/sci/ - Science & Math

My moneys on ice, but my heart's on aliens. either way it sure looks super fucking wierd

>>7252831
Its mostly like ice but how would the world even react if it turns out to be ayy lmaos

>>7252788
A rhomboid monolith composed of pure platinum.

I still think it's a diamond mountain

>>7252858
If it is a mountain of diamond can we call it mount dick?

Please be an ancient ayylien outpost...

>>7252788
I see a valuable resource that we need to go out, mine, and collect

Someone eyaculated on the satellite's camera

Now it's a constellation of bright dots? Curious. Also, mountains and rifts.

16 Megabyte gif, now one megabyte webm.

by the way it's reflecting the sun it's obviously a tin foil spaceship that had a bad landing

>>7253201
it's a virus and its spreading

>>7252831
hey even if it is only ice, that's nothing to be really disappointed about. Any water we find is another clue to finding the origin of life in the solar system or something like that. But yeah I'm still holding out for aliums.

>>7253205
Lower right, that looks like a volcano. How the fuck would volcanoes occur in a planetoid?

>>7253336
>0:06

>>7253336
I have no idea. Ceres is weird.

>>7253350
maybe its a pimple

>>7253357
its cum

>>7253208
>>7253336
>>7253350
Maybe it just has acne.

>>7252788
batmans secret icebase, since having one in earth ist so ducking pleb.

>>7253367
"One of us"

>>7252788
Which one is Ceres again?

>>7253379
1 Ceres is a dwarf planet (previously labeled an asteroid) in the main asteroid belt, approximately 2.3 astronomical units from the sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

>>7253379
>Ceres is an artificial world created by an unknown alien civilization around 250 million years ago, using bodies from the asteroid belt as building blocks, which presumably functioned as a temporary outpost.
>Encyclopedia of Solar Xenoarcheology, 2138

>alien dysosphere/space ship
>perfect circle
>gets covered in dust, space debries over billions of years.
>a really big astroide hits it and blows away a lot of the outer shell of space dirt and shows the spaceship hull, a ship that is waiting for humanity
>a weapon left behind by aliens to destroy humanity
>so begins gurren lagann

pia19547-1041b.gif (frame 37 of 55)
single-step through the gif and follow these two moving objects
they come and go but they keep their relative distance

>>7253660
some problem of the ccd probably

>>7253660
wtf are those

>>7253672
Drones scouring the not-deathstar

I can't wait for the closer orbits. Each new view of the bright spot just seems to bring up more questions than answers.

>"Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice," said Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission from the University of California, Los Angeles.

So they've confirmed that it is not a primary light source.

>>7253719
how big/tall would this thing be? It might be from a ice volcano.

>>7253824
>So they've confirmed that it is not a primary light source.

lol ya think

>>7253832
First estimate I saw was ~4 kilometers. It's a pretty big mountain for such a small rock.

It's in a crater, so could it be glass formed from the heat of a meteorite striking the surface?

I personally think its either ice or a large deposit of some platinum group metal

>>7253832
>>7253853
It truly looks like a cryovolcano, but what would cause volcanic activity in such a small and cold non-lunar body is beyond me.

>>7253886
Shit! What if Ceres USED to be a moon?

>>7253886
Huge cracks radiate from a large impact basin. These could open up the crust to allow material from the mantel to reach the surface.

About the mantel, there is precendent to have a molten layer from Vesta already. Ceres, being far larger, is more likley to have one as far as I am concerned.


>>7253892
Doubtful. Ceres seems in too nice an orbit to be part of the asteroid belt, than would reasonably suggest that it once oribited Jupiter (or any extant planet) if that is what you mean.

>>7252788
Crater was made by a comet composed of some metal which has a high luster is my guess. Seems like the easiest explanation.

>>7253205
>as seen in an impact crater
It's fucking ice for sure.

>>7254757
looks like drops of liquid originating from the point of contact

>>7253660
>alien surveillance satellites
>aliens didn't think we'd discover Ceres

Here we goooooooooo

The bright spots remind me of the debris field around the stern of the Titanic.

>>7252788
What do the scientists at NASA think it is.

alien here

can confirm, it's us

>>7255002

>>7253886
>a cryovolcano
That is my hypothesis, that what we're seeing are ice-crystal cones, analogous to volcanic cinder-cones on Earth. The sticking point is how to explain the necessary heat source to propel water (either liquid or vapour) from the subsurface through vents in the crater.

>>7255036
Is radioactive decay an option?

>>7255046
I would think so. At the Planetary Society forums, someone did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the potassium needed to drive cryo-volcanism on Ceres. Assuming the abundance of Potassium is even close to what it is here on Earth, there should be plenty of heat to drive it.

a lot of jizz

>>7253152
>>7253359
>>7255069

>>7255061
That should mean that it's differentiated, right?

