Astronomy and Space Peeps

[Shatter He/Him]

Hey y'all. No idea if there was a space discussion. I decided to make one :3

I'll hand out a few questions to kickstart the discussion.

How did you first get into astronomy or space science, and what’s your favourite topic in space science right now, and why?

For me personally, I had a placemat which had the solar system on it. One thing led to another, and I'm a very big space nerd now. My fave topic rn is star formation and the formation of solar systems.

Edited May 18 by Shatter

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

1 hour ago, Shatter said:

Hey y'all. No idea if there was a space discussion. I decided to make one :3

I'll hand out a few questions to kickstart the discussion.

How did you first get into astronomy or space science, and what’s your favourite topic in space science right now, and why?

For me personally, I had a placemat which had the solar system on it. One thing led to another, and I'm a very big space nerd now. My fave topic rn is star formation and the formation of solar systems.

Honestly I have no idea how I got into this. But I do love space. Space is prob my fav part, hands down.

[Shatter He/Him]

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Honestly I have no idea how I got into this. But I do love space. Space is prob my fav part, hands down.

nahhhh. space is your fave part? Inconceivable!

lol

I'm a big nerd about space. oo I should mention @Through The Living Glass

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

5 minutes ago, Shatter said:

nahhhh. space is your fave part? Inconceivable!

lol

I'm a big nerd about space. oo I should mention @Through The Living Glass

Mmm I don't think Glass has been on recently. You can check her profile, I think someone posted abt it.

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

52 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Mmm I don't think Glass has been on recently. You can check her profile, I think someone posted abt it.

Mmm I think she was on 3 hours ago

4 hours ago, Shatter said:

Hey y'all. No idea if there was a space discussion. I decided to make one :3

I'll hand out a few questions to kickstart the discussion.

How did you first get into astronomy or space science, and what’s your favourite topic in space science right now, and why?

For me personally, I had a placemat which had the solar system on it. One thing led to another, and I'm a very big space nerd now. My fave topic rn is star formation and the formation of solar systems.

My family has connections with NASA and stuff, and I recently took an astronomy class.

Space is cool

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

7 hours ago, Shatter said:

Hey y'all. No idea if there was a space discussion. I decided to make one :3

I'll hand out a few questions to kickstart the discussion.

How did you first get into astronomy or space science, and what’s your favourite topic in space science right now, and why?

For me personally, I had a placemat which had the solar system on it. One thing led to another, and I'm a very big space nerd now. My fave topic rn is star formation and the formation of solar systems.

How I got into space...

Well, I don't remember exactly, but I learnt the names of the planets when I was 6, so I guess it started with that

My favourite part of space currently is cosmology: the history and future of the larger universe

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

Let's jumpstart this discussion 

(That's a joke, I actually hate the Pluto should be a planet argument)

Edited May 19 by Through the Living Hopper

[Shatter He/Him]

12 hours ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Mmm I think she was on 3 hours ago

My family has connections with NASA and stuff, and I recently took an astronomy class.

Space is cool

same.

I have a cousin who was in training to be an astronaut.

2 hours ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Let's jumpstart this discussion 

(That's a joke, I actually hate the Pluto should be a planet argument)

agreed. Pluto is not a planet.

8 hours ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

How I got into space...

Well, I don't remember exactly, but I learnt the names of the planets when I was 6, so I guess it started with that

My favourite part of space currently is cosmology: the history and future of the larger universe

cosmology do be interesting

[Pathfinder]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I found what parsecs actually are very interesting. The Startalk episode explains it far better than I will, but I will try to sum it up. Basically choose an object in front of you (tv, painting, couch, etc). Pick a hand (right or left, doesn’t matter), raise it up in front of you with your thumb up. Close one eye (right or left), and position the thumb so it covers the view of the object. Then close the opened eye, and open the closed eye. The perspective of where the thumb is shifts. If you measure the distance between your eyes, and measure the shift in perspective of the object when compared to your thumb, you can calculate the angles, and then determine how far you are from the object. That is how they calculated how far stars were from earth. Now this only works to a certain distance, and there are better tools now, but I found that was really cool. 

[Shatter He/Him]

29 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

I mentioned this in another thread, but I found what parsecs actually are very interesting. The Startalk episode explains it far better than I will, but I will try to sum it up. Basically choose an object in front of you (tv, painting, couch, etc). Pick a hand (right or left, doesn’t matter), raise it up in front of you with your thumb up. Close one eye (right or left), and position the thumb so it covers the view of the object. Then close the opened eye, and open the closed eye. The perspective of where the thumb is shifts. If you measure the distance between your eyes, and measure the shift in perspective of the object when compared to your thumb, you can calculate the angles, and then determine how far you are from the object. That is how they calculated how far stars were from earth. Now this only works to a certain distance, and there are better tools now, but I found that was really cool. 

parallax? (a parsec is a measurement of distance)

Yeah. I believe the satellite Gaia used this technique to calculate the distance of over 1 billion astronomical objects. 

really cool stuff there. we got to measure stars up to 30,000 ly away from us.

