[youtube]_GEyAsaWB4k[/youtube]

This is worth watching to the end. Feel small?

[youtube]oAVjF_7ensg[/youtube]

[youtube]a-11dtG7aK4[/youtube]

Brilliant.

Hahaha, That is a magnificent analogy.

In breaking news, Jupiter is fucking big.

http://vimeo.com/19231255

Scientists have witnessed the rare spectacle of a supermassive black hole devouring a star that had ventured too close - an event that occurs about once in 10,000 years, they reported on Wednesday.
Matter-sucking black holes normally lurk dormant and undetected at the centre of galaxies, but can occasionally be tracked by the scraps left over from their stellar fests.
"Black holes, like sharks, suffer from a popular misconception that they are perpetual killing machines," said researcher Ryan Chornock from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.
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"Actually, they're quiet for most of their lives. Occasionally a star wanders too close, and that's when a feeding frenzy begins."
If a star passes too close, the black hole's gravitational pull can rip it apart before sucking in its gases, which are heated by the friction and start to glow - giving away the silent killer's hiding place.
Chornock and his colleagues observed such a glow in May 2010 through a telescope mounted on Mount Haleakala in Hawaii, as well as a NASA satellite.
The flare brightened to a peak that July, before fading away over the course of a year, the scientists said.
"Initially we didn't know exactly what this flare was because it was so bright that when we looked at the galaxy we couldn't see the stars to determine how far away the galaxy was," study co-leader Suvi Gezari of John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, told AFP.
Observations over several months allowed the team to conclude that the black hole was at the centre of a galaxy 2.7 billion light-years away, and about three million times the mass of our Sun - similar in size to the Milky Way's central black hole.
Its victim was probably a star in its late, red giant phase which had tempted fate by wandering to within a third of an astronomical unit (150 million kilometres) of the black hole - about the distance of Earth from the Sun.
"This is the first time where we actually have enough detailed information that we can actually determine what kind of star was torn apart by a black hole and how big the black hole was that did it," said Gezari.
She said this was the first such space feast observed from beginning to end, and "that is very exciting because that time scale is how we determine how big the black hole is".
The scientists concluded that the eaten star had lost its hydrogen outer shell in a previous pass by the black hole, leaving just its helium core to be consumed in round two.
"It was really spectacular to have so much info and have all the pieces of evidence come together to form a consistent picture of what happened," said Gezari.
Black holes are very dense regions in spacetime with a gravitational force so strong that even light cannot escape. Scientists who study them hope to learn more about the evolution of galaxies.
Stars in our own Milky Way galaxy, including the Sun, are too far away to be at risk of being consumed, said Gezari.
"We would have to wait at least 10,000 years before we would be able to see a star being gobbled by our own black hole," she said.
"So the best way to find these events is not to wait around for our own Milky Way galaxy to gobble a star, we actually have to look at hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the sky to catch one in the act of shredding up a star."


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/scientists-watch-black-hole-feast-on-unlucky-star-20120503-1y00x.html#ixzz1tkprdoCI

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-milky-way-andromeda-galaxy-hubble-milkomeda-20120531,0,2464034.story

[youtube]wb9COcv0Ynw[/youtube]

Transit of Venus is happening right now, for the last time until 2117.

Edited by notorganic: 6/6/2012 10:33:55 AM

Watch it live from different places on the planet here: http://events.slooh.com/

EDIT: Should point out a lot of the feeds are finished now but there's still 3 or 4 up.

On another note I watched Alient Planet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_planet) yesterday. Really interesting stuff. Mind bogglingly scary too.

Edited by Roadie: 6/6/2012 02:00:23 PM

Missed the Transit of Venus as it's been bloody raining all day :(

Would you go to Mars if you knew that you would never return to Earth?

[youtube]6QoEEGySGm4[/youtube]

Actually thought about this sort of thing before, I reckon I'd do it.

My avatar has never been more fitting ;)

Yeeeaaahhhh-no. I'm quite happy on Earth, but cheers anyway.

That woman's voice is annoying and artificial.

A road worker has severed a cable in the Northern Territory, cutting NASA's live stream of the rare transit of Venus from central Australia.
The United States space agency's observations of Earth's planetary neighbour appearing as a rare silhouette against the sun from Australia was disrupted for half an hour during this morning's transit.
Alice Springs was one of only two sites outside the US to contribute to a live NASA broadcast. The desert town was chosen as a key location because eastern and central Australia was one of the few places in the world where astronomers could observe Venus's entire six-and-a-half hour journey across the sun.
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Telstra spokeswoman Nicole McKechnie confirmed the fibre optic cable was accidentally cut by a backhoe last night during roadworks about 18 kilometres south of Mataranka.
"Because of the road works at that location it was very difficult for us to gain access to the site," Ms McKechnie said.
It took a Telstra technician four-hours to drive from Darwin to Mataranka. The repair work is time consuming and highly skilled. Each optical fibre is the thickness of a human hair, with hundreds making up one cable.
Ms McKechnie said while the cable was unlikely to be repaired until late this afternoon, re-routing the network meant NASA only lost connection between 9am and 9.30am local time.
The timing of the outage means NASA scientists should have captured the ingress - the moment when Venus moves on to the sun - which took place at 7.45am Darwin time.
The next transit of Venus won't take place until December 2117.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/roadworks-cut-off-venuss-visual-flight-20120606-1zvoj.html#ixzz1wzC3mDCk

:lol: Telstra. :lol:

Voyager 1 to be first Man Made object to leave the Solar System


Edited by Funky Munky: 19/6/2012 06:59:06 PM

This is Our Planet
Time lapse footage from the ISS =p~

I love the aurora borealis from space

[youtube]pH63vK-sWm0[/youtube]

Mars is actually kind of cool id imagine it would have quite a lot of land features, i know it has the largest mountain and canyon in the solar system.

In regards to life i think Europa is our best chance, life as we understand it should be very possible near volcanic vents in its ocean under the frozen top



Will be cool when they have an actual "close up" photo of pluto and Charon.



Edited by glory recruit: 28/7/2012 09:50:33 PM

Edited by glory recruit: 28/7/2012 09:54:30 PM

I fucking love Joe Rogan. Reminds me of two of my favourite videos on Youtube.

[youtube]CbIZU8cQWXc[/youtube]
[youtube]BFO2usVjfQc[/youtube]

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/mars/curiosity_news3.html

Anyone else watching this? I'm pissed cause it's supposed to land in 15 minutes but I have to go to uni :((((((((((((((((((

Curiosity has touched down perfectly!!
Live stream (they're going ape droppings!!):

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

This presentation isn't patriotic enough for me.