>>7255079
fuck u mom

>>7255081
It should, yeah. The mountains, rifts, and other topology suggest that there is, or at least has been, geological activity on Ceres.

>>7253505

ahhhhhhhhhh

>>7254665

Maybe the asteroid belt is a destroyed planet that ceres was once the moon of?

I guess when we learn more about ceres we'll be able to rule out that possibility or not.

>>7254757

I'm not buying the ice explanation.

Think about it, ice would end up being covered in dust and look like the rest of planet, right?

Unless it was formed recently of course.

>>7253230
you know ice doesnt always mean H2O

>>7255349
Where would the dust come from? There's practically no atmosphere.

>>7255349
I'm not buying it for a diffrent reason -

Why would ice form ONLY in that particular spot?

>>7255396
Either because it was an icy impactor or the impact hit a spot where the subsurface ocean was closer to the surface.

What if it wasn't ice, but shiny metals from an object that impacted it a long time ago? I mean, the spots ARE in the middle of a crater.

>One second before Dawn is able to capture a clear image of what the light source is
>Dawn get hit by a meteor

>>7255416
That is not the way impact craters work. If some big lump of aluminum were to smash into the surface, its remenats would be fused with the rock on the surface, and spread over a huge area in tiny droplets. There might be some big hunks of metal left, but no where near that big, and almost defenitly not that polished.

>>7255389
Moon is pretty dusty, too. This is not spread quickly, but it is spread consistently. Whenever and impact occurs, it is thrown from the surface, and covers additional objects. Nothing will clean this dust off (no wind, no flowing liquid), so it will build up progressivley.

>>7255349
For all of you who do not yet know, in 2014 it became apparent that Ceres does, in fact, have water in it. Herschel detected a plume of water vapor, the placment of which coincides nicley with the massive bright spots, if I am not mistaken.

Here is an article from NASA. I can get more scientific papers, but I am not sure that all will be able to view them as easily as this.

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/herschel/ceres-20140122

>>7255533
Are those articles behind paywalls?

Is it emitting light even when in the planetoids shadow? WTF would emit light?

What do you think the approach would be if they actually did find some kind of ancient alien ruin on the surface from some kind of advanced civilization? Would they tell us? How would you react? What would it mean for future space exploration?

God I just want them to find something before I die.

>>7255663

http://www.seti.org/post-detection.html

>>7255609
Often they are. I get acces to a bunch of journal subscriptions via University, which is nice, but alas not universal. It seems sort of silly, and often is annoying.

>>7252831
>>7252835
>>7252858
>>7253230
>>7253336
>>7253862
>>7253868
>>7253886
>>7254702
It's swamp gas or a weather balloon of course!

This has nothing to do with aliums!!!!

>>7255533
It's obviously a newer crater but I'm not sure if there's a common agreed definition of recent. Should an impact throw up a lot of material it would do more than just cover up material in the central peak.

>>7255638
Lava or radioactive material.

>>7256029
What does swamp gas even look like that everything gets identified as it

>>7256029
One day a thought came to me.

What the fuck would ayy lmaos want to do with us.

Why the fuck would YOU go to an ayy lmao planet?

To be captured and made experiments? To be killed? Ayy Lmaos are not among us, they know we would probably capture them and possibly fuck them (in the two senses of the word).

Why don't they look at it when it's on the dark side? We'd be able to know without a doubt whether it is emitting light.

>>7254376
>TotalyNotAliums.gif

Just look at how the light changes in it, it's way more reflective than the rest of Ceres. It's obviously a cloaking device.

>>7256387
They do, they are just not giving us images of the dark side

>>7256400
In the pics it does look sort of like the level of light produced or reflected off of the spots never changes, though I could be wrong.

>>7255638
>Is it emitting light even when in the planetoids shadow? WTF would emit light?

They're not emitting light. The light stops once the bright features are wholly outside of direct sunlight.

Some perspective adjusted projections were assembled to create flyover visualizations. Here are the bright spots.

>>7255349
It's probably ice.
At first a thought it might be liquid water because of how good it reflects at such extreme angles, it must be very smooth.
And then there is its low elevation (it actually looks receded into the surface) and its big surface area.
But I guess it might have frozen up by now.

Flyover of the "volcano" feature.

>>7256448
>It's probably ice.
>At first a thought it might be liquid water because of how good it reflects at such extreme angles, it must be very smooth.
>And then there is its low elevation (it actually looks receded into the surface) and its big surface area.
>But I guess it might have frozen up by now.

I think this is plausible. Ocean ice has a reported albedo between 0.5 and 0.7, which sounds about right for what we can see of the bright spots. I would love to see a newer estimate of the location's albedo from mission scientists, but I'm not holding my breath.

