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SpaceX and other space stuff

#4,282
fig said:
You're saying the "bathtub drain" theory, honed since I was a child, isn't correct?? Even though I've proven it many times by watching my plastic army men, after circling a few times, disappear into the inexorable pull of the vortex. And that vortex occurred every time directly over the bathtub drain!
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DRAMATIC, SILLY, AND INACCURATE REENACTMENT!!! :jawdrop:

army guys schloop (anim).gif


:D
 
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#4,284
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#4,287
fig said:
I knew Japan had one. Seems there are 6. Smoother rides and setting speed records.
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I've ridden the JR Shinkansen in Japan. "Smooth" is relative; The forward motion is fine - awe-inspiring, really - but there's still some sideways rocking to & fro of the cars, as on regular trains. At those speeds though, when it rocks, you rock. It's nothing one can't deal with and get used to, but it's not exactly the melted-butter-on-glass depiction of sci-fi. :whistle:

Still an awesome ride, though. Highly recommended! :thumbsup:
 
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#4,289
Winslow said:
I'm not sure what's at the root of your skepticism, but this looks like a continuation and expansion of recent research into what black holes would actually look like. What happens to the light "seen" by the theoretical camera is just a matter of taking the math as far as it will go (the job of the Goddard "Discover" supercomputer mentioned toward the end of the video (additional info here).

The effects of the forces at work in & around supermassive black holes are far more powerful than most human experience allows us to instinctively comprehend, so it can look mind-bendingly weird, but the physics behind it are sound. In a very basic summary, the light that gets trapped by a black hole doesn't just go straight into it; The gravity of a black hole is so strong, some of the photons (light particles) get spun around the black hole several times, and compressed ever more tightly together, leading to a bright, built-up concentration of light that becomes part of the black hole's accretion disk. (More about gravitational lensing and accretion disks.) Someone (or a camera) falling into the black hole would be able to see these effects overhead, which is why it looks like space, and a bright line, loops around the camera's view several times; That's exactly what the photons are doing; getting "squeezed" together, and going around the black hole.

A lot of these developments got a nice boost a few years ago, when Christopher Nolan made the movie Insterstellar, and sought out physicists to consult with the goal of depicting a black hole more accurately than the "bathtub drain in space" so many people think of thanks to earlier TV & movies. (While dramatic, and easy for general audiences to relate to, that is very much not how black holes work.)

Once the Event Horizon Telescope array started getting data that allowed for accurate measurement and calculation, it turned out that Nolan, Thorne, & co. were actually proven right:

480px-Black_hole_-_Messier_87_crop_max_res.jpg



lossy-page1-475px-A_view_of_the_M87_supermassive_black_hole_in_polarised_light.tif.jpg



So for whatever it's worth, while you would definitely not want to try flying into a black hole in real life, I think we can safely take the NASA video as legitimate work, and an accurate visualization.

:thumbsup:
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I feel like humans as smart as some can be will never be able to truly depict things such as how a black hole might look.
 
#4,291
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#4,294
Winslow said:
Well, this weekend could be interesting:

SWPC Issues Its First G4 Watch Since 2005 | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center


View attachment 5443929

View attachment 5443930


A short clip, showing the CME, right near the end:



Video Caption: NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite captured the eruption from the sun that occurred around 2 p.m. EDT on May 9, 2024. Credit: NOAA

Strong solar storm could disrupt communications and produce northern lights in US


:whistle:
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I've got the Northern Lights going crazy above my house right now.

Always wanted to witness that, and assumed I'd have to time a visit to Alaska, or Norway at the right time of year - never imagined I'd see them over the South coast of England.
 
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#4,297
Wood and Wire said:
I've got the Northern Lights going crazy above my house right now.

Always wanted to witness that, and assumed I'd have to time a visit to Alaska, or Norway at the right time of year - never imagined I'd see them over the South coast of England.
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing as well, but they showed up above our house to start off Saturday here.
Amazing. Awesome.

-Mike
 
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#4,300
Yeah, we had nothing but high haze and the dull orange glow of light pollution last night, but are hoping the forecast for "clear tonight" actually means it. We intend to go out and see what we can see. :thumbsup:
 
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