Science and Technology MEGA THREAD

[Einherjar]

The Tesla battery reveal is tonight on livestream.

http://www.teslamotors.com/livestream

[JB0]

Shenanigans! Tesla's battery would have giant antennae, throw ball lighting twenty feet, and power every device in your house wirelessly.

[Mr March]

As Macross fans, most of us probably adore flight. Yves Rossy has been around for a few years publically displaying his jetman technology, but I think this new video is the best filmed clip yet made about his remarkable flying suit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=185&v=Czy0pXRRZcs

Certainly worth a look.

[spanner]

that's friggin awesome!!! I'd kill for the chance to fly one of those things!

[Scyla]

Foldable robots? Foldable robots!

[Old_Nash]

And we teaching swordfight for they...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgacHSHOZ7o

[JB0]

Good news for comet fans: The white whale failed to kill Philae, and the world's first armed space probe just phoned home to hook us up with some pics.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/06/14/philae_alive_and_well.html

Edited June 15, 2015 by JB0

[Black Valkyrie]

[Old_Nash]

And now!

Begins the Battletechs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQiikX9gFM

[JB0]

Six terran days, one plutonian day until New Horizons' closest approach to the most famous Kuiper Belt object.

Encounter officially live RIGHT NOW. Pluto is no longer on the unexplored list!

And on the list of names for geographical features for the moon Charon, under the classification of fictional vessels: Macross.

[Gerli]

Can't wait for the photos of Pluto... today is gonna be EPIC

[JB0]

Can't wait for the photos of Pluto... today is gonna be EPIC

Apparently, we're gonna be pulling down photos for a year after this. Since it's a 3kbit connection. Apparently, it's hard to get good internet a few billion miles from Earth.

[Gerli]

Apparently, we're gonna be pulling down photos for a year after this. Since it's a 3kbit connection. Apparently, it's hard to get good internet a few billion miles from Earth.

Thanks Obama

[JB0]

No, no, New Horizons launched during the Bush administration, not Obama. You're too far ahead on the blame game.

[JB0]

And there goes closest approach. New Horizons is now PAST Pluto. And onwards to the next Kuiper Belt object(after taking enough pictures to keep the connection occupied for sixteen months)!

[sketchley]

Happy Pluto Day!

[azrael]

Apparently, we're gonna be pulling down photos for a year after this. Since it's a 3kbit connection. Apparently, it's hard to get good internet a few billion miles from Earth.

And onwards to the next Kuiper Belt object(after taking enough pictures to keep the connection occupied for sixteen months)!

On the bright side, someone has a job for 2 years.

[Mog]

Latest Pluto pics showing the broken-up heart: http://space.io9.com/pluto-has-a-broken-heart-in-the-latest-photos-from-new-1717785162.

I remember seeing those first pics of Neptune in the newspaper. Amazing how much has changed since the last time we made our first visit to another planet.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Mog

[Gerli]

Today they gonna release the first high resolution photo

[JB0]

And that first picture had ice mountains in it. YOUNG mountains at that. Pluto apparently has active geology.

I think I speak for everyone when I say "WHAT."

That's just so far outside the bounds of expectations, what CAN you say to it? The thing's not big enough to have internal heat still, it's not near Jupiter to power this with tidal forces, there's no reason we can figure at first glance why there should be the energy to move mountains, but... mountains. What can you say to that but "WHAT."?

[Mog]

^^My "SWAG" ("Scientific" Wild-Ass Guess)?

It has something to do with 1) its gravitational/tidal push-pull with Charon (think Earth-Moon tidal forces X 10000) and 2) Pluto's eccentric orbit around the sun.

That massive distance between its closest and furthest approach from the sun has to have some unusual impact, right?

[JB0]

^^My "SWAG" ("Scientific" Wild-Ass Guess)?

It has something to do with 1) its gravitational/tidal push-pull with Charon (think Earth-Moon tidal forces X 10000) and 2) Pluto's eccentric orbit around the sun.

That massive distance between its closest and furthest approach from the sun has to have some unusual impact, right?

They already ruled out Charon, as Pluto and Charon are tidally locked. There's no tidal forces from Charon, since Pluto revolves at the same rate Charon orbits. (Charoncharoncharoncharoncharon hey charon doesn't sound like a word anymore.))

2 may have some impact, but while Pluto gets closeR to the sun, it never gets CLOSE to the sun. It shouldn't ever get warm enough for H2O to do anything interesting(as opposed to methane, which does all kinds of cool things during a plutonian summer).

Perhaps it got too close to Neptune in the past, but... I'd think that would have disrupted Pluto's orbit terminally.

Edited July 17, 2015 by JB0

[Mog]

^^Could it have anything to do with how the point that those two rotate around is outside of Pluto's actual mass/body?

[JB0]

Nope. They're still tidally locked, so Pluto still doesn't experience any tidal forces.

It's all really weird.

