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User: rahultyagi

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  1. Re:So of course, they just ASSUME it is a water pl on Moon of Jupiter Prime Candidate For Alien Life After Water Blast Found (theguardian.com) · · Score: 2

    I don't think you actually read the stories. The sensors did not "detect water". They sensed some anomalies in magnetic field and plasma density which defied any obvious explanation at the time (in 1997). These scientists did some modeling and showed that those signatures can be explained by the presence of a water plume. That is certainly interesting and supports the conclusion that Galileo may have passed through or very near a water plume, however it is very different from saying that "the sensors detected water".

  2. Well, as of now they don't know why it worked so well. They think it may have been because they used to much water to dissolve CO2 before injecting the water in. If so, it will need a LOT of water and that doesn't do much for our Venus terraforming project!

  3. I think you have completely misunderstood the scale of time dilation. you really should do the math! Time dilation doesn't matter at all at the orbital speeds of planets that we are talking about, and the gravity wells aren't deep enough either for any realistic configuration of habitable planets (there is a reason "Interstellar" had to put that planet in orbit around a supermassive black hole)

  4. Re:Weasel words on WhatsApp Enables End-To-End Encryption For All Forms of Communications By Default · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope, in this case it really does look like the other "end" is the other party and not WhatsApp's servers. So, unless they are lying about it, it really does seem like user-to-user encryption (and hence, as you point out, no data mining for facebook).

  5. Re:TV ratings methodology on Tension Escalates Between Netflix and Its TV Foes (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    They now have an ad-free package too...

  6. Re:Gravity leak from other dimensions? on New Hubble Release Puts Another Nail In the Coffin of Dark Matter's Competitors (spacetelescope.org) · · Score: 1

    I know what you mean, but saying "For light, dark matter just isn't there" isn't quite right. It isn't there in terms of electromagnetic interaction. The gravity, on the other hand, can't be escaped even by photons. Otherwise you wouldn't have seen the lensing effects that are some of the best evidence for dark matter's existence.

  7. Re:Where did that 3600 cubic miles figure come fro on 'Geospeedometer' Confirms Super-eruptions Have Surprisingly Short Fuses (vanderbilt.edu) · · Score: 1

    wait, what? How small do you think the earth is! I can only guess that you think 3600 cubic miles is the volume of a cube of side 3600 miles. Usually this is meant to be the volume. so, for example, the volume of a cube of side 15 miles is around that much.

  8. Re:I'm probably too cynical on Scientists Have Spotted the Signs of Flowing Water On Mars · · Score: 1

    How does you Occam's Razor calculation change when you consider that this is based on chemical analysis of the same suspected flowing water streaks that were observed years ago (and published in Science 4 years ago http://www.sciencemag.org/cont... ). These streaks (called RSLs) have been continuously studied - and results published - since then with everyone being almost sure that the best explanation (Occam's Razor!) has to be flowing water. And yet, the scientists and NASA waited for the final clinching confirmation based on spectroscopy before making this announcement. You think they hastily concocted some story to get funding? You have no idea how these things work!

  9. Re:Isn't it like the 3rd or 4th time? on Scientists Have Spotted the Signs of Flowing Water On Mars · · Score: 1

    No, it isn't because those earlier things could've been explained away by other flows (though that may be true). It is because those were only evidence of flowing water in Mars's past. None of those things necessarily suggested flowing water currently. And that's a HUGE difference.

  10. Re:Do they really mean "chaotic"? on Pluto's Outer Moons Orbit Chaotically, With Unpredictable Sunrises and Sunsets · · Score: 1

    I had never bothered to make this calculation, but always sort of assumed that the Sun would look like a disc from those distances... very small but still with a disc shape easily discernible by naked eye. This made me do the calculation. Turns out that the Sun looks almost exactly the same size from Pluto (at perihelion) as Venus does from Earth (at their closest distance)! However, venus at its closest is bright enough to cast discernible shadows and Sun's absolute brightness is a LOTTTT more than venus. So, yes, you are right. just another star in the sky that is however *much* brighter than anything else. For religions starting on pluto, you can easily bet against anything other than the Sun or Charon being their chief deity.

  11. Re:GO SpaceX! GO SpaceX! on SpaceX Applies To Test Internet Service Satellites · · Score: 1

    I think the "one-way" is between you and your server elsewhere on earth's surface, not between you and the satellite. so, the distance for one-way is really a round-trip to the satellite. you sending a package, and then receiving one back will basically take two round trips to the orbit.

