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Comet LINEAR Erupts 66
CalamityJones writes: "This Reuters blurb briefly describes a comet erupting while researchers were tracking it with the Hubble Space Telescope. A slightly more complete article covering the event is on CNN.com. What are the chances of actually catching this event just at the moment you have the earth's most powerful telescope pointing right at the comet? Maybe these guys should be playing the lottery more often. :-)"
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:1)
Small 'rebel' nations are becoming nuclear powers. How would you like to wake up in the morning to news of Los Angles being wiped off the map? Or if you think that only missiles are a threat, consider how easy it is for somebody to buy a mobile russian icbm launcher. During the cold war the united states had one common enemy, now we have dozens. If you think this is a US only problem, unless you live in one of those countries that are a 'rebel' nation, or even if you do, it's a problem. Friends of the enemy, are the enemy.
I wish we lived in a peacefull utopia, but we don't. Until we do, we need to remember to support that 19 year old in some war torn country trying to preserve our freedom. There are hundreds of them doing their job right now. They're risking their lives even more than they should alot of times because people like you want to cut the defense budget. All on a salary that qualifies some for food stamps.
Yes, one less aircraft carrier can provide scholarships, but one more can help prevent WW3 where that child could meet his god.
Yes this was an off topic rant, but I don't care.
EVERYONE MODERATE POAG AND HIS OLDER POSTS DOWN (Score:1)
Re:Schooled all of you (Score:1)
Well if Linux/Perl is not the answer to every question, then maybe the questions aren't worth asking (big grin).
Mark Edwards [mailto]
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Re:Of course... (Score:1)
Comet Halley, for example, had several outbursts during it's last pass through the inner solar system, and later on, it even exhibited an outburst near the orbit of Saturn. It's thought that a "heat pulse" moving through the comet caused a phase transition in the solid CO ice, which in turn caused a small eruption.
Re:Freaky chance stuff happens... (Score:1)
Was he performing doctor duties or just pumping gas?
Cut the defense budget (Score:1)
Your attempt at humor has failed... (Score:1)
Re:oh yes... (Score:1)
god knows we're good at swatting mosquitos
Re:Ahh, memories. (gambling and astronomy,) (Score:1)
Re:Ahh, memories. (gambling and astronomy,) (Score:1)
It wouldn't depend on resolution at all. Stars are so far away that there is no chance that they can be "resolved" Resolution is important for viewing large objects like nebula, galaxies or close objects like planets.
What would matter is "field of view" A nova is a bright enough object that it should be observed if it occurs in the field of view of the telescope."
I suppose what would really matter more is the f-stop of the telescope. Which is probably why commet hunters don't use large deep sky telesopes, but instead gravitate toward Rich Field Telescopes.
I don't understand your prof's. reasoning though... Perhaps as someone else mentioned, it's a function of the number of instruments... but then it should be much higher than a single of order of magnitude.
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:1)
The answer: no.
They might. They might improve the lives of your children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Many of the foundations of modern technology were laid by ancient Greek scientists. Knowing that the Earth is round and that it orbits the Sun was not particularly useful to them at the time, but without that knowledge, we would not have communications satellites.
Personally I think all that money could - and arguably should - be put to better use. Then when things are going better, we can move on.
The US budget [gpo.gov] for fiscal year 2001 set aside a total of $13.1 billion for NASA. Of that $2 billion is actually used for astronomy. Compare that with $67.5 billion for education, training, employment and social services; $218 billion on Medicaire; $426 billion on Social Security; and $306 billion for National Defense. I would say we do have our priorities straight when it comes to overall spending on scientific endeavors.
Re:Ahh, memories. (gambling and astronomy,) (Score:1)
Net necessarily. A sufficiently large telescope with adaptive optics can outperform the Hubble in terms of resolution. The main advantage to a space telescope is avoiding the atmosphere.
So, going under this (apparently mistaken) assumption, it would seem that an orbital telescope would give you better odds of observing something.
As someone else said, it has more to do with number of telescopes and percent of sky covered in a given period of time than resolution.
Already on FOX (Score:1)
Nasa and metric units (Score:1)
Zorn
Re:Hubble and the moon (Score:1)
And what would be the point, when 90%+ of the surface of the Moon has been imaged at superior resolution by lunar orbiting satellites already?
Schooled all of you (Score:1)
NASA did not invent Velcro... (Score:1)
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:1)
Re:most powerful? (Score:1)
Re:Of course! (Score:1)
You bet I do! That was a really bad day for all the large lizards. I remember it clearly! Everyone who is 100 million years old does!
Pinhead.
Re:argh! ignorance (Score:1)
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:1)
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:1)
*sigh* Children. (Score:1)
You do realize that, by stating and doing this, you are no better than those you accuse? Plus you deliberately shred the already decimated signal:noise ratio to oblivion because of it.