>>7256456
While not as reflective as the Brights spots, it still has some weird reflection going on there. Ice vapor must have settled down there.

>>7256472
There are multiple other white reflective spots on the surface, but none as reflective. That's why I assumed a frozen lake.


Ceres might prove to be much more interesting than Mars.
When can we expect an manned expedition?

>>7253230
>>7255362
*water ice.
Sorry for not being specific enough about that thing that everybody refers to as "ice."

How long until Ceres gets closer?

>>7256492
>How long until Ceres gets closer?
Dawn is spiraling down as we speak.

https://twitter.com/NASA_Dawn/status/598238791015366657

>Continuing to spiral to lower altitudes. Today I will descend from ~7,800 miles (13,000 km) to ~7,200 miles (12,000 km) from #Ceres

>>7256503
>LAMO
Fuck, I couldn't help but read LMAO

>>7256503
I can't wait until we get some close up color pictures like we got on Vesta.

>>7256503
>https://twitter.com/NASA_Dawn/status/598238791015366657


Cheers buddy, so is Dawn going to land on Ceres?

>>7256551

Nope. Dawn doesn't have a lander component. Once Dawn enters its Low Altitude Mapping Orbit, that's where it will remain forever more.

>>7256551
No. It's just a satellite. Actually it's the first craft ever to visit 2 celestial bodies in once mission. It went to Vesta before. All thanks to ion propulsion.

Most satellites we send to other celestial bodies we crash once they've reached the end of their lifetime. But because Ceres might have liquid water it will stay in orbit forever so we don't contaminate it by accident.

It's actually surprising how little we know about our own solar system. There a probably hundreds of Ceres sized object out there with orbits beyond Pluto.

>>7256664
It says 'ayy lmao'

>>7256609
For all we know there could be proper planets orbiting out there, and we may have evidence of it: http://www.universetoday.com/118252/astronomers-are-predicting-at-least-two-more-large-planets-in-the-solar-system/

previous thread:
>>7253276

Could it be phosphorescent minerals?

>>7256830
Probably not. With a hard look at the bright regions, there's little to suggest that the bright spots are actually emitting light. However, it's entirely possible that the bright materials are composed of mineral deposits.

>>7256379
if they are capable of traveling all the way here i doubt we are the ones that will be doing the capturing and experimentation. we must look like naked primitive monkeys to them
infact i guess if aliens ever visited earth they were like
>meh, waste of fucking time nothing but insects and monkeys on this planet

>>7256532
lol same here. had to read it several times because it made no sense

>>7256532
>>7257005
It's the time when we will be close enough to see aliens

>>7256532
>>7257005
It's the time when we will be close enough to see aliens

>>7253205
I posted this in /x/yes I know spoilers don't work here earlier and I'll post it here too. This doesn't look like a reflection, it looks like the source of the light is on Ceres itself, rather than ice or some other reflective surface.

>>7256852
I might have meant fluorescent. Short wave light still reaches it, right?

>>7257160
Spectral data is hard to come by; the Dawn team is holding onto the primary mission data for six months so that they get first crack at publishing papers based on data from the instruments they paid for.

>>7256609
There's only one Ceres. Ceres should be made a planet again because the reason for denoting it no longer applies. Back then they thought it was just one of hundreds of asteroids but now we know it's more than just an asteroid and there is no way we'll find another object like it.

What if it's some microbial colony? :3c

>>7255069

Leave it to the anime poster to post a fucktarded comment.

Contrast enhanced view of the "Piazzi" feature.

My hypothesis is that it's from a relatively recent meteor strike, where the impact has glassed parts of the surface near the center of the impact crater, turning portions of the surface into metallic slag which is is highly reflective so that we see those spots.

Side question: Why should it be ice? Why only in that spot on Ceres?

If meteors striking it's surface in the past formed the shiny metal, then over time it gets covered up by moondust, to look like all those other hundreds of craters you see there.

>>7259027
>Why should it be ice?
I would heartily join you in asking why in the world (solar system?) should ice or ice related material be on the surface of Ceres, except for one thing: Actual water vapor was seen, very recently, in that region of Ceres, by a space telescope.

This does not mean that is ice; it could be salt, something else disturbed by an eruption, who knows? But it seems probable that these two things are related somehow.

As for why is it no where else on the surface, there are other bright spots (some probable crater rays), and we are just seeing the freshest mark. It is also possible that these features, while often created, are very short lived, as could be the case with an ice deposit.

>>7257402
>anime im MY thread?
>REEEEEEE

>>7252788
That's no moon.

>>7253336
I'm sure it's just a bunch of cryo volcanoes, and how tf would an ayylien even survive on a planet so far from the sun? If there's ayyliens they're from a bigger super advanced colony that will most likely enslave us and anal probe us for the rest of our days. Gg no re

>>7256567
I thought dawn wasn't entering orbit and was going to do a flyby? Or is that the one flying to Pluto? I get them mixed up.

