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Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

spacetelescope.org

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Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#91

Post by somesortofsystm »

grey-area wrote: post #77
ISL wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one can readily argue (and I'm a physicist, so I really love outward-looking telescopes) that reconnaissance satellites will tend to make the world a more-peaceful place. Uncertainty can lead humans to make decisions to handle a worst-case scenario that isn't actually taking place. High-quality imaging makes it difficult for nation-states to bluff or to understate the scale of decay/disaster and allows for fi…

reconnaissance satellites will tend to make the world a more-peaceful place. There is absolutely no evidence of this. The example you cite has not seen any concrete action taken, China is left to act with impunity. On the contrary, along with imaging military installations of rival states, they are probably mostly used to surveil targets for the ever-expanding global assassination and missile strike program run by th…

You won't get much agreement around these parts, where American war imperialism is treated with indifference or, usually, servitude - but I just wanted to say that I see your point and agree with you completely.

The peace that could've been made by spending the funds for a single Keystone on, instead, schools and water plants and hospitals - in the country's the Keystone would be observing... but instead, imperialist war-mongers justify these toys with ever-broader threats of violence and terror.

We should be dropping books, not bombs.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#93

Post by billforsternz »

pkaye wrote: post #79
billforsternz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the Jupiter and Saturn with a modest 14 inch telescope last week https://www.darkskyproject.co.nz/tours/crater-experience/ The two planets themselves, and the four large moons of Jupiter and of course the rings of Saturn were all very visible, and this kind of old school technology has been available for hundreds of years. But basically I agree, Hubble and robot planetary exploration are awesome.

How good is the nighttime visibility in New Zealand given its a somewhat isolated island? Here is California I would have drive somewhere out far for it to be dark enough.

I live in a smallish city (200K to 500K population, depending on how you define the city bounds). I just stepped out (it's 11pm here) and looked up (it's not normally something I think about). It's pretty reasonable, you can definite see stars by the thousands, some of them very bright. The air here is very clear for city air. Out in the country it's definitely better though. The excursion I linked to was in a very isolated area, the Mackenzie Basin in Canterbury. The local authorities there have picked up this particular ball and are running with it. Recognising that they don't have much light pollution anyway, they have set about minimising what light pollution there is (eg street lighting points down, in general they try to avoid unnecessarily leaking light up). It does make for a genuinely impressive sky on a clear night. The excursion was great. The bus takes you to a very isolated spot, and they give you plenty of dark time to get your night vision working well. Recommended. The youngsters who were acting as tour guides were both from the Northern Hemisphere and they made a point of talking up the Southern sky, saying in general it is more interesting. I don't know much about astronomy and can't judge, but they made a good case. I had no idea that Alpha Centauri is only visible in this hemisphere for example. Maybe astronomy would be a good hobby. It "feels" more profound than chess, C++ programming, and the intersection of the two :- )

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#94

Post by jgalt212 »

ISL wrote: post #23
java-man wrote: post #3

For one Hubble, something like a dozen of Keyhole spy telescopes have been launched [0]. Just imagine the kind of science we would have gotten if we launched a dozen of Hubbles instead... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen

I think one can readily argue (and I'm a physicist, so I really love outward-looking telescopes) that reconnaissance satellites will tend to make the world a more-peaceful place. Uncertainty can lead humans to make decisions to handle a worst-case scenario that isn't actually taking place. High-quality imaging makes it difficult for nation-states to bluff or to understate the scale of decay/disaster and allows for fi…

Indeed, Ike proceeded with the U-2 to disprove the Bomber Gap, and ratchet down the tensions and military industrial complex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap#Disproval_of_gap

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#95

Post by java-man »

admissionsguy wrote: post #87
java-man wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not disagree with this. I wanted to point out an order of magnitude difference between science, and politics (of fear?). We built nuclear power plants not because we needed electricity, but because we needed plutonium for the bomb. We went to the moon in part because "it is hard", but mainly as a way to stick it to the Russkies. We built space telescopes to spy on the "opponent". Yes, that did indeed kept the wo…

You could extend the argument to intra-national competition. What if instead of competing with each other, we were all aligned towards common goals. Unfortunately and sadly, such is human nature that we are hardly motivated by much else than one-upping each other.

I think you basically identified the root cause of the issue. We are, unfortunately, only slightly evolved chimpanzees; We would gladly form groups to fight another group when bananas grow sparse.

Had we evolved from bonobos, things might have been different.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#96

Post by sq_ »

addled wrote: post #48
sq_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wish that it was a little easier to find the pages with high resolution downloads of all these amazing NASA telescope and rover images. It'd be great if they could create one central repository that all of them would go to for people to look through.

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ Is pretty good. Can filter by mission, instrument, or target. Resolution is kind of hit or miss, as a lot of it is raw or minimally processed, but that is part of the fun.

That's a great resource! Thank you for sharing.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#97

Post by dorgo »

hasa wrote: post #88
admissionsguy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could extend the argument to intra-national competition. What if instead of competing with each other, we were all aligned towards common goals. Unfortunately and sadly, such is human nature that we are hardly motivated by much else than one-upping each other.

This is true. Instead of competing against each other, we -I mean all nations and individuals - should do something to support efforts so that humans can some day escape this planet. Earth is not habitable forever.

I struggle to imagine what could happen to earth to make it less suitable to support human life than any other known planet.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#98

Post by java-man »

dorgo wrote: post #97
hasa wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. Instead of competing against each other, we -I mean all nations and individuals - should do something to support efforts so that humans can some day escape this planet. Earth is not habitable forever.

I struggle to imagine what could happen to earth to make it less suitable to support human life than any other known planet.

An asteroid strike would make things difficult.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#99

Post by wiredfool »

_Microft wrote: post #86
Johnny87 wrote: post #2

Looks like a painting. How cool is it that we actually have the technology to finally see these odd planets!?

If you have a DSLR or similar camera (the lens/objective that comes with DSLRs is usually good enough) and a tripod, you can even photograph moons (plural!) of Jupiter yourself! To avoid disappointments, I must set expectations correctly, though: they will be no more than a few tiny white dots next to a brighter dot (Jupiter itself) but either way: you will have photographed moons of a different planet all by yoursel…

You can get the moons of Jupiter with a cellphone held up to a small telescope or binoculars.

Re: Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter and Europa

#100

Post by hasa »

dorgo wrote: post #97
hasa wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. Instead of competing against each other, we -I mean all nations and individuals - should do something to support efforts so that humans can some day escape this planet. Earth is not habitable forever.

I struggle to imagine what could happen to earth to make it less suitable to support human life than any other known planet.

There are many very likely scenarios making this planet unhabitable: asteroid, black hole coming near solar system and moving planet distances, gamma ray burst, any deviation in sun's radiation. All these are clearly possible and likely to happen in the long run.
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