Also weird: The largely featureless plains that exist within the Tombaugh Region(AKA "the heart"), and the general lack of cratering on both Pluto and Charon, which were both expected to be very heavily cratered.

[renegadeleader1]

Could it be that we really don't know jack about how a planetary core really works, and a planet might stay warm and geologically active even a great distance from the sun?

[JB0]

That IS one possibility. If Pluto has a lot more radioactive materials than we expected, they could provide the heat.

Especially if the water has ammonia in it, which will drastically lower the freezing point, to the degree it becomes reasonable to occasionally see liquid water.

[spanner]

this was quite interesting! We've certainly come a long way!

[Mog]

Not sure if this has been posted before in this thread, but this is a great to-scale map of the solar system:

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

Really gives you a sense of how much empty space there is out there, especially when you're just using the right arrow or scroll bar to traverse the distances.

Pretty insane how we've been able to send probes to all of these various planets (dwarf or otherwise) and still snap damn good photos of them.

[spanner]

Not sure if this has been posted before in this thread, but this is a great to-scale map of the solar system:

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

Really gives you a sense of how much empty space there is out there, especially when you're just using the right arrow or scroll bar to traverse the distances.

Pretty insane how we've been able to send probes to all of these various planets (dwarf or otherwise) and still snap damn good photos of them.

This is pretty cool! Love stuff like this!

[mechaninac]

EM Drive, the impossible rocket engine seems to be not so impossible after all...

[anime52k8]

Because frakk physics.

[electric indigo]

Hype Engine?

[spanner]

And there goes closest approach. New Horizons is now PAST Pluto. And onwards to the next Kuiper Belt object(after taking enough pictures to keep the connection occupied for sixteen months)!

Pluto needs to have its "planet" status reinstated! Just look how planetary & cool it looks in this photo!

[JB0]

All I'm sayin' is if they reinstate Pluto as a planet instead of just the first and best of the Kuiper Belt, they better do the same for Planet Ceres.

EM Drive, the impossible rocket engine seems to be not so impossible after all...

Man, that article makes all KINDS of factual errors. I mean, impulse drives are TOTALLY newtonian! They eject mass out one end to generate an acceleration, and use inertial damping fields to allow a large acceleration from a small force. This is more like Larry Niven's reactionless thruster, which does what it says.

If they're going to get something as basic as THAT wrong, it casts doubt on everything they write!

More seriously...

1. NASA carefully avoided making any claims about how or why it appeared to work. They very much did not claim it was "manipulating subatomic particles which constantly pop in and out of existence in empty space." They DID claim to also measure a thrust on what he assured them was a non-functional thruster, though.

2. And what the heck is a "standard photon rocket", anyways? Why aren't they comparing it to ion drives, which ACTUALLY EXIST and offer many of the same advantages as the alleged reactionless thruster?

I am interested, and await more information, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and "violates conservation of momentum" is a hell of an extraordinary claim. I expect to see this eventually deflated, but... he's successfully conning experts who expect a con, so it's inherently interesting even if it gets debunked eventually.

[mechaninac]

All I'm sayin' is if they reinstate Pluto as a planet instead of just the first and best of the Kuiper Belt, they better do the same for Planet Ceres.

Man, that article makes all KINDS of factual errors. I mean, impulse drives are TOTALLY newtonian! They eject mass out one end to generate an acceleration, and use inertial damping fields to allow a large acceleration from a small force. This is more like Larry Niven's reactionless thruster, which does what it says.

If they're going to get something as basic as THAT wrong, it casts doubt on everything they write!

More seriously...

1. NASA carefully avoided making any claims about how or why it appeared to work. They very much did not claim it was "manipulating subatomic particles which constantly pop in and out of existence in empty space." They DID claim to also measure a thrust on what he assured them was a non-functional thruster, though.

2. And what the heck is a "standard photon rocket", anyways? Why aren't they comparing it to ion drives, which ACTUALLY EXIST and offer many of the same advantages as the alleged reactionless thruster?

I am interested, and await more information, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and "violates conservation of momentum" is a hell of an extraordinary claim. I expect to see this eventually deflated, but... he's successfully conning experts who expect a con, so it's inherently interesting even if it gets debunked eventually.

The whole thing has so many big IFs that one has to take it all with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, if the claims of measured thrust prove true and a working prototype can be eventually tested in space (just like they did with Ion Drives), the EM drive could turn out to be a boon for interplanetary exploration and exploitation, and even future colonization and tourism; but this has the massive potential of turning out to be just another Fleischmann & Pons style cold fusion hoax.

The photon rocket thing had me scratching my head too... it's a misnomer. Photons do exert pressure; therefore, thrust, but there is no such thing as a photon engine that derives its thrust from direct emission of light or other forms of EM energy... that would be like using a flashlight or laser emitter as an engine. The closest thing that comes to mind would be the indirect approach of a solar sail.