>>7259187
Yeah never mind I'm thinking of new horizons.

>>7256379
>ayy lmao detected

Still reminds me of a debris field.

>>7260163
Do you realize how large those spots are?

>>7260167
No one realizes how large those spots are, because they're still not resolved. I do realize that the rectangular area occupied by bright features is several miles on each side.

>>7260169
What's the minimum size assuming they only reflect light?

>>7260171
I wish I knew. I don't know how to estimate the minimum albedo of those spots, and I haven't seen any figures newer than the minimum estimate of 0.4, back when these images from February 19th (4 km/pixel) were the best ones we had.

>>7260163
Those are diamonds.
I will put money on that one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va4YtsZJ_F8

>>7260163

Crashed interstellar craft.

I find it weird how there are those random dots off to the side of the central peak. Odd distribution considering the rest of the area.

>>7253892
Thats no moon.......

Dawn's shadow?

>>7261080

Dawn is 13,000 km up, so no. Every pixel in that image is 1.6 km square.

>>7261080
no, that spot is probably a few km wide it's too big

>>7261093
>>7261095

Then what is it?

>>7261116

>>7261116

dunno. something on the camera?

>>7261116
It obviously doesn't follow a trajectory or something. I'd say its just a speck or glitch or noise. Or maybe tiny space debris

>>7261116
image glitch

>>7261116
literally a ufo getting the fuck out of there because we found their base

>>7261116
weather balloon

>>7261116
If I recall correctly, that image defect is in a fixed position relative to the framing camera, which strongly suggests its a spec of dust on the lens.

>>7253660
>>7261080
>>7261116
all of these spots are staying at perfect relative distances to one another on the image

It's just stuff on the lens.

>>7261188
triangle alien dropship confirmed

illuminati confirmed

>>7256609
>Sedna
>Distance from Sun: 518.6 AU
This scares me. That's so remote! Closer than the expected location of the Oort cloud, but too far away to be associated with anything from inside the solar system. It's just so...weird.

This contrast-enhanced image shows darker patches that seem to radiate from the area of the bright spots.

>>7261116


it's a feel

Fun fact. The size of Ceres is approximately the same size as Death Star II.

>/sci/
>believing NASA.
>NASA doest have real pictures of the earth in full but can take pictures of other shit in space
>believing we landed on the moon
>believing the earth curves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCF5BWm9bak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3qn2lUbix0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E9G8fbnZ24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT4Xz2c2ItA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlXG0REiVzE&feature=youtu.be&t=169

/sci/ fucking dropped.

>>7261242
thanks /x/...

>>7261242

>>7261232
>That's no moon

>>7252788
Just salts OP.

>>7261261
>chemtard calling ionic minerals "salts"

>>7261242
I know this is b8 but, if this shit was real then we'd have to change all the physics rules we managed to observe and "create".

>>7261347
what i posted is fucking real. what matters is that your professors and everyone else in on it would lose their jobs overnight. Moon landing was faked, son. deal with it. We cant go higher than low earth altitude. NASA has alot to cover up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCF5BWm9bak

>>7261476
You said you were leaving, anon! Why do you have to disappoint me like this?

Pic unrelated. It's hydrological absorption spectra compared to a recent map of Ceres.

>tfw we found Ayyliums

Will they kill us

>>7261555
If the aliens are already in our solar system and they have the means for interstellar flight, they should already know about us. Why haven't they killed us already?

>>7261577
Maybe they are just watching us to determine if they should talk to us or not.
Lets assume that in the future where we have managed to finally travel to other stars and after searching forever we finally found intelligent life
But they haven't yet reached the tech level to really leave their planet.
Should we talk to them? What impact could that have on their society? If we do talk to them should we just give them the tech to travel the stars.
There's so many different things that could go wrong that maybe its just best to wait things out a bit

>>7261578
>There's so many different things that could go wrong that maybe its just best to wait things out a bit
You've got that right - and we're just talking about the known unknowns!

>>7261583
Thank you Mister Rumsfeld

>>7261593
He wasn't wrong, though.

There are things you know that you know, things you know that you don't know about, and things that you don't know you don't know.

>>7254376
>11000 revolutions in th future
>Modern technology allows for space travel
>set up a base in a far off galaxy to monitor an alien species
>Holograms still look like ps2 graphics
>immediately draws alium attention
I think we can all learn something from this experience.

>>7256446
"were assembled"

c'mon anon i'm not a tinfoil hat guy but...

>>7262575

It's a 3D projection constructed from 2D data of a 3D object from different perspectives; the flyby animation was assembled. Assembled != faked.

From the Dawn mission update page:
May 15, 2015 - Dawn Spiraling Lower

Dawn is using its ion engine to maneuver to its second mapping orbit, which will be 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) high. It will reach that altitude in early June.

