And the obligatory Bad Astronomy link. Phil Plait did a wonderful job of debunking the myth. And a lot of other myths too, click around, it's a great site to spend some time on.
Re:SPACE.com response to allegation of recycling n
on
GPS on Mars?
·
· Score: 1
Tariq, welcome to Slashdot, where stories are mangled by submitters every day, and where the blatant mistakes in the write-ups are often corrected by knowledgeable posters. I think I speak for many fellow-slashdotters when I say that your efforts over at space.com are appreciated.
No bank communication I've ever seen has had such poor grammar and spelling.
But you are educated enough to spot that. I guess the intended targets are hardly equipped to detect bad spelling. (Neither am I but that's ok, I'm just a dayem ferriner;-) )
And then this, which I think in English means "hey, wanna join my scam?"
Make the target feel smarter than the rest, and make him feel like he finally gets his (well deserved) lucky break... sinker, line, hook.
On the June 29 JPL briefing on Cassini/Huygens it was mentioned that they might be able to adjust the trajectory by about one degree. I don't know how that translates to distance on the surface. Briefing available here (sorry, Real format only). Even more briefings here.
Don't knock it.. they might be trying to teach us a revolutionary new form of mathematics that will automatically lead us to a grand unified theory, and the warp drive:)
Hmm.. that reminds me of an accident waiting to happen where I work. Some smart programmer was tasked to write a 4GL program on windows to manage contracts. He called it COntracts REgistration, or core. But... the database server ran on unix, and he called it cored.db too. That on a unix system where core dumps are named core.XXXX (where XXXX is a number). AFAIK it has not happened yet, but I'm waiting for the day a new sysadmin decides to clean up all those core dumps on the system:)
It says "There have not been any EVA's during flights to and from the Moon, or orbiting the Moon.", but I seem to remember reading about an EVA to inspect some part of the Command Module on a return flight from the Moon, and even a movie taken during that EVA. Anyone with better memory than mine?
A long time ago there was a cheap cd set available in shops, that had 5 or 6 distros on it. I think it was called InfoMagik but I'm not sure. Anyway, that was back in the day that not too many people had heard of Linux, and it was still pretty popular. So I guess the strategy might work. Lots of people will probably buy a CD so they won't need to download 2 distros that might take them over a download limit... At least people that might already be considering buying Lindows might jump on it with this offer..
I'm not too sure that it is a danged safe assumption. A young-earth fantasy is not needed to get younger rocks. It seems to be quite possible that this could be one of those ejected-from-Mars meteorites, in which case it could well be younger volcanic rock. I'll admit that I have no idea what percentage of meteorites found on Earth have originated on Mars, though.
I kinda wanted to mod you down, but since you asked nicely, I'll just reply. Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan's company) seems to believe in it enough to invest a lot into creating a sub-orbial spacecraft. In case you don't know: Scaled Composites is the company most likely to win the X Prize, and I think they've invested a lot more than the $10m prize money. Some of the other X Prize contenders seem to have the same faith in a profitable market.
Yes, time travel remains one of the greatest challenges in this technological era. Everything we see in space is in the past. Even Mars, if it just exploded a second ago it'll still take about 10 minutes before we see it happen. Even the moon, although the delay would be much shorter.
No. Because the big bang is part of our "own" past. That is, would we, or this place, or these atoms have existed at that time, it has already happened now. And you can't fly 15, 16 billion light years out faster than light (or instantly, rather), and then see the light from the big bang arriving. You can't see your own past. Hmm.. I'm not too good at explaining, but I hope you see what I mean.
We can only hope to detect the effects of the big bang on parts of the universe that have been moving away from us at tremendous speed. And it'll be pretty much impossible to see the immidiate aftermath of the big bang, simply because there were no stars yet, hence no light. That era of time is being referred to as the Dark Ages. At least, that's how I understand the current thinking about the subject. Then again, IANA astrophysicist, one of those will do a better job of explaining this I'm sure.
Are you kidding? Until recently it was not even possible to resolve a star as a disc (with the exception of that yellow thing that's supposed to be in the sky during the day), and now, possibly, we see, not detect, a planet outside our own solar system for the first time! As the article says, this is at the limit of current technology, so no wonder it is hard to detect. What did you expect? Beautiful pictures of weather patterns? Volcanos?
It is sad to see that even here, buried in the science section, people can be so casual and dismissive about what could become one of the biggest break-throughs in astronomy.
Slashdot Mirror
And the obligatory Bad Astronomy link. Phil Plait did a wonderful job of debunking the myth. And a lot of other myths too, click around, it's a great site to spend some time on.
