Destroying a star and spitting it back out. All made possible, because the light from it finally reached us on November 22, 2014. Science is pretty crazy. They released a simulation of the event today.
Kind of looks like Dork Magic to me! Haha!
This Black Hole Ripped Up a Star Then Pummelled It With Its Own Remains
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Yeah Science Bitch!
....Is that Stephen Baldwin?....
SAM ROGERS doing Sam Rogers things.
In Soviet Russia, Black Hole captures you
For some reason, I came here expecting to see this:
Really? Because I thought it heavily resembled this
Whence upon a closer view, it was actually this
Great photo of the UVA spring (football) festival
Leg!! Can't believe you didn't get 100 Legs..
I think I've seen this episode of Doctor Who already
At a speed of 186K miles/second, took 290 mill years to be seen here
**** Mind Blown ****
I've be reading the Expanse books and there have been a few times where the writer says basically this.
Good series and awesome show, if anyone is wondering.
Do you like dem elliptical orbits?
Pretty cool.
Model can also be used to simulate tax dollars going into Washington D.C.
NASA Budget Cuts :(
When breaking a 20 trillion dollar spending habit, everyone has to share the pain.
I'm afraid I can't answer this without going political, but I suggest looking at some ratios that compare NASA's budget to other programs. I'm sure you will find it's quite small.
Without going political, I'd just say I'm fully aware of their budget and how they spend it.
Show me a gov't agency that can't possibly stand to tighten its belt, and I'll show you a 5' 6" Bucky Hodges.
I'm curious how you arrived at that perspective. Are you prior service or have you previously served at the federal level?
My previous experiences with the military and State led me to believe "belt tightening" would do nothing to address the inefficiencies at the various agencies I worked with. If anything, it would exacerbate them. The problems I experienced resulted from careerism, bureaucratic inertia, woefully outdated IT, and (to a lesser extent) the inability to effectively discipline or remove underperforming or non-performing civil servants. There were zero pennies spent without exhaustive oversight, handwringing, and often multiple layers of approval.
In my experience, the popular trope of the free-spending bureaucrat making it rain with tax dollars only applies to DoD/DHS. And that's primarily due to the complexity of the defense contracting labyrinth which makes effective QA/QC all but impossible and leaves a wide space for fraud, waste, and abuse.
Yeah... What's going on right now is essentially picking a splinter out of a rabid dog and telling everyone we've cured the disease.
I have a little insight:
NASA HAS already started looking at things from a budget perspective, and the shift is....awkward. It used to be: "how much does it cost to get this scientific data". Now there's a shift to "how much science can we do with X amount of money". The result is a lot more trade studies that end up spending more of the money than we should rather than just getting the job done.
Also, EARTH science is whats getting cut (which Goddard specializes in) vs Planetary science (which is seeing far less of the cuts). Earth science provides data for agriculture, weather modeling, climatology, ocean health, etc., which feeds into industry, not just scientific discovery.
NASA's cuts are small, but they are significant. Could NASA fix some inefficiencies? Yes, but its a drop in the bucket compared to what is spent on the DoD.
Ah! The revolving argument of should we:
A) manage budgets; or
B) manage outcomes.
I've observed and experienced my time as a civil servant that the lack of clear vision and leadership always selects "A - manage budgets".
bingo
We're lucky that the "how much science can we do with this budget" is percolating slowly and isn't being applied to all projects. I'm hoping that the few projects that it is applied to will provide some lessons learned, specifically, not to do that
This would possibly be justifiable if all agencies were doing it, but the DOD is getting a $54 billion increase. So it's at the cost of NASA.
Responding here to various in the interest of minimizing posts.
1 - it doesn't require inside knowledge to know the very public details of NASA and most other Gov't agency budgets. Nor does it require inside access to judge any agency on whether it has been particularly good at its mission.
2 - NASA (and to expand, Science of any sort), is not a fundamental responsibility of the Federal government.
3 - Defense on the other hand, is.
4 - Yes, the numbers are a drop in the bucket of our massive and out-of-control budget, and any single cut is not going to change things, so
5 - Expense cutting must be as broadly applied as possible. My preference would be that the all existing agencies and programs undergo a rigorous and regular audit, and if severe issues found, they must be resolved within a year to continue to receive any funding. Also that all new expenditures be required to have a built-in sunset date, perhaps 10 years, where their cost/benefit can be independently reviewed and they require an affirmative congressional vote to continue.
Look, none of this is particularly outlandish to anyone in the private sector who has any interest in living within their means, which I truly believe applies to darn near all of us.
I don't necessarily care that the gov't does a lot beyond original charter. Sure, I'd prefer they did a lot less, but the people can vote for whatever they like, and we all have to accept that. I just would hope everyone would care that they be efficient with the money we give them. I see very little in the way of efficiency in any agency, and yes, that includes DOD.
