MetaFilter posts tagged with planets

Orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned...

From Bklyn — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:11:59 -0800

Oh, so that's how that works. I never got the whole 'Mars in Retrograde' thing. This really helped. More than this description by Dr.Feynman of the elliptical orbit of the planets, and definitely more than this song-and-dance description of, well, the Universe.

Photos of Martian landscapes

Frankieist — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:10:19 -0800

The frequently excellent photo-blog The Big Picture at the Boston Globe has posted a collection of stunning and, well, alien-looking photos of the martian landscape.

Zeta Reticuli is watching the Brady Bunch

Artw — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:19:22 -0800

If extraterrestrial civilizations are monitoring our TV broadcasts, then this is what they are currently watching.

Keep an eye in the sky

CaptKyle — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:53:21 -0800

Go buy a helmet because Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth. Though it's likely to now happen for billions of years, maybe you should think about buying a helmet, putting a little post-it note on it, and burying it for your future relatives.

Blood Tide

Artw — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:15:27 -0800

Blood Falls - The iron rich red liquid gushing from a buried Antarctica lake shows how life may have existed on a snowball Earth, or on Europa.

I was just a broken head. I stole the world that others punctured.

Artw — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:09:20 -0800

Vintage alien landscapes by Kazuaki Saito

Did that star just blink?

borkencode — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:32:32 -0800

Tonight NASA is scheduled to launch the Kepler Mission (named after planetary legislator Johannes Kepler) with the goal of finding Earth size planets in orbit around stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the sky. Over the next 3 and a half years it will maintain a nearly unblinking gaze on the approximately 100 thousand stars in the region. NASA expects it to find about 50 Earth size planets, as well as hundreds that are larger. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV. Currently the smallest known exoplanet is COROT-Exo-7b discovered by the French COROT mission. (previously) Both the COROT and Kepler missions use the planetary transit method of detection, where a planet crossing the face of a star causes a dip in its brightness.

Objects in Space

Artw — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:44:06 -0800

Do gravity holes harbour planetary assassins?

Martian maps

Wolfdog — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:20:50 -0800

Martian maps and a few others in good quality PDF.

Stars In Your Eyes

Miko — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:36:12 -0800

See Saturn this Saturday April 12 is the second annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night, a worldwide event coordinated by the Sidewalk Astronomers. The group, founded in 1968 by John Dobson (subject of this documentary), is dedicated to a sort of guerrilla astronomy -- experienced stargeeks bringing their really good telescopes out to places where people are. So even on your way to the bars, the shows, and the honky-tonk you can see stuff like this and this - like these people did.

AKA The Creature, 1985

Artw — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:10:07 -0800

Titan find - The hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon may contain hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all of Earths known oil and natural gas reserves.

Mission to Mercury

Artw — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:28:21 -0800

Mercury Messenger, a NASA probe, just performed a fly-by of Mercury at a height of 200 kilometers. It's the first spacecraft to visit Mercury since 1975.

Hot space bot uses stirling engine

Artw — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:24:57 -0800

NASA proposes using a Stirling cooler (essentially a Stirling engine in reverse) to keep a probe cool on the surface of Venus, which has had a tendency to melt or smash previous probes. The cooler would maintain a 25cm sphere within the probe at 200°C -- 100°C above the boiling point of water but sufficiently cool for a high-temperature microcontroller to operate. The waste heat radiators on the exterior of the sphere would reach the temperature of 500°C, 40°C above the the normal Venusian surface temperature.

Space Oddity

madamjujujive — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:22:40 -0800

Mars and Beyond - 50 years ago, this animated episode of Tomorrowland aired on Disneyland a few months after the launch of Sputnik - an entertaining melange of astronomy, sci-fi, pop culture, science, speculation, and surreality. Walt himself and Wernher von Braun make guest appearances and clip 5 is particularly trippy. (Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Ice hot planet

Artw — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:09:15 -0800

Scientists have discovered a planet composed of scorching hot ice. Originally thought to be a gas giant due to its mass, its actually only four times the size of Earth and most likely composed of exotic forms of ice, such as Ice VII and Ice X with s surface temperature of 300° C.

Far distant lands

Devonian — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:46:24 -0800

The first was found just fifteen years ago, after centuries of speculation. As of today, we're up to 227 and counting. Most are just wobbles in data, but we have pictures and exotica too. And we are looking for more (although some think we shouldn't look very hard and others are drawing some surprising conclusions). The science and technology of finding the most fascinating and elusive types demands some of the cleverest engineering, yet you can even have a go for yourself. Previously on Metafilter

Golden Ratios

digaman — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:21:30 -0800

Did the roof of the Pantheon influence Copernicus? Are the planets of the solar system aligned in accordance with a nearly-forgotten hypothesis known (unfairly) as Bode's Law? A fascinating wide-ranging discussion on BLDGBLOG with Walter Murch, the visionary editor and sound designer for such films as The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, THX1138, and many others. [Murch's film work has previously been discussed here and here.]

The eye of Sauron... er, Saturn

(bb|[^b]{2}) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:41:17 -0800

Riddle: What has an eye on the bottom, and a hexagon on the top? [ answer inside ]

Les Petites Planètes

Robot Johnny — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:54:35 -0800

Wee Planets. 360° panoramas warped to look like small planets. The perfect vacation destinations for the Little Prince.

7 mph would be the equivalent of driving at the speed of light

jessamyn — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 07:23:22 -0800

At forty miles (64.4 km) from Pluto to Sun, the Maine Solar System Model is the largest complete three-dimensional scale model of the solar system in the world. What, you didn't know there was more than one? And yes, Pluto is staying put.

I guess we need a new mnemonic...

nekton — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:58:03 -0800

Ceres, Charon, and 2003 UB313 (a.k.a. Xena) may join the 9 planets we already know (and strive to remember) if a resolution by the International Astronomical Union is passed next week. So what makes a planet, according to the IAU? Having sufficient mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. be round enough...welcome former asteroid Ceres) and being in orbit around a star without being a star itself or a satellite of another planet (apparently Charon and Pluto are actually a double planet.) Mike Brown, discoverer of "10th planet" Sedna and alleged "Pluto-hater", doesn't really like the idea.

Heavenly names

blahblahblah — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:17:52 -0800

♇+2. Two new moons of Pluto (itself named by a British schoolgirl) get their own names -- Nix and Hydra. The origins of planetary names can be fascinating, but there are also thousands of other named features that can be examined (with pictures) in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. [Prev. discussion on Pluto here.]

The future from the past

tellurian — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:53:21 -0800

Fabio Feminò has an enormous collection of science fiction magazines to share with us. AWESOME!

road trip, anyone?

dazed_one — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 13:10:41 -0800

Explore our local chunk of space. Here is a scale view of the Solar System, and here one can take a quick trip around it. Use the guidebook to plan your trip (but beware the pop-up ads). Don't forget to bring a camera and snap some photos.

Stellarium

fire&wings — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:32:14 -0800

Stellarium. A free program which renders realistic skies in real time, and more. Handy for anyone who ever wrangled with one of these. And very cool to watch in fast forward.