Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

[ZenArcade]

And 50 years later send a penny pinching military mission after them in a ship named after a town in a Conrad novel 'it's the only way to be sure'. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Our Solar System does not orbit the centre of the Milky Way in a straight line but undulates like a roller coaster. Does this motion periodically send us through a plane of "dark matter" which perturbs Oort objects and heats the Earth's core, causing geological upheavals, comet impacts and mass extinctions?
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mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/448/2/1816.full
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[ZenArcade]

Nah. Z

[TordelBack]

Although I hate WIMPs as a mechanism for anything, that paper is pretty exciting, and in a decent journal too.

[The Legendary Shark]

I personally distrust the idea of "dark matter" - although I know now my mistrust was based on a misconception. I was labouring under the impression that dark matter was actual matter, but invisible and intangible matter. Now it seems that dark matter isn't necessarily matter at all, just a label given to a phenomena which could be anything from invisible/intangible matter to unknown energies to wrinkles in spacetime to multidimensional geometry. I'm still not sold on the idea but it's now making a little more sense to me.
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I think the phenomena needs a better name buy I'm sure that will come in time as we discover more about it.

[The Legendary Shark]

Some scientists have being doing some science on computers and think it's possible for at least one basic requirement for life to exist in extremely cold environments such as Titan.
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Membrane alternatives in worlds without oxygen: Creation of an azotosome.
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I didn't understand a word of it, naturally, but these folk seem to know what they're talking about and so I allowed myself to experience a feeling of bemused excitement.
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It got me thinking, though, about how an intelligent cryo-species might develop technologically. Humans' technological advancement arguably began in earnest with the mastery of fire; but what about Titan? With virtually no oxygen, what would be the equivalent?
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Even if these hypothetical cryo-people could light something as innocuous to us as a camp fire, to them the heat would be extreme - the equivalent, I suppose, of volcanic heat. So I reckon they would have to use either natural geothermal heat or a chemical process.
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As water ice is as hard as rock on Titan, maybe their first technologies would be about melting water ice and moulding it into axe-heads, spear-tips and knives. (The equivalent to our Stone Age; their Ice Age?) Later, they might learn to add certain things to the melted water so that when it freezes again it becomes stronger, less brittle or even flexible - alloys made from water rather than metals (their Bronze Age maybe).
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This would be a very useful technology; they could create many things from ice; anything from a sewing needle to a sword to the spire of a cathedral. Would they ever be able to generate temperatures high enough to develop metallurgy, though? Could they ever build and launch a Sputnik, or would their own environment make this next to impossible for them?

[Spikes]

Some scientists have being doing some science on computers and think it's possible for at least one basic requirement for life to exist in extremely cold environments such as Titan.
.
Membrane alternatives in worlds without oxygen: Creation of an azotosome.
.
I didn't understand a word of it, naturally, but these folk seem to know what they're talking about and so I allowed myself to experience a feeling of bemused excitement.
.
It got me thinking, though, about how an intelligent cryo-species might develop technologically. Humans' technological advancement arguably began in earnest with the mastery of fire; but what about Titan? With virtually no oxygen, what would be the equivalent?
.
Even if these hypothetical cryo-people could light something as innocuous to us as a camp fire, to them the heat would be extreme - the equivalent, I suppose, of volcanic heat. So I reckon they would have to use either natural geothermal heat or a chemical process.
.
As water ice is as hard as rock on Titan, maybe their first technologies would be about melting water ice and moulding it into axe-heads, spear-tips and knives. (The equivalent to our Stone Age; their Ice Age?) Later, they might learn to add certain things to the melted water so that when it freezes again it becomes stronger, less brittle or even flexible - alloys made from water rather than metals (their Bronze Age maybe).
.
This would be a very useful technology; they could create many things from ice; anything from a sewing needle to a sword to the spire of a cathedral. Would they ever be able to generate temperatures high enough to develop metallurgy, though? Could they ever build and launch a Sputnik, or would their own environment make this next to impossible for them?

Which reminds me; Must re-read A.C.C's 2061, again at some point soon.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Anyone know what this might be? My mate sees it as irrefutable proof for the existence of aliens.  My definition of 'proof' is quite different,  but I still haven't a bleeding clue what it could be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvTw5nwazGs&sns=em

[von Boom]

It's clearly an Inhibitor pack lurking on the sun.

Actually it looks like some sort of coronal mass ejection as part a solar flare or filament eruption.

[Jim_Campbell]

Ooh. Not just flowing water on Mars, but the possibility of a bloody great ocean of the stuff...!

Cheers

Jim

[ZenArcade]

Shit Jayzus, it is the Excession from that banks novel!!!. There are lots of magnetic flux and high temperature plasma phenomena going on in the solar atmosphere.

The posible.super abundance of water on Mars is intriguing; as is the Lunar water ice. Makes some form of future human presence all the more workable. Z

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

So, those bright spots on ceres. What the fuck are they? Has me on tenterhooks, it's very exciting. The main theories are either water being ejected by some sort of geyser or ice volcano, or aliens*. I'm kinda hoping it's a new phenomenon entirely.

*because, y'know NASA is an organisation founded solely to hoodwink the public.

[TordelBack]

My money's on Gully Foyle.

[ZenArcade]

Quant suff! Tordel dude. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Ooh - there's going to be a solar eclipse on Friday! www.ukweatherforecast.co.uk/solar-eclipse-friday-20th-march-uk-weather-forecast/