During the course of the day today, Dawn’s altitude will decrease from 5,500 miles (8,900 kilometers) to 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers).

Tomorrow the spacecraft will pause ion-thrusting to take pictures of Ceres for navigation.

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

>>7255663
>God I just want them to find something before I die.
We have found elusive evidence of Dyson Spheres and engineered galaxies.
There is also the mysterious Dark Flow.
Plenty of evidence of artificial engineering of the universe.
But on a scale of billions of years ahead of us which we can't distinguish clearly from natural processes, because they are so gigantic.

>>7256609
One of the most fascinating objects in Solar System is Triton.
It has atmosphere, cryovolcanos, probably subsurface ocean.
We have only seen it once.

>>7264754
Maybe we'll see Herschel and La Verrier-Galle/Lassell probes in our lifetime to follow up on Galileo and Cassini-Huygens.

New images when?

>>7264748
Yeah im going to need some citations

>>7264754
I've seen it theorized that Pluto is a Triton analogue; if that's the case, we'll a good cross reference for what Triton is like from New Horizons.

>>7264754
What about that planet made of diamond?
or is that a hoax

>>7261242
>>NASA does have real pictures of the earth in full but can't take pictures of other shit in space.

Reworded for coherence but I seriously want /sci/ to explain how it is that Hubble can take a clear shot of Jupiter and It's Moons. Yet we don't have official crisp, color shots of Ceres from a probe sent right into It's orbit.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system/jupiter/

>>7265993
Because due to technical restrictions the probes transmitter has a low bandwidth. It can take up to many months to send terabites of data if all you have is a 10 watt low band radio.

>>7265879
I think I remember seeing in some IMAX video at a museum that uranus or neptune has diamonds raining from the sky or something.

it prolly has something to do with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvacG_nhD34

>>7265993
>but I seriously want /sci/ to explain how it is that Hubble can take a clear shot of Jupiter and It's Moons. Yet we don't have official crisp, color shots of Ceres from a probe sent right into It's orbit.

The diameter of Jupiter is about 150 times the diameter of Ceres. Does that answer your question?

>>7266026
So, they used millions to build Dawn but outfitted it with a low-bandwith transmitter, thus rendering visual data they receive from it useless?

>>7266066
>>Jupiter and It's Moons.
>>and It's Moons.
>>Moons.

No, it doesn't.

>>7266106
Jupiter's moons (at least the Galilean ones commonly imaged) reflect a lot more light than Ceres does.

Aliens

>>7266127

>>7261577

>find a new lifeform
>reaction is to kill it

This is why we're not allowed off earth.

>>7265993
Ceres isn't as colorful as the Galilean moons.
Think about the Earth moon. It's right in orbit, has been subject to various spacecraft and even human landings and everything still looks black and white.
Another thing is that the instruments aren't designed for color photography and instead concentrate on resolution. Colors need to be extracted by using filters in front of the camera.

>>7266438
>reaction is to be worried about being killed

Read more often

>>7266106
>So, they used millions to build Dawn but outfitted it with a low-bandwith transmitter, thus rendering visual data they receive from it useless?

No, you just cannot fit a more powerpull radio transmitter on the probe, because all of the probes onboard computing it has to run only on a few Watt of power.

For example the New Horizons Probe on its way to Pluto runs on something like 20 Watt.

Contray to what the eco-fags believe, solar panels are quite shit at producing a decent power output.

Same goes for radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

>>7266689
Solar panels get worse the further you are from the sun. Dawn, Rosetta and Juno are pushing the limits.
Venus Express had a whooping 1100W.
>For example the New Horizons Probe on its way to Pluto runs on something like 20 Watt.
200

>>7266705

And they barely make RTGs anymore because of muh feelings or something.

>>7256664
Get your pepes while supplies last!

>>7265993
>Hubble can take a clear shot of Jupiter and It's Moons
Post a clear hubble-shot of a jovian moon taken by hubble. Please do.

>Yet we don't have official crisp, color shots of Ceres from a probe sent right into It's orbit.
The probe is still in a high orbit and will go into a lower one over time if you're talking about the detail level.

>>7266708
Because they cost a shitload of money.

>>7266711
Here's Ganymede as seen by Hubble.
Compare to >>7266436
Ganymede has roughly 5.5 times the radius of Ceres and Jupiter is about twice as far from the sun as Ceres.

>>7265993
>Reworded for coherence but I seriously want /sci/ to explain how it is that Hubble can take a clear shot of Jupiter and It's Moons. Yet we don't have official crisp, color shots of Ceres from a probe sent right into It's orbit.