Trolls have been running so amazingly rampant on slashdot for the sake of annoying the 'karma whores' or whatever, but guess what really happens: It pisses off those who read and crank up their thresholds further (thus giving some ego gratification to them, if they exist), and the ones that don't see ten gajillion useless posts. Since I stubbornly refuse to bring my threshold up beyond zero, there's only one other option: Don't read the damn comments.
That's right, this set of trolls and their 'war on slashdot' has had no point except disrupting the people that exist on here.
Now, to continue, I honestly don't agree with where or what slashdot is right now, so don't blame me for that. Half the articles are worthless but the other half are interesting enough to keep me coming back. (I find the game design articles in particular fascinating, as well as things like this article.)
Did I mention that I had one of the first hundred hits on slashdot and was viewing back when it was *gasp* Chips and Bits? You know, back when it was a more closely knit community for the first year or two? When the trolls were actually fun to read and not mindless idiotic crapspewers? Before everyone and their mother came in and tore the joint up?
Now excuse me, I have better things to do than read a bunch of snotnosed maroons and children that feel that running around tearing the joint up for the sake of the problems that exist will cause anything but grief for anyone else. I don't care what moderators do to this post, offtopic though it may be, it had to be said. End rant.
Re:What does Winnie the Pooh think about this? (Score:1)
I find it annoying when people associate rationalism with atheism. Don't they realize they are proving themselves wrong by taking such an irrational approach, making such sweeping generalizations?
Just because not everyone has the same arrogance or flattened perspective, just because some people are able to admit that there are deficiencies in human perceptions, does this make them ignorant?
There is a difference between killing God and forcing yourself to forget Him.
Sure... (Score:1)
Re:Another good example... (Score:1)
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:1)
The answer: no.
And it won't yours either, all this is is interesting things to read about. We learn more, yeah, we gain knowledge, great. I'm all for that, but is it going to help us in our lives at all? Absolutely not.
Now I'm not saying research shouldn't be done, of course it should be, we have to understand and explore our surroundings, but I do think some priorities need to be straightened out. We've got half the world dying in poverty, people getting diseases, not eating right, the environment's going to hell, our governments suck (don't reply on these, everybody has a different opinion, and this isn't even the point here).
Personally I think all that money could - and arguably should - be put to better use. Then when things are going better, we can move on. There's a ton of things we don't even know about the earth yet, why are we exploring space?
I'm not at all saying everything should stop, and I don't believe things would get all that better if we worked at it, I'm no idealist. I just think it's a bit odd to be focusing so much energy on things that are lightyears away in some cases, when we can't even control what we have here.
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:1)
Freaky chance stuff happens... (Score:1)
Another freaky thing, I saw my *actual* doctor (not an associate that I usually see) at a gas station in a completely different city. Anyway... I'm happy that astronomers are getting a cool show!
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Re:Ahh, memories. (gambling and astronomy,) (Score:1)
So, going under this (apparently mistaken) assumption, it would seem that an orbital telescope would give you better odds of observing something. Would anyone care to explain to me how a ground based scope would give you an order of magnitude greater chance of observing an event.
The only explaination that comes to mind would be that a ground based scope could continuously monitor the object, while orbital scopes would have to be timeshared among the various research interests.
most powerful? (Score:1)
Re:Schooled all of you (Score:1)
Re:Another good example... (Score:1)
Maybe he was being sarcastic, perhaps in reply to this incorrect (is it really?) comment:
Did you know a nasa engineer invented the microchip for the apollo missions, sparking 3rd generation computers?
Because if I'm not mistaken, the microchip was invented by someone who worked for Texas Instrument (whose name I unfortunately can't recall at the moment). Or was it was a different type of microchip?
Well NASA did invent Velcro, Tang and the pen that could write upside down.
Need I mention the old funny factoid about them spending a million dollars to come up with that pen, while the Soviets brought pencils to space with them?
Death Star (Score:1)
Oh my God, they killed the comet - you bastards.
Those Darn Bugs! (Score:1)
How do you think ... (Score:1)
They play with the lottery all the time
Another good example... (Score:1)
I like the headline.. (Score:1)
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Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:1)
Re:Why don't these incidents get more attention? (Score:1)
I thought comets were all dead? (Score:1)
Re:Evidence that comets are intelligent... (Score:1)
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:2)
Because I am a selfish bastard, thinking only of myself. One thing I don't spend my money on, though, is means to kill my neighbor.
In any case I think it's funny how much we spend on defense as compared to other programs. Furthermore, I didn't say that we should spend everything on feeding hungry people, I just argued why not cut the defense budget a bit and help out others? Rather than spending money on killing, why don't we spend it on helping? You are trying to turn my statement into a black and white argument. It's not... I'm not saying either spend everything on defense or everything on helping other people... I'm saying, just cut back a bit on defense and reallocate that money to help folks.