Agree that Defense is very much in the swimlane of the Federal Govt, and quite frankly a responsibility. With that being said it would be nice if there was some thought into what exactly we need from our military and balance that with how much we can/are willing to spend. I see it as either:
a) I want you to do all of these missions; so here's the cash to support the personnel, equipment, and training required.
b) We only have this much money, so what mission can you support? Ok, well then we need to only have this much equipment and personnel so that we can have the remining assets 100% funded and mission effective.
c) Here's some funding, go do a lot of stuff even though it might not be needed. Oh you don't have enough people or equipment? Go make it work anyways.
Guess which one is usually picked. Being completely politically neutral, if it's a) or b) but at least it would be logical and responsible.
Agree, and I would only add that "c)" is the choice for a whole lot of gov't agencies. Adds up to a whole lot of mission creep, creating redundant efforts.
I'd posit that if a lot of agencies simply refocused their budgets on core missions (not to mention competencies), they would find they needed a not insignificantly smaller bucket of dollars to operate on.
I'll even go so far to blame NASA's woes on Reagan to a certain extent: I don't think many people inside NASA would admit it, but I think most aerospace people outside of government would: The shuttle program was a disaster in terms of original intent (e.g.: lift capacity and component re-usability) and the dollars it ate that could have been used improving the less sexy rocket technologies. I could go on for pages, but suffice to say that the moment the U.S.A. had to outsource it's heavy lifting rocketry to other countries should have been a serious moment for reflection on the inefficiencies in regards to that agency.
Instead of refocusing on Space, NASA instead focused on (IMO) far less valuable endeavors in terms of real applicable sciences.
The good thing is that the end result of all that has been that the private sector has picked up the baton, and has done things NASA didn't even consider worth pursuing, much less show the competency to actually do.
And please don't take that the wrong way: NASA's Aerospace scientists are, bar none, some of the very best and brightest. It wasn't their fault the mission parameters were so different.
Under who's purview does scientific discovery and exploration fall under, if not the federal government? Discovery for the sake of science has lead to either applicable science not in the original scope, or the development of technology later applied to industry. Sometimes (but not always), you cannot see the application of the science you're trying to pursue until after you've discovered it.
Also, long term projects shouldn't be able to be cut short by Congress unilaterally. Congress cutting the JSF engines suppliers from 2 to 1 without a fixed cost contract has been a disaster. Getting rid of the GOES program (which has been ongoing for well over 10 years) would eliminate a lot of our valuable weather data (eshiben, give me some backup here). I hate to say it, but Congress just doesn't get it a lot of the time.
History lesson:
People really need to read the Federalist Papers and the Constitution sometime. Per both sets of documents, the powers of the federal government are few and they are to:
* collect taxes
* regulate interstate commerce
* raise an army
* adjudicate legal disputes between states
Anything that isn't one of those four powers is a right of the States and of the People per the Tenth Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
So, no, NASA is not a valid function of the federal government.
Edit: The process to change that, by the way, is to amend the Constitution to add to government's powers.
First of all, the Federalist Papers were a form of propaganda, written by Hamilton and Madison to promote the constitution, not a set of rules by which to govern by. Second, I'd argue the Constitution is not that black and white. I think you're referring to Article I, section 8:
Now, the constitution does not specifically say that the government can/can't fund science. I would argue that (and others can/will disagree - it's not wrong, just a difference of opinion), NASA does fall within the bounds of the constitution. They collect a lot of data on the climate, weather, space, etc. that does lend to the general welfare of the United States.
I really, really don't want to get involved here but I did think it's worth mentioning that NASA is part of the Executive Branch and, therefore, Article I doesn't apply. That bit of Article II that provides the President with the power to appoint officials might come in handy, though (both those officials whose positions are provided for in the Constitution and those not)
I have to admit I love reading some of these offshoot discussions that we can get into here on TKP.
All Federal Regulatory Agencies that are not created by Article II of the Constitution are "quasi-executive" "quasi-legislative." NASA falls into that category. That means, although technically under the Executive Branch, the agency is created by the Congress and must report to Congress in some way or form. So, Art I does in fact apply.
If you want to see the Law that Congress passed to create NASA in 1958, it's here: Link
(Be gentle, I'm not a constitutional lawyer and please bear with me because I'm genuinely curious)
So I based what I said on a very quick reading of Article II, specifically Section 2, Clause 2. I was thinking that was where Congress derived the power to create those quasi-executive/quasi-legislative agencies, not the general welfare clause of Article I. Obviously, Congress has oversight and control of budgets and whatnot after the fact.
Also, apologies if I'm not making sense today; I've got one hell of a hangover courtesy of tequila
NASA essentially exists for Military purposes. The race to the moon was for Military purposes. So no matter where it falls under the constitution it's going to exist for military purposes.