So, fun fact; the Hubble Space Telescope is not a panacea. In fact, its mirror is just plain tiny, and its resolving power is abysmal. The only reason why it can take those amazing photos of the Cosmos is because they're 1: Unbelievably, inconceivably huge, and 2: it can spend a lot of time just staring at distant things and collecting the photons that make their way into the collection system, because there's no atmosphere in space to absorb them first. We should have been building an optical wavelength space telescope to replace Hubble five years ago. We have James Webb coming up in 2018, but it's is an infrared telescope.

>>7266738
Do you want pretty pictures or do you want scientific results?

>>7266705
>>7266708

>sorry, typo made one 0 disappear

Well, you get my point >>7266689 why it is difficult to achieve high bandwidth radio communication on space probes.

>>7266738
There's much less demand for an optical space telescope to succeed Hubble because ground based telescopes now have adaptive optics which gives them superior resolution and greater sensitivity by shear size.

>>7266747

Why not both?

>>7266754

Yes, there's less demand because the angular resolution of ground based telescopes has exploded in recent years, but adaptive optics can't compensate for the planet's day/night cycle or absorption spectra.

>>7266757
Day night cycle isn't a big deal. HST equally wastes a great deal of time because of it's orbit.

Absorption also isn't significant in the optical.

>>7266768
Switching gears for a moment, are there missions you think would be better investments for NASA space science than a higher resolution optical space telescope?

>>7266781
A telescope on the far side of the moon.

>>7266794

Why there? Isn't NGST's placement (always in a shadow) a better choice?

>>7266781
Yes. We shouldn't be replicating capability (and at great cost) just because people are nostalgic over HST.

There are lots of things you can do which cannot be done from the ground. A large UV mission for example is in great demand HST COS is good but ageing and it's performance is degrading. UV imaging spectroscopy or tuneable filters would be very powerful. Deep UV imaging could reveal the cosmic web which could be a cosmological probe and directly image galactic inflows.

The infrared is obviously important but that's covered with JWST for the most part, sadly over very small fields. A wide field NIR survey is coming from ESA's Euclid but there are complaints about it's depth, WFIRST would go deeper and with greater resolution but unlike Euclid it isn't so well justified and isn't funded.

Of course a WISE upgrade would be fantastic, it's ok but it is shallow and very poor resolution.

In my area cosmology doing a weak lensing survey from space is the perceived priority. Euclid isn't perfect, it's clearly designed by a committee but it's pretty good. A near infrared spectral survey would also be great to compliment the ground based dark energy experiments like DESI at higher redshift.

Then you could talk about a CMB polarisation successor for Planck.

>>7266800
JWST isn't placed in shadow at L2, it's in an orbit around it chosen because there is no eclipse. It's solar powered.

>>7266804
An excellent set of answers & explanation of your perspective. Thanks, Anon.

To be fair, I want a successor to Hubble solely on the grounds that we can do better than Hubble, and it's practically a celebrity even though it's not that good. I don't think the general public wants to see Hubble replaced, entirely because it's one of the few scientific instruments that people have a fondness for.

>>7266800
Because you're protected from the Earth's harmful rays.

>>7252788
wormhole

>>7266815
Don't get me wrong. I would also like to see HST replaced the trouble is budgets are finite. It may be a small telescope but it is still wonderfully powerful, I submitted a proposal in cycle 23.
HST is great but a replacement would cost 5 billion even for a still small 2-4 meter telescope (no deployable JWST optics). That would be the whole astrophysics budget gone just as JWST sucked up the past 20 years and literally ate projects like LISA and IXO. In the mean time we are crying out for an x-ray observatory.
US astronomy is in trouble, budgets are flat costs are increasing. We need smaller missions which are in great demand and we need more NASA support for ground based astronomy.

>>7266993
> past 10* years

Isn't an infrared scope going to give us lower resolution for the same area though? I.e. Pretty pictures from visible light also gives us better resolution. If "better science value" from resolution was the goal, we wouldn't go infrared, we'd go x-ray. As far as I know, JWST isn't really designed to see detailed images of anything near our solar systems, but to try to see more of the early universe, which Hubble and Keck have shown to be apparently all redshifted.

>>7267026
For the same mirror diameter yes. Resolution isn't the ultimate goal for science, it's useful for some things but not others. Optical surveys have poor resolution for the most part and yet have huge science return. Sensitivity is usually the main aspect which is true for JWST. JWST was designed to have the sensitivity in the near infrared to detect rest frame optical from the first galaxies.

JWST will give us pretty much just as good resolution as HST in the solar system but will add new information such as molecular lines and integral field spectroscopy.

The distant universe as shown to be redshifted long before Keck and even before Hubble the astronomer.