  12. Re:Wait.. HALF THE WORLD?!? on How Baidu Tracked the Largest Seasonal Migration of People On Earth · · Score: 1

    I agree that it is a bit confusing. That number seems impossibly large. Perhaps they mean "number of passengers" which means that the same person making 2 return trips might be counted as 4 passengers? It is like saying "New York City's subway serves X million passengers per week", where every single person is probably counted multiple times based on the number of trips they make.

  13. Re:Frankly, those are some of the best visualizati on Indian Mars Mission Beams Back First Photographs · · Score: 5, Informative

    Are you talking about most of those false color images on that page? If so, they are actually not from this mission. Most of them (probably all except the first one) are from MRO's HiRISE camera.

  14. Re:Is this the missing "dark matter"? on Brown Dwarf With Water Clouds Tentatively Detected Just 7 Light-Years From Earth · · Score: 1

    Here is something to boggle your mind. You think your argument is strong with Sun containing 98% of the Solar system's total mass? It is actually something like 99.8%!! to think that stray jupiter-size brown dwarves can weigh anywhere near the total stellar masses that we see betrays complete lack of understanding of the difference of scales involved.

  15. Re:One slight problem with that ratio... on New Class of Stars Are Totally Metal, Says Astrophysicist · · Score: 2

    you are assuming that by "metal" they mean iron etc. all the examples that you cite (except H and He) are "metals" by astrophysicists' definition.

  16. Re:Just Tack on a Fee on Driverless Cars Could Cripple Law Enforcement Budgets · · Score: 1

    er, I think they meant $1000 per car, not per car per year! why would you ask for $1000 per year? it's not as if speeding fines are worth that much on average per car per year.

  17. Re:Great, now all we need to do... on Kepler-186f: Most 'Earth-Like' Alien World Discovered · · Score: 1

    yeah, just an engineering problem. you might also want to think about a way to move at 0.9c and yet dodge all the stuff that will hit you like a hydrogen bomb...

  18. Re:Seniors see the world at blazing speeds on Flies See the World In Slo-Mo, Say Researchers · · Score: 1

    That's not science. just statistics. What it suggests is that the subway riders in your city come from the same population as the one that CDC report is about. (and that you did a pretty good job of sampling without possible biasing factors! :) )

  19. Re:What Could Possibly Go Wrong... on NASA's Garver Proposes Carving Piece Off Big Asteroid For Near-Earth Mining · · Score: 1

    No, I don't think her is denying the existence of orbit degradation. The problematic part is you saying that it happens "due to gravity". gravity keeps it in orbit, lack of vacuum is what brings it down. Rahul

  20. Re:What happened to it? on Confirmed: Water Once Flowed On Mars · · Score: 1

    Mars's orbit isn't a function of its mass. It only depends on Sun's mass. you could, however, make the same point using Phobos/Diemos's orbit.

  21. wrong translatlion? on Iran Unveils Its Own Stealth Fighter Jet, the Qaher F-313 · · Score: 1

    I think "Qaher" actually means something like "wrath" rather than "dominant". That is true at least in Urdu, which has a lot of influence of persian language. Can someone who knows persian confirm?

  22. Re:Nuclear Program Reducing Plate Tectonics? on Other Solar Systems Could Be More Habitable Than Ours · · Score: 1

    er... 10000 km is "somewhat over a quarter of the way to the moon"? if you really think that the moon is only about 4 earth diameters away from the earth, your mental model of solar system needs a serious recalibration! :)

  23. Re:Math Study on New Study Concludes Math Gender Gap Is Cultural, Not Biological · · Score: 1

    I was also a part of a similar study. We measured the breast size of kids from grades 3rd to 10th. While there was absolutely no gender-based difference in kids of 3rd grade, by the time they reached grade 10, the difference was clearly statistically significant. The young cohort pretty much proved that there is very little gender bias in breast sizes! "

  24. Re:And the problem with this plan: on Rethinking Rail Travel: Boarding a Moving Train · · Score: 1

    You do realize that your nice old lady can't also drive a car without killing many people or herself in the process? Yet all of us seem to be doing fine with a culture dependent on driving cars. It appears that having a license test for use of these high speed trains would be simple enough, no?

  25. Re:The actual physics on Frictionless Superfluid Found In Neutron Star Core · · Score: 1

    Actually, it is about 11000 light years away. The 300-odd years mentioned is actually the time when the supernova was observed on earth. A young neutron star just 300 light years away from earth would have been impossible to observe (since the supernova creating it would've wiped out any future observers. :) )