Space!

PostRe: Space! by **mcjihge2** » Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:04 am

Too cloudy to see the conjunction of the spheres today.

PostRe: Space! by **Hypes** » Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:08 am

Yeah, always the way

PostRe: Space! by **floydfreak** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:47 pm

PostRe: Space! by **Preezy** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:55 pm

Big day for NASA and their latest Mars rover - it's due to land/crash/explode this evening :toot:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56103231

The moment of truth has arrived for the US space agency's Perseverance rover.

The six-wheeled robot is fast approaching Mars after a seven-month, 470-million-km journey from Earth for what unquestionably will be the most challenging part of its mission.

It's got to put itself down safely on the Red Planet - a task that has befuddled so many spacecraft before it.

But if Perseverance is successful, it has an amazing opportunity to find signs of past life on Mars.

Never has a science mission gone to the planet with so sophisticated a suite of instruments; never has a robot been targeted at so promising a location.

Jezero Crater, the intended touchdown zone, bears all the hallmarks in satellite imagery of once having held a giant lake. And where there's been abundant water, perhaps there's been biology as well.

Key timings for Perseverance's landing

Contact with atmosphere: 20:48 GMT
Parachute deployed: 20:52 GMT
Powered descent: 20:54 GMT
Wheels down: 20:55 GMT

PostRe: Space! by **Oblomov Boblomov** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pm

Very exciting! I'm hoping it will be able to send back high quality footage so I can get a good feel for what life will be like when I retire to Mars in 2050.

PostRe: Space! by **Jenuall** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:01 pm

Oh you'll be on Mars in 2050, but you won't be retired.

You'll be one of Elon's slaves!

PostRe: Space! by **Victor Mildew** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:12 pm

I know it'd get destroyed in the landing long before touch down on the surface, but I wish they'd have some sort of video feed during the descent. Even if it just got the initial parts.

Extra weight etc, but it's be so cool to see.

PostRe: Space! by **Alvin Flummux** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:03 pm

I think they should send a probe to Mars that's just ridiculously high def cameras, like a Google Street View setup, that's turned on in orbit and is sent into the atmosphere and has some bouncy balloons to deploy and cushion it for later retrieval by future manned missions.

PostRe: Space! by **Kezzer** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:00 pm

Victor Mildew wrote:I know it'd get destroyed in the landing long before touch down on the surface, but I wish they'd have some sort of video feed during the descent. Even if it just got the initial parts.

Extra weight etc, but it's be so cool to see.

they did for curiosity didnt they?

PostRe: Space! by **Victor Mildew** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:00 pm

Well strawberry float :datass:

PostRe: Space! by **Peter Crisp** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:12 pm

Maybe we'll finally see the Martians with 3 knockers

.

PostRe: Space! by **Meep** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:18 pm

I'm not hugely optimistic about finding even traces of life on Mars. Too much radiation without a magnetosphere. Probably more likely to find something under the Europan ice where it's shielded.

PostRe: Space! by **Moggy** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:29 pm

Meep wrote:I'm not hugely optimistic about finding even traces of life on Mars. Too much radiation without a magnetosphere. Probably more likely to find something under the Europan ice where it's shielded.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans

PostRe: Space! by **Fuzzy Dunlop** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:37 pm

I think it's very likely that at least microbial life will be found on Mars. I'm sure I read something a couple years back where bacteria was found to survive for years on the outside of the ISS so I'd say chances are high.

Life finds a way.

PostRe: Space! by **Moggy** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:00 pm

It landed safely :toot:

PostRe: Space! by **Squinty** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:03 pm

Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

PostRe: Space! by **Fuzzy Dunlop** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:03 pm

My name is on Perseverance along with about another 10 million names, still pretty cool. It's great that it landed safely

PostRe: Space! by **Moggy** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:04 pm

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

My money is on Earth.

PostRe: Space! by **Preezy** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:29 pm

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:My name is on Perseverance along with about another 10 million names, still pretty cool. It's great that it landed safely

That's great man, how did you swing that?

Moggy wrote:It landed safely

These little robots doing the most amazing work for mankind, I hope they get rescued and put in museums when humans eventually turn up to colonise the planet.

PostRe: Space! by **rinks** » Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:30 pm

My hope is that Beagle 2 has, over the course of 17 years in isolation, gone full-on Ultron. By tomorrow morning it will have launched an attack on the invader Perseverance.

Space!

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