I was reading something the other day about a possible manned Mars mission. The major problem that they're going to have is the fact that light takes 45 minutes to reach Earth from Mars. This basically means that any conversation between the Astronauts and mission control is going to have a 45minute gap. That's going to be a big big problem as they're going to have to be pretty much self sufficient, which is a big ask on a year long manned space voyage.

Man, the USA can't afford that shit.

An amateur astronomer was watching Jupiter through his telescope when he doscovered a dark mark, just like the ones after the Comet Shoemaker-Levy collision of Jupiter in 1994. He alerted the professional astronomers who are now focused on Jupiter.

Here's an image of Jupiter in infrared so ther dark mark is bright.
full story here
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0907/20jupiter/

Hubble got a shot..how big was this to make that much of a dent in effing Jupiter??

already in the universe thread, but still cool nonetheless.

The link to the newstory above has some pics. The nasa site below has a few more.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... index.html

this one's cool

It really bummed me out when I learned that Hubble only takes black and white photos, and that all the cool photos we see are colorized by NASA.

god. damn.

you'd think if someone can afford color photography it would be fucking nasa.

cheap bastards.

I think we should all chip in and send them this.



It scans too.

as i understand it, the photos are often from several different sources and wavelengths (infrared ect,) those several images are put together and then the color is restored. i think its oversimplifying what they are really doing by just saying its black and white.


yeah that could be my favorite space image to date

BIGGER!

Here's Saturn, eclipsing the sun which is behind the planet. It was taken by the Cassini spacecraft which is currently orbiting and exploring Saturn. If you look at the square to the left of Saturn the pale blue dot is out very own Earth, 1 billion kilometres away...

women love sparklies...

Nasa 'bombs' moon for water
RONAN McGREEVY

Nasa has completed its mission of crashing two probes into the Moon in an attempt to find out if there is frozen water ice in craters that never see the Sun.

At 12.31pm, as planned, the rocket stage of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCross) crashed into the Centuer crater near the Moon’s South Pole.

It was followed a few minutes later by LCross itself.

Though it was not apparent from the television pictures that there had been a crash, mission control confirmed there had been “thermal impact”.

It is hoped that both spacecraft have thrown up tonnes of debris which was analysed firstly by LCross before it crashed, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which is monitoring the mission, the Hubble Space Telescope and telescopes on Earth.

Scientists will be looking for traces of frozen water ice which prove key to having a permanent manned base on the Moon.

A NASA spokesman said the mission appeared to have been a success. “All indications are that the instruments are working. No matter what we find it will be important,” he said.

what good would it do to have a manned base on the moon?

not complaining, just asking.

For mining apparently. It's helion (think thats the name) or some such element that can be used as a future fuel source and the moon is loaded with it. I'm open to correction about that though.

thanks

granted i don't have much info, but i don't like the idea of finding out ways to deplete/exploit the moon, after the splendid job we're doing with earth.

If the human race has any interest in surviving as a species long term we need to spread out. All our eggs are in one basket now.

i'm all for exploring and studying the universe, or anything really, but i'm not sure about colonizing. not that my opinion will stop anybody.

that's a topic for a different thread though.