>>7266689
Lets consider the Voyager probes, they cost millions back in the 70's but here we are in 2015 and we're supposed to believe that everyone can get a cell-phone with a half-decent HD color camera on it but to outfit Dawn with one and a superior microwave transmitter would have been too costly? Voyager captured the famous "Blue Dot image". Plus numerous other color images of the outer planet. NASA could do that back in the 70's but now they won't give us clear images of a planetoid between Mars and Jupiter? Plus all these lines about being Dawn being in the "Dark-side" of Ceres. Do they not know what their own terms mean anymore? Or have budget-cuts thrown NASA's tech back so far that they could get clear shots of the "Dark-side" of the Moon but now it stops them from getting clear shots of Ceres?

With all that on top of their still apparently being unable to tell us what the bright-spot on Ceres is, why did they bother sending Dawn out in the first place? Not to say that they shouldn't have but I have a hard-time believing that they couldn't have sent it out better-equipped even with the budget available.

Furthermore, didn't they report at one point that they'd performed spectrographic analysis of Ceres to determine that it has water? Spectrography has been used to determine that there are sister suns in other galaxies, yet they still aren't sure what the bright-spot on Ceres is?

>>7266711
>>7266735
You can see clearer shots of Jovian Moons in Hubble's own gallery linked in the very post that >>7266711 replied too. Is Hubble's focal-length determined by having Jupiter in the back-ground? Because last I checked, that's not how telescopes work.

>>7266738
Fun fact: HST has had the capability to image planetoid size objects for decades. Yet the only shot we have from it of Ceres is out-of-focus and from 2004. At least that one is in color: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#List_of_Hubble_instruments

>>7267478
You have to remember that these probes were launched a decade ago and had to use technology that was proven to last over a decade.
The cameras on Dawn and New Horizons are more advanced than those on the Voyager probes which also used a color filter system.

>they could get clear shots of the "Dark-side" of the Moon but now it stops them from getting clear shots of Ceres?
We have clear pictures of the far side of the moon.That is the side facing away from Earth and therefore not visible from here. The dark side is changing as the Earth-moon system rotates.
We'll get good pictures and further science of Ceres but it may have to take a few months.

>>7267478
>we are in 2015 and we're supposed to believe that everyone can get a cell-phone with a half-decent HD color camera on it but to outfit Dawn with one and a superior microwave transmitter would have been too costly?

Are you fucking dense? Do you have half an idea of how much a space radiations resistant electrical component can be?
The cost for one sensor is 0,10€, however a sensor for the same purpose, specifically made for spacecrafts, can cost as much as 400€.

The electronics aboard satellites, compared to the one available to the general public, are extremely obsolete. The main difference however lies in the reliability and the sturdiness of the components: if your smartphone fails it can be fixed or directly changed, if a satellite fails cannot be fixed, and replace it costs hundreds of millions.

To give you an idea, the architecture of Play Station's (the first one) microprocessor has been recently adopted to be used in new generation satellites. Why not an i7 Intel Core Inside™? Because Play Station's microprocessors has been proven to be reliable, and has been improved to resist space extreme conditions.

>>7267478
>Yet the only shot we have from it of Ceres is out-of-focus and from 2004.

That's not out of focus. It's been deconvolved from the PSF of the telescope. It's a super-resolution reconstitution.

>>7267546
>The cost for one sensor is 0,10€, however a sensor for the same purpose, specifically made for spacecrafts, can cost as much as 400€.

Don't make up numbers. If it was that little no one would care.

Science grade detectors are very extensive, a single Hawaii 2RG detector costs about a million dollars. And then it needs to be integrated.

>>7267606
I'm not making up numbers: those exact numbers have been told me by my lecturer, which is the project manager of an instrument that will be embedded in the lander of ExoMars. And I was referring to the electrical component of an instrument, a pressure detector if I recall correctly but I'm not sure, not the whole instrument.

>>7261612
One of the known knowns is to not speak intellectually in front of the American people.

HD cameras in phones are relatively cheap only due to mass production; a single fab can cost tens of billions of dollars up front, but the per chip cost afterwards is small. When companies like Samsung design a phone, they take into account that in order to sell it at $300, they need to sell X million copies before breaking even. And they optimize to make it cheapest for the consumer - so it's only designed for a handful of g's, one atmosphere, and room temp/humidity. Would an of the shelf camera work in space? Maybe... But probably not long or well if it managed to take any photos. Kind of a weird dilemma

ayy lmao

>>7267646
Depends on what space we're talking about. I think the asteroids on the ISS etc have used various digital cameras by now.

>>7267670
>the asteroids on the ISS

I knew it, space rocks have begun infiltrating our society.

>>7253368
Always has to one up supes

>>7267889
watch apollo 18 for details

>>7267889

Catholic pope hit by space rock.
Muslims worship a space rock in Mecca

Coincidence? I think not

>>7269304
What if Earth itself is actually a giant space rock?