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:2)
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:2)
How can NASA spend billions on X while children are starving in blah, blah, blah...
clickety, click, click
LASER CHARGING...
ZAP!
I want to see Natalie Portman, naked and $F*($G
NO CARRIER
Spaceguard (Score:2)
Until then it's a pretty random event that we may or may not need to worry about, on a scale of "during the whole of human civilization". From my perspective, this warrants caution and contingency planning but no real action so far. The fact is that the earlier we find a potentially-colliding object, the simpler it is to deal with; a minor orbital deflection, perhaps by a nuclear weapon, perhaps by a lander with a big-ass rocket engine, may be enough to eliminate any future concerns of a collision.
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Of course... (Score:2)
-AP
Pictures!!! Yah! (Score:2)
.sig
Re:Pictures!!! Yah! (Score:2)
Picture 2 [stsci.edu] (Good One)
Picture 3 [stsci.edu]
.sig
Nice troll (Score:2)
Don't worry, though. I bet that some moderator will still take this seriously and mod you up as "Insightful", not "Funny".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:2)
What planet do you live on?
Re:Cut the defense budget (Score:2)
That would be pretty cool actually. Not only would a small rebel nation come up with a nuke way better than anything we have, but then we FINALLY have a target that nobody would argue with. Considering the cost of getting rid of aging nukes, I can see the White house wondering how many hundreds of nukes to rain down on that rebel country.
Later
Erik Z
Evidence that comets are intelligent... (Score:2)
argh! ignorance (Score:2)
Re:The other thing burning up... (Score:2)
You do make some good points, but ultimately I must disagree. It is in our very nature to explore. We feel impelled to reach and discover and push the boundaries. I think that when we push the barrier that is when we learn about ourselves.
The amount of money spent on the space program is insignificant. The loss of one of the Martian probes was around 60 to 70 cents per American. My friend today spent that much adding cheese to the top of his burrito at lunch. I'm guessing that nearly the same amount of money was wasted on that movie "Battlefield Earth." Tons of tax dollars are wasted daily by the government at all levels, and getting rid of the space program wouldn't do a bit of good.
Look, I know that there are ancillary benefits that we probably wouldn't have had otherwise. But the main reason why we should go up into space is the same reason why your Hunter-gatherer ancestor went over that next ridge. Simply because we need to.
Ahh, memories. (gambling and astronomy,) (Score:2)
As I recall, an event of this nature from a space-based telescope was somewhere along the lines of 1 in 3.27e5 per year observed. A ground-based telescope would give you odds approximately one order of magnitude more favorable.
Incidentally, the chances of observing the start of a supernova in a local cluster star were approximately 1 in 6e9 per year observed via a space-based telescope. Hey, one never knows, it might happen
(Naturally, all previous calculations assume observation at the moment of local occurence. Of course, it's easy enough to reorient a telescope for a major event such as the ones mentioned.)
yours,
john
Schrodinger's cat lives! (Score:3)
Sheesh, even scientists are forgetting their physics these days.
Most powerful? (Score:3)
It's the most powerful telescope in space that's pointing away from the planet, that's all.
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Re:Another good example... (Score:3)
This has to be a troll. No one could be this stupid. I must have nothing better to do than reply to this drivel. Duh.
(Penicillin was developed in the 1930s by Flory and Chain. NASA was still 20+ years away.)
THS
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Coicidence? (Score:3)
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
Re:I thought comets were all dead? (Score:4)
Dead? Well, they're not tectonically active, really. Only planets with hot molten metal cores can do that, and comets are generally balls of rock and ice that spend most of their lives way out in the Oort cloud beyond Neptune. Io is a small planet in its own right, but the main reason it's volcanically active is the constant push-pull gravitational pressures of Jupiter.
Anyway, as comets swing down close to the sun, which is what makes them comets to us, they constantly slough off material due to similar heating and gravitational pressure by the sun. Whatever held them together
In short: no volcanoes. Just melting, dirty ice.
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LINEAR info (Score:4)
http:// www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/comet_
Internet Coverage on this story (Score:4)
Here are links to this story around the Internet:
Hubble and Chandra imaged the comet in early July and saw a house sized chunk come off the comet:
NASA Press Release [nasa.gov]
A British telescope imaged the comet in late July as it completely vapourized:
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes Press Release [ing.iac.es]
Finally, here are links to the CNN article, and everywhere else on the Internet I could find:
Astronomy Now [spaceflightnow.com]
CNN Space [cnn.com]
Space Online [flatoday.com]
And, of course, my own coverage on Universe Today [universetoday.com].
Fraser Cain
Re:Freaky chance stuff happens... (Score:5)
That's nothing. One time I clicked up a Slashdot story just after it was posted late at night, and there were more serious repliers than there were trolls.
What are the odds of that happening?
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