Tariq, welcome to Slashdot, where stories are mangled by submitters every day, and where the blatant mistakes in the write-ups are often corrected by knowledgeable posters. I think I speak for many fellow-slashdotters when I say that your efforts over at space.com are appreciated.
Hmm.. I guess I'll name my poem "UMLyric".
But you are educated enough to spot that. I guess the intended targets are hardly equipped to detect bad spelling. (Neither am I but that's ok, I'm just a dayem ferriner ;-) )
And then this, which I think in English means "hey, wanna join my scam?"
Make the target feel smarter than the rest, and make him feel like he finally gets his (well deserved) lucky break... sinker, line, hook.
On the June 29 JPL briefing on Cassini/Huygens it was mentioned that they might be able to adjust the trajectory by about one degree. I don't know how that translates to distance on the surface. Briefing available here (sorry, Real format only). Even more briefings here.
Don't knock it.. they might be trying to teach us a revolutionary new form of mathematics that will automatically lead us to a grand unified theory, and the warp drive :)
Hmm.. that reminds me of an accident waiting to happen where I work. Some smart programmer was tasked to write a 4GL program on windows to manage contracts. He called it COntracts REgistration, or core. But... the database server ran on unix, and he called it cored.db too. That on a unix system where core dumps are named core.XXXX (where XXXX is a number). AFAIK it has not happened yet, but I'm waiting for the day a new sysadmin decides to clean up all those core dumps on the system :)
He disabled Win95, not an OS! ;)
Only when it is a little funny.
It says "There have not been any EVA's during flights to and from the Moon, or orbiting the Moon.", but I seem to remember reading about an EVA to inspect some part of the Command Module on a return flight from the Moon, and even a movie taken during that EVA. Anyone with better memory than mine?
Try googling for Chandra, Spitzer, Compton, IRAS, SOHO, HEAO, or Hipparcos, combined with "space observatory". Or just "space observatory".
Congrats to Astronout Mike Melvill, now grab the X-Prize! Oh, and good luck to the guys maintaining www.scaled.com, you're in for a trip too :)
Heh.. i'd love to see those two words on a post-it note in the cabin, when they actually launch a human :)
A long time ago there was a cheap cd set available in shops, that had 5 or 6 distros on it. I think it was called InfoMagik but I'm not sure. Anyway, that was back in the day that not too many people had heard of Linux, and it was still pretty popular. So I guess the strategy might work. Lots of people will probably buy a CD so they won't need to download 2 distros that might take them over a download limit... At least people that might already be considering buying Lindows might jump on it with this offer..
I'm not too sure that it is a danged safe assumption. A young-earth fantasy is not needed to get younger rocks. It seems to be quite possible that this could be one of those ejected-from-Mars meteorites, in which case it could well be younger volcanic rock. I'll admit that I have no idea what percentage of meteorites found on Earth have originated on Mars, though.
What I've been wondering about is how often would this happen for an observer on Mars? And Earth transits? Are they even more rare?
He was thinking "Hey, this submission will generate us LOTS of pageviews, a huge discussion and even MORE pageviews!"
I was so going to make a Heisenberg joke... and then I read your last line :(
Ok, that is a fair distinction, I withdraw my sarcasm :)
I kinda wanted to mod you down, but since you asked nicely, I'll just reply. Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan's company) seems to believe in it enough to invest a lot into creating a sub-orbial spacecraft. In case you don't know: Scaled Composites is the company most likely to win the X Prize, and I think they've invested a lot more than the $10m prize money. Some of the other X Prize contenders seem to have the same faith in a profitable market.
Yes, time travel remains one of the greatest challenges in this technological era. Everything we see in space is in the past. Even Mars, if it just exploded a second ago it'll still take about 10 minutes before we see it happen. Even the moon, although the delay would be much shorter.
e.t.c. was intentional too? "etc." is an abbreviation, not an acronym :) Oh, and "sceince" just makes me cringe...
We can only hope to detect the effects of the big bang on parts of the universe that have been moving away from us at tremendous speed. And it'll be pretty much impossible to see the immidiate aftermath of the big bang, simply because there were no stars yet, hence no light. That era of time is being referred to as the Dark Ages. At least, that's how I understand the current thinking about the subject. Then again, IANA astrophysicist, one of those will do a better job of explaining this I'm sure.
Dangerous stuff... I can see why you chose your nick!
It is sad to see that even here, buried in the science section, people can be so casual and dismissive about what could become one of the biggest break-throughs in astronomy.