>>7267590
The only post in response to >>7267478 that attempts to address why Hubble hasn't been used to take clear images of Ceres. Yet fails in claiming that the shot it took in 2004 is hi-res, it has color but no detail, while the current images from Dawn are in black-and-white and slightly higher resolution. Yet still not enough to let us determine anything of interest about Ceres . . . To go back to the point on spectrographic analysis, why hasn't that been used to determine the composition of the bright-spot yet? I'm betting that when they do put forth the information, they will claim that Ceres' geology is similar to Earth's Moon and the bright spots are the result of some type of silicate formation.

>>7269304
Holy vestments Batman, when did this happen?
Does Mel Gibson know?

hope it's oil

>>7269886
The color in the Hubble shot is exaggerated.
Look at the images for Vesta Dawn took and compare them to the HST ones available before.
Dawn is still in the approach phase. Just because it has entered orbit doesn't mean it's done.

>>7269886
>>7269907
There is a proposal for space telescope to photograph outer Solar System objects


http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/astrorecon2015/pdf/6043.pdf
Kuiper is a Discovery mission concept
dedicated to groundbreaking outer solar system
science and exploration, with a significant component
dedicated to the spectroscopic characterization of Kuiper
Belt Objects (KBOs), Centaurs, Trojans, and irregular
satellites. Through comprehensive time-domain
and statistical population studies of the giant planets,
their active satellites, and these important outer solar
system small body populations, we will answer key
Decadal Survey questions and provide the data sets
and results needed to plan the next round of outer solar
system New Frontiers and Flagship missions.
Mission Overview: The recent Planetary

>>7270410
Why can't we send a probe to the Jupiter trojans? That should be possible with current solar panels and more practical than catching up to several main belt asteroids.

>>7269886
>Yet fails in claiming that the shot it took in 2004 is hi-res, it has color but no detail
You misunderstand. The resolution of the image has nothing to do with the spatial resolution from the telescope. It is a reconstruction, just like on CSI it is "enhanced" to remove the affect of pixelisation and PSF.

The current images from Dawn dwarf it in terms of resolution.

>To go back to the point on spectrographic analysis, why hasn't that been used to determine the composition of the bright-spot yet?
Dawn is not yet in it's science orbit, we don't even know if any data has been taken. The schedule of maneuvers is strict.

>>7252788

I really doubt it's ice.

Sorry, didn't read thread and am kind of a science dunce, but I thought light went through water, which would result in a darker spot (hence scientists of old thinking darker spots on the moon were lakes when they were just iron deposits).

>>7270697
Ice is more dense than liquid, so it becomes more reflective.

>>7256379
>go to ayy lmaos
>try to converse with them
>fail, leave message "Ayy Lmao" in a case that will prevent degradation over time
>leave Ceres
>a decade later, the lights gets stronger
>has ultra resolution telescope, zoom in on the lights
>it reads "Ayy Lmao"
>mfw

Humans, no matter what, would always fuck up something it doesn't understand.

>>7267478
>With all that on top of their still apparently being unable to tell us what the bright-spot on Ceres is, why did they bother sending Dawn out in the first place? Not to say that they shouldn't have but I have a hard-time believing that they couldn't have sent it out better-equipped even with the budget available.

Wait, we have been barley at Ceres, have yet to get close enough to properly use all the instruments, and we have not yet solved all the major questions about the object? Sheesh, what is this, reality?

>>7271035

>barley at ceres

bright spot confirmed for ayyliums brewing some beer lads

>>7256379
To discover new technology, new scientific methods, etc.
A ton of autists will just say "Well if they're more advanced than us they they will have invented everything we have!" or something is to that effect.
Those people are generally morons.
The advancement of a field generally points to the zenith of our accomplishments, and generally, it's a pretty broad umbrella with lots of things missing.

Completely unrelated, but thing of shit like the power drill.
Until we actually got forced to make cordless drills, nobody really though too much about it, and that sort of follows as a good example to how you can miss things within a field despite them being under your capability.

>>7271072
Shame they didn't request to name features after cereal grains. Instead we get agricultural festivities and deities.

>>7253552
Waiting for my Cathedral Terra GL

>>7271035
Glad to see that someone else gets my point and even manages to get a cute pun about it in.
I understand that there is such a thing as a mission itinerary but they've already got images, spectrograph analysis entails taking images and they could be doing it from Earth in the first place. Dawn has been in orbit around Ceres for months, what are they waiting for? Project Blue-beam?

By the way, has anyone here tried to enhance the images we do have of Ceres?

>>7272395
They're slowly but steadily spiralling down to the first mapping orbit (HAMO). Ion propulsion takes its time.

>>7272395
>What are they waiting for?

The probe uses ion rockets, which are roughly comparable in thrust to a light breeze. This means it takes a long, long time to change orbits. (Extremely fuel-efficient though, which is why we use them).