Astronomy Stuff

[the stinking enigma]

it at least answers the age old how do you take a shit in a spacesuit counundrum

[Bobbie Bobster]

29 minutes ago, the stinking enigma said:

it at least answers the age old how do you take a shit in a spacesuit counundrum

I'm not sure what "it" is but there was never any conundrum.

In-capsule, the Apollo Fecal Collection System was used.  Basically, putting a sticky baggie over your ass and letting nature take its course.  Also, your crewmates putting their faith in the special "low waste" diet you're all on and your own finger dexterity.

All the gory details (No.1 and No.2!) are here.

A nice quote from the NASA evaluation report:

The fecal collection process was, moreover, extremely time consuming because of the level of difficulty involved with use of the system. An Apollo 7 astronaut estimated the time required to correctly accomplish the process at 45 minutes. Good placement of fecal bags was difficult to attain; this was further complicated by the fact that the flap at the back of the constant wear garment created an opening that was too small for easy placement of the bags.

And of course, new definitions of the term "floater", courtesy of Apollo 10:

Stafford: “Oh — Who did it?”
Young and Cernan: “Who did what?”
Cernan: “Where did that come from?”
Stafford: “Get me a napkin quick. There’s a turd floating through the air.”
Young: “I didn’t do it. It ain’t one of mine.”
Cernan: “I don’t think it’s one of mine.”
Stafford: “Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away.”
Young: “God Almighty”(laughter)

On EVA, it's simply adult-sized diapers nappies.

[Bobbie Bobster]

Thanks to progress, things are a bit better on ISS now:

[the stinking enigma]

That bog don't look too comfy.

[finlo]

1 hour ago, the stinking enigma said:

That bog don't look too comfy.

Like shitting through someone's cat flap!

[display name]

On ‎4‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 5:55 PM, paul's got wright said:

I think he had a bit more of a clue than you!

So you have some sort of thought process? 

[paul's got wright]

1 hour ago, display name said:

So you have some sort of thought process? 

Yes, how about you? 

[Bobbie Bobster]

Not strictly astronomy, but folks are getting increasingly testy about the lack of public comment after SpaceX's Crew Dragon recent anomaly. Likely to lead to significant delays in future planned tests and it's eventual entry into service on the ISS taxi run.

 

[Chinahand]

What you get when you create a 1060 hour exposure of the Large Magellanic Cloud - a small companion galaxy to the Milky Way:

Hydrogen bubbles collapsing into nebula and the nurseries of stars. 

[Chinahand]

That’s a 100Mbyte photo so it might load funny!

 

[Bobbie Bobster]

Evolution of measurements of Hubble constant.

What were those guys in 1932 smoking?

 

Also... https://astronomynow.com/2019/04/27/hubble-constant-mismatch-no-fluke-new-physics-may-be-needed/

Hubble measurements suggest a faster expansion rate in the modern universe than expected, based on how the universe appeared more than 13 billion years ago. These measurements of the early universe come from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite. This discrepancy has been identified in scientific papers over the last several years, but it has been unclear whether differences in measurement techniques are to blame, or whether the difference could result from unlucky measurements.

The latest Hubble data lower the possibility that the discrepancy is only a fluke to 1 in 100,000. This is a significant gain from an earlier estimate, less than a year ago, of a chance of 1 in 3,000.

These most precise Hubble measurements to date bolster the idea that new physics may be needed to explain the mismatch.

[paul's got wright]

On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 10:05 PM, Chinahand said:

What you get when you create a 1060 hour exposure of the Large Magellanic Cloud - a small companion galaxy to the Milky Way:

 

Hydrogen bubbles collapsing into nebula and the nurseries of stars. 

"What you get when you create a 1060 hour exposure of the Large Magellanic Cloud"

 an oil painting?

Edited April 28, 2019 by paul's got wright

[Chinahand]

PGW beautiful isn’t it but more importantly is the science it provides about hydrogen in a nearby satellite galaxy.

One thing though. It’s a huge image and probably costs MF a disproportional amount of bandwidth which costs them money. Care to edit your post to delete the repeat just to be nice to MF. 

[Chinahand]

Point your telescope to a tiny patch of sky, with only 4 or so stars in your field of view and collect light for hours upon hours and you might get a picture like this - a few thousand distant galaxies emerging photon by photon onto the sensor which long replaced the eyeball at the end of a telescope ... so much better to watch you with.

The arrow points to a dwarf galaxy "only" 6 billion times heavier than the sun and a staggering 1.8 billion light years away.

Just let those numbers sink in a bit!

Astronomers initially weren't that interested in this tiny spec of ancient light, rather watching a different brighter galaxy in about the same field of view.

All that changed in 2005 when there was a sudden huge explosion of X-rays from the centre of our galaxy, eclipsing its previously more prominent friend - ah, serendipity. 

Astronomers patiently watched and recoreded, measured and theorised and 11 years later, with X-rays still streaming from the galaxy, they came up with an explanation for what they were seeing.  A star in the galaxy had been destroyed and was being messily eaten by a black hole with the X-rays the result of the feast.

Read the results here.

And see more here:

 

 

 

[Rushen Spy]

I miss the vibrant optimism of Carl Sagan.