Moon Base 13, The Moon: NASA Is In Kinga Forrester's Pocket

[Boyiee]

Now I'm reminded of The Demon-Haunted World.

Also, please tell me more about the flare I think it's sexy.

[Niiro]

Gotta get the Japanese to make a sexy waifu quasar mascot.

[Niiro]

"uwu Astronomer-San stop using that telescope to peek under my accretion disk"

[BerenTebogo]

I'd bet SOMETHING exists out there but I'm at work and I'm not searching for that shit

[zoobernut]

"uwu Astronomer-San stop using that telescope to peek under my accretion disk"

HAhaha this conversation took a hilarious and sexy turn.

[Jaybar]

Making my insides flare up.

[Mythe_Seraph]

Preempting all the posts that will soon be coming:

No it isn't aliens. Avi Loeb is the Michio Kaku of Harvard and I say that with as much disdain as humanly possible. The paper hasn't even been accepted yet, it's just on the arxiv. This is typical Avi bullshit.

This is a gross manipulation / cash grab for Avi to bring attention to, and get funding for, his stupid Starshot program.

So my assumption that this is speculative garbage science at its best... was correct? Cool. Moving on. Eyerolllll.

[Mertron]

sath has been bought out by big probe

[BerenTebogo]

So my assumption that this is speculative garbage science at its best... was correct? Cool. Moving on. Eyerolllll.

99% of the science in the paper itself is great and accurate. The nonsense about aliens brings the entire focus away from the good science and does everyone involved an extreme disservice.

[Bweigelt]

This reminds me of that star with the weird luminosity readings and the idea that is was a dyson swarm got a lot of play for no reason. Yeah we can't explain that shit, but the amount of publicity the alien angle gets is way out of whack for the minuscule chance that it is artificially produced.

[TsingTao]

The InSight Mars lander attempts landing this afternoon, around 3pm EST.

Article: https://www.space.com/42531-insight-...ves-today.html
Live Coverage starting at 2pm EST: https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-tel...-space-tv.html

[TummieGaruda]

To be fair, this is more the fault of the public that we even are in this situation. This is a disgusting cash grab for a project that would otherwise never get funded (and honestly shouldn't get funded), but it highlights the point that money in science flows much more heavily towards shit that grabs the public eye. Nobody is rushing to give us extra money hand over fist to monitor a ridiculously unusual flare in a quasar (TXS 0025+197) because it isn't sexy. Aliens are sexy. "Earth-like" planets are sexy and over-promising regarding exoplanets has caused a giant flow of money to a field that desperately needed it, but wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. Mars is sexy despite it being a categorically worse decision than just going back to the moon and getting good at that / building a staging point there.

Honestly, I blame Tsoukalos, The History Channel, and to some extent the "Science" Channel for people getting all worked up about aliens and Mars. There are a lot of other interesting things out there that need attention. Also, I firmly believe that we should invest in the moon and use it as testing grounds for Mars exploration. I want my Moon Lab...

[Zealot]

Seeing that the landing was a success?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[TsingTao]

Yep, successful landing. The little MarCO cubesats worked too, telemetry the whole way down. Very cool.

[synistar]

My planetary protection tech friend made trips to Vanderberg AFB for InSight for probe preparations. I'm so jelly. If I hear from her I'll share any news.

[BerenTebogo]

Throw a few more GW observations on the pile thanks to a great re-analysis of the data sets from O1 and O2. Component and remnant masses listed in Table III on page 12.

https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0156/P18.../o2catalog.pdf

normie BBC article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46428010

[TsingTao]

Another SpaceX launch window this afternoon. Opens in about 5min, we will see if they let it go today (been delayed a few times). Third launch of this Falcon 9, 18th in total for the year.

Live Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq8kS6UoOrQ

After I watch I will make myself feel stupid and muddle through the gravity wave goodness.

Update: First stage returned, cool shots of it landing on the barge. Third launch for this booster is a success. Kinda cool seeing it looking all dirty and used at launch, because it is, which is cool. The impossible is now mundane and repeatable. Sadly we don't get to watch all 64 little sats deploy so off to read things.

[Zetanio]

ITS SO AWESOME EVERY TIME.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Sadly we don't get to watch all 64 little sats deploy so off to read things.

microsat deployments were always my favorite part of KSP. they look so cool.

[Silenka]

Damn I wish I had known about this! I watched the Mars landing but I didn't hear about this one