Smash it into the moon!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Don't know if anyone else thinks this is cool, but I think it's damned cool

SMART-1, a European spacecrafts that's been orbiting the moon to test an experimental propulsion system is reaching the end of its mission as it runs out of fuel. So what better to do with it than smash it into the moon!

AND, it may be visible on the west coast. It should impact tomorrow night (Saturday 9/2) at 10:41PM. The cloud of dust it kicks up might be bright enough to view with backyard telescopes. It'll be on the lower lefthand portion of the moon, in the area where it's dark, so that should help visibility. Predictions for the level of brightness range from bright enough to see with a simple telescope (and may binocs) all the way to not bright enough to be seen by observatories.

I know I'll be watching. Hope I see something!

[innerSpaceman]

That's darn cool, alright.

Ok, here's something you will sooooo not see with your binoculars, but it's space science news I learned earlier this week that I've been dying to geek out about ... and this appears to be the perfect opening.

Albert Einstein turns out to have been right with his prediction that massive gravitational objects would warp space itself, creating visual distortions that can act as magnifying lenses. Through telescopes aimed at huge clusters of galaxies, this amazing cosmic effect of
M A G N I F I C A T I O N
has allowed scientists to finally see a gajillion times further into space and backwards into time than would ever remotely be possible with the current state of terrestrial telescopes.

What they have found are distorted images of the universe's first batch of galaxies from 13.7 billion years ago. A fascinating time in our local universe when the Dark Ages came to an end. Total darkness had existed in the young universe, from the time it was about 400,000 years old, and things had cooled to about sun-surface temperatures, and the first atoms could form. But the mysterious "dark matter" far outweighed the new "real" matter. It took another 200 million years for the first cycle of mega-stars to ignite, die-off, and create the first normal stars to form the first recognizable galaxies.

These are what we can now see because gravity warps space itself into windows where we can peer through the very fabric of time ... and see the world through eyes which we are perhaps not fit to gaze with.




.

[BarTopDancer]

This is so freeking cool. Especialy what iSm just posted.

Is it odd that I heard the voice say MAGNIFICATION as I read it (and typed it)?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Wait...Einstein was right!?

[wendybeth]

Uhm, excuse me, but did we give them permission to wreck our moon?;)


Actually, thanks for the heads up- we got a nifty computerized telescope last year and have been waiting for a decent event to break it in. Hopefully Eric will set it up tomorrow, and I think it has pic taking capabilities, so if we get anything I'll post it.

[scaeagles]

As a moon loving environmentalist, I am shocked that anyone would do something so cruel to the surface of the moon, just for the enjoyment of it all and to create a show that we can all do without.

You say cool. I say cruel.

[Sub la Goon]

NUKE THE MOON!

Oh, wait... I meant to say:

SAVE THE MOON!

ISM - now that you have blown my mind, I may need a cigarette.

[scaeagles]

Aling the lines of what ISM was talking about, a plan I read abou involves sending a hubble like telescope to orbit Jupiter. Somehow they would link it up with other terrestrial telescopes and, in effect, have a telescope with a mirror with the diameter of the distance from erath to jupiter. This is part of the strategy to be able to "see" (rather than just observe star wobble) other planets orbiting other stars. Pretty cool.