The Space Thread

[Gomez Adams]

These launches (most likely) wouldn't service "geostationary" equatorial orbits.

True.

But the fact remains, it has to be a VERY powerful rocket to overcome the fact that it's launching from thousands of miles out of sync with damn near anything it's going to rendezvous with.

The ISS is a classic example of that. To haul a heavy supply load up there takes a very good rocket. It's right at the absolute limit of the Falcon when launched from near the equator in the best of conditions.

You move that up there and it's simply not going to make it. It would either have to somehow generate more power (not possible) or lose a lot of its load to overcome the additional distance it's going to have to cover and the loss of speed it's going to suffer.

That is the point. You sort of eliminate half your customers right off the bat.

 

[Zeedox]

The Russians launch from the same latitude...

If I understand what I am reading, the ISS is on a 51 degree incline orbit and that it certainly can be gotten to from any latitude up to 51 degrees. The ISS is not in a "geostationary" orbit around the equator.

 

[Gomez Adams]

The Russians launch from the same latitude...

Again, I'm well aware of that. They also use one of the biggest boosters on earth ever created by mankind. Nobody is using those anymore but them and NASA. I have covered that several times already.

Space ports are supposed to open things up for smaller private corporations. They are NOT going to be using rockets of that magnitude. They're going to be smaller, more efficient rockets that take a single load like a satellite into orbit or resupply the ISS or something similar. Launching from anything other than the equator becomes an instant liability for a company like that.

Why on earth would anybody do that? It makes absolutely zero sense at all, unless maybe the use of the facility was completely cost free.

 

[Zeedox]

How to See a Green Comet Hurtle Past Earth

Where did Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3) come from, and what does it want?

lifehacker.com

Wont be around for another 50,000 years.

50,000 years ago we stared in wonder
Today we have the knowledge to know, understand and study
50,000 years from now we'll greet it at the edge of our solar system or beyond

 

[Gomez Adams]

Weren't we in the middle of an ice age 50,000 years ago?

 

[Zeedox]

I don't think it had bottomed out yet but heading that way from some of the information I saw. Some of the charts I looked at showed a small increase possible in the middle of the fall to the bottom. It's hard to read charts that go from 2.5 billion years ago to now even when they are logarithmic.

 

[Gomez Adams]

It's truly amazing how much we don't know.

 

[Gomez Adams]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1621486159883821059

 

[Zeedox]

Massive filament swirls into a 'polar vortex' on the Sun, wowing scientists - The Weather Network

This is apparently the first time such a phenomenon has been seen on the Sun.

www.theweathernetwork.com

Thanks to telescopes and spacecraft, we have also seen polar vortices on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Even Saturn's moon, Titan, appears to have one.

And now it seems that we can add the Sun to that list.

Images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, captured on February 2-3, 2023, appear to show a massive filament of solar plasma being stretched into a swirling vortex around the Sun's north pole.

The scale is mind boggling.

 

[Gomez Adams]

The scale is mind boggling.

I've never been able to wrap my head around how big the sun actually is. It makes my head hurt thinking about it.

 

[Zeedox]

TIL Not all planets in our solar system (technically) orbit the sun.

Meet the Barycenter, which is the center of mass between two objects.

Every object has a center of mass. It is the exact center of all the material an object is made of. An object's center of mass is the point at which it can be balanced. Sometimes the center of mass is directly in the center of an object. For example, you can easily find the center of mass of a ruler.

But sometimes the center of mass is not in the center of the object. Some parts of an object may have more mass than other parts. A sledge hammer, for example, has most of its mass on one end, so its center of mass is much closer its heavy end.

In space, two or more objects orbiting each other also have a center of mass. It is the point around which the objects orbit. This point is the barycenter of the objects. The barycenter is usually closest to the object with the most mass.

Where is the barycenter between Earth and the sun? Well, the sun has lots of mass. In comparison, Earth's mass is very small. That means the sun is like the head of the sledgehammer. So, the barycenter between Earth and the sun is very close to the center of the sun.

Jupiter is a lot larger than Earth. It has 318 times more mass. As a result, the barycenter of Jupiter and the sun isn’t in the center of the sun. It’s actually just outside the sun's surface!

What Is a Barycenter? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids

And how does it help us find new planets?

spaceplace.nasa.gov

Barycenter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gomez Adams]

Very cool. You learn something new every day.

I knew about the wobble to find the planets, but didn't know how that actually worked and what it was called.