a planetary magnetic field that would somehow shield the planet's atmosphere from the devastating stellar wind (and, in their case, they find that for super-Earths the dynamo mechanism is inhibited)
We could go on for hours; the habitability zone means exactly squat if, f.i., the parent star is in the middle of a cluster of erupting supernovae- so then we would need to extend the definition to include stellar environments.