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Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 2:16 pm
by Arthur Dent
ghostrunner wrote: ↑December 5 22, 1:56 pm
Jim's a moon truther now
I think it's "below" the moon in this pic and lighting the edges of everything. Might be some lens distortion going on. If you look at some of the moon footage it gets pretty skewed at times.
It’s close to a full moon right now, which means the sun-moon-earth are close to in line. That would mean that viewing from the moon, it’s close to new earth (earth illuminated almost from directly behind meaning we see the dark side). The red object is approximately where the sun should be. Mars would be much smaller and in the opposite direction. That said, I’m not sure how they took this photo because the sun should be totally blinding. I think they must have put some kind of heavy filter on the camera just over the region where the sun is to mostly block it.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 2:20 pm
by Joe Shlabotnik
Oh. I thought the red dot was Mars. If it's nothing,I get it.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 2:40 pm
by Arthur Dent
Some more math: From the earth, the sun and moon are about the same size in the sky. From the moon, the sun would still be about this same size, but the earth, which has a 4x radius compared to the moon, should appear 4x wider in the sky. The red blob in the photo here looks to me like maybe half the size of the earth, which is substantially bigger than I’d expect. That said, if you look closely at it, you’ll notice the blob is not circular and there is a big halo surrounding it, which I’d speculate are both artifacts of the camera/filter system causing bleeding of the sun’s light over a larger image area.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 2:43 pm
by ghostrunner
Arthur Dent wrote: ↑December 5 22, 2:16 pm
ghostrunner wrote: ↑December 5 22, 1:56 pm
Jim's a moon truther now
I think it's "below" the moon in this pic and lighting the edges of everything. Might be some lens distortion going on. If you look at some of the moon footage it gets pretty skewed at times.
It’s close to a full moon right now, which means the sun-moon-earth are close to in line. That would mean that viewing from the moon, it’s close to new earth (earth illuminated almost from directly behind meaning we see the dark side). The red object is approximately where the sun should be. Mars would be much smaller and in the opposite direction. That said, I’m not sure how they took this photo because the sun should be totally blinding. I think they must have put some kind of heavy filter on the camera just over the region where the sun is to mostly block it.
I edited, but apparently maybe camera glare? This is the NASA Chief of Mission Planning speculating that. I think the sun is out of frame.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 2:58 pm
by Arthur Dent
Yeah, I think that’s right. Looking at other images, it appears the sun is just below frame, and the red dot is part of the resulting lens flare:
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 4:01 pm
by GeddyWrox
Ah, yeah, that could definitely be some sort of glare. There's no way it's Mars though. Mars would be a speck of light in the sky just like it is for us from here.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 4:14 pm
by Arthur Dent
GeddyWrox wrote: ↑December 5 22, 4:01 pm
Mars would be a speck of light in the sky just like it is for us from here.
Yes. Also, stargazing tip: Mars is currently at it’s two year cycle of closets approaches to Earth. This means it’s much bigger and brighter right now than is typical, so go take a peep if weather allows! But being on close approach to Earth means that the Earth and Mars are in the same part of their orbits, meaning that if you were standing on the sun, the Earth and Mars would be close in the sky. That also means that near the Earth/Moon looking in the direction of the Sun, Mars is directly behind you, and so way out of view of these images.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 5 22, 5:51 pm
by Joe Shlabotnik
Arthur Dent wrote: ↑December 5 22, 4:14 pm
GeddyWrox wrote: ↑December 5 22, 4:01 pm
Mars would be a speck of light in the sky just like it is for us from here.
Yes. Also, stargazing tip: Mars is currently at it’s two year cycle of closets approaches to Earth. This means it’s much bigger and brighter right now than is typical, so go take a peep if weather allows! But being on close approach to Earth means that the Earth and Mars are in the same part of their orbits, meaning that if you were standing on the sun, the Earth and Mars would be close in the sky. That also means that near the Earth/Moon looking in the direction of the Sun, Mars is directly behind you, and so way out of view of these images.
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 27 22, 1:33 pm
by mikechamp
Prepare to be astonished:
James Webb telescope: Amazing images show the Universe as never before
It was the $10bn gift to the world. A machine that would show us our place in the Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched exactly a year ago, on Christmas Day. It had taken three decades to plan, design and build. Many wondered whether this successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope could actually live up to expectations.
We had to wait a few months while its epic 6.5m primary mirror was unpacked and focused, and its other systems tested and calibrated. But, yes, it was everything they said it would be. The American, European and Canadian space agencies held a party in July to release the first colour images. What you see on this page are some of the pictures subsequently published that you may have missed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64051171
Just a sample:
- [SHOW]
Re: Outer Space Thread
Posted: December 27 22, 2:27 pm
by GeddyWrox
@mikechamp, there has been some simply astonishing imagery from Webb already. Did you see this one? Someone took a Hubble image and Webb image of NGC 1566 and overlayed them. It dropped my jaw.
https://www.inverse.com/science/gorgeou ... ebb-mashup