That's true. But, because Congress has power to create these agencies, Art I. powers of Congress apply to the creation, implementation, and oversight in addition to the Art II powers. Many Agencies also have quasi-judicial powers, so Art. III can apply in many instances as well. Agency law is messy and complex, as you can imagine.
sorry just saw this, GOES just launched up its newest rocket and isnt going anywhere for a while. That being said cutting funding for future projects and programs would severely cripple forecasting. The GOES program gets us a ton of our real time satellite data for forecasting. Everything from infrared data to gather cloud tops to finding storm fronts. Looking at satellite images people can also identify tornadic storm systems and other dangerous storm systems. The accuracy of the newest satellite has helped us close down any kind of uncertainty and its absolutely beautiful (Once the computer guy at Wisconsin gets the site up and running we'll have 24/7 coverage ill share on here). Furthermore hurricane forecasting is a lot easier due to GOES - so without GOES heres what would suffer - Hurricane forecasting, severe weather forecasting, cloud tops and water vapor content, as well as atmospheric rivers (good long term forecasting) and pineapple expresses. As far as climate goes its terrific at forecasting snow cover and ice cover as well to see how much the caps are growing or shrinking year to year.
I'm going to be completely honest this hiring freeze has murdered my job prospects and has me looking at PhD programs, my field is super dependent on the government field hiring us. (a third of us are employed by the government) budget cuts really hurt this science and the field
Correct, I know GOES-R just went up (sorry if it seemed like I implied the GOES program was getting cut in the immediate future). Seems like we're both in agreement that the future loss of that program would be very detrimental.
Leg for science
1 - I have to disagree. I find it hard to believe that anyone effectively balances agency budgets in their spare time. The professionals who get paid to do that struggle mightily and don't particularly enjoy the process. If by chance one does have that ability, I'd suggest applying for a job with NASA. They could use the help.
We like to discuss Fuente's offense but I doubt anyone on this board thinks they could put a better one on the field and a federal agency budget is about 1000^1000 times more complicated.
2 and 3 - Our nation's ability to maintain an effective defense against agressors both foreign and domestic is based, in large part, upon scientific advancement - not just making sure our bombs are bigger than the other guy's bombs. NASA fits this role to a "T."
4 and 5 - Some of these sound like good ideas until they come in contact with the harsh reality of governing a country with as many competing interests as the United States. Some of them may even work in discrete cases but governing is messy, democracy more so. And as much as we'd like to apply "common sense" or "business" solutions for the sake of our own sanity, they rarely ever suffice.
This is cool. I can't wait for them to get the satellites up and running that are going to give us a better look at the super massive black hole in the middle of our own galaxy.
haha computing struggles to model our own atmosphere during a significant solar event let alone the processes involved in a super massive blackhole accurately. weve got a LOOOOONG way to go on that front. that said computing has come a really long way in like 20 years so hopefully in my lifetime we can simulate jank like that
That black hole is called "Morgantown."
TIL loluva's football program is 290 million years old.
Well it took them long enough.
Came here for cool space talk... all i see is money talk.
Good point.
Would be cool if anyone here wants to discuss what's going on in the photo, and how we found and collected it. I know I don't have a good grasp on it.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/06/health/black-hole-star-radio-telescope/
basically from what I gather, the star ventured a little to close to the black hole and the black hole began sucking solar material from the star. As this material is slowly ground up it forms a disk around the black hole (what i assume is the event horizon) which emits light at a bunch of wavelengths (how we detect it) and then for some odd reason it shoots a bunch of particles out of the center of the black hole which they still dont understand.
Experience: a year of astrophysics and a deep interest in the field. My better understanding is more local space sciences, space weathers interactions with our atmosphere is a large field of study for me
PS: Thanks for the explanation, I actually did understand some of that. But astrophysics is still waaay over my head. Plus, when are Office gifs never appropriate?
Thanks. That's about the level of explanation I can comprehend, and it does help.
I don't grasp how they a) found it, or b) know how far away it is.
astro physics is very imprecise. (tons of rounding off because space is so effing big) so its not perfect but you can do distance a number of ways but i assume what they did here is use luminosity to measure the distance. luminosity is basically the brightness and brightness dims over distance. you typically know the amount of brightness given off by stars given emission profiles and spectra lines so thats typically a giveaway. theres a ton of processes though, another one involves watching the same point while earth is revolving in an effort to make a triangle and using that to measure the distance between 2 different times
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/distance.htm - list of measuring techniques i found
I came in here for SCIENCE. Now I'm staring down the barrel of losing all my Turkey Legs and having my nose face the corner for all eternity.... Not cool ya'll.
Lot of good conversation.
Scientists do not capture Black Hole, Black Hole captures scientists