Here's a map Gaia made.

absolutely insane.

[Pathfinder]

8 minutes ago, Shatter said:

parallax? (a parsec is a measurement of distance)

Yeah. I believe the satellite Gaia used this technique to calculate the distance of over 1 billion astronomical objects. 

really cool stuff there. we got to measure stars up to 30,000 ly away from us.

Here's a map Gaia made.

absolutely insane.

Yep, I was explaining the process that would get the measurement. Star Wars sadly messed up the general understanding of it to be how fast a distance was traveled (made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs). When 12 parsecs would be the distance measured period.  

[Shatter He/Him]

5 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Yep, I was explaining the process that would get the measurement. Star Wars sadly messed up the general understanding of it to be how fast a distance was traveled (made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs). When 12 parsecs would be the distance measured period.  

ohhh. yeah. You use the parallax to measure distance. I prefer lightyears to parsecs.

[Ink and Embers Any pronouns]

17 hours ago, Shatter said:

Hey y'all. No idea if there was a space discussion. I decided to make one :3

I'll hand out a few questions to kickstart the discussion.

How did you first get into astronomy or space science, and what’s your favourite topic in space science right now, and why?

For me personally, I had a placemat which had the solar system on it. One thing led to another, and I'm a very big space nerd now. My fave topic rn is star formation and the formation of solar systems.

I used to have a poster of the solar system when I was younger, then I hyperfixated on it for a couple of years when I was 11ish, so while I don't know as much as I used to, I still find it very cool. My favourite topic is the potential existence of aliens

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

5 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Yep, I was explaining the process that would get the measurement. Star Wars sadly messed up the general understanding of it to be how fast a distance was traveled (made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs). When 12 parsecs would be the distance measured period.  

You can interpret Han Solo's comment as meaning he went closer to potential dangers so that the run was shorter. 

[Akimikoisthecutest]

Well it was actually 12.9 parsecs, but 12 sounds more impressive than 13...

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

8 hours ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Let's jumpstart this discussion 

(That's a joke, I actually hate the Pluto should be a planet argument)

Yup, this argument annoys me greatly.

Now, I'd like to build on what I said in the aliens thread: I think the planet definition should change, though not to include Pluto

I think it should be:

1. A certain mass threshold is cleared (something around 10^23 kg)
2. It orbits a star

This way, there can be no ambiguity on whether something has reached hydrostatic equilibrium, and what exactly counts as a 'nearly round' shape

There can also be no debate around whether a planet's orbit is cleared; all planets except Mercury have Trojan asteroids in their orbits.

And as a final perk, exoplanets actually count with this one  

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

7 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

I think it should be:

1. A certain mass threshold is cleared (something around 10^23 kg)
2. It orbits a star

This way, there can be no ambiguity on whether something has reached hydrostatic equilibrium, and what exactly counts as a 'nearly round' shape

The problem is that changing scientific terms, even for good reason, causes huge issues with old instructional and old ways of thinking.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

Just now, Through the Living Hopper said:

The problem is that changing scientific terms, even for good reason, causes huge issues with old instructional and old ways of thinking.

Well yes, but it happened when Pluto was demoted, and Ceres and some asteroids before that

It can happen

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

1 minute ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

Well yes, but it happened when Pluto was demoted, and Ceres and some asteroids before that

It can happen

But that was a long time ago, and then there was no official definition for planet (as a result, you can argue that Pluto never actually was a planet). 

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

1 minute ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

But that was a long time ago, and then there was no official definition for planet (as a result, you can argue that Pluto never actually was a planet). 

True

But I think it can work, eventually; the planets in our solar system aren't changing, it just makes things more consistent and adds exoplanets. 

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

1 hour ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

But that was a long time ago, and then there was no official definition for planet (as a result, you can argue that Pluto never actually was a planet). 

Than what if we call them super planets?

There is currently no official definition for a super planet.

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Than what if we call them super planets?

There is currently no official definition for a super planet.

Because a short name is better than a long one

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

9 minutes ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Because a short name is better than a long one

Than a pla

Plas are way better than planets

by your definition, it is better.

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Than a pla

Plas are way better than planets

by your definition, it is better.

It was supposed to be a joke because there are no short names in astronomy other than "Sol" and "Luna." (And "Mars")

[Pathfinder]

18 hours ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

You can interpret Han Solo's comment as meaning he went closer to potential dangers so that the run was shorter. 

I mean sure? I don’t really care about Star Wars enough to interpret his intent versus what he said. Just for however long, the concept was misunderstood. I just thought how they went about calculating the distances to stars once upon a time very interesting because you can literally emulate it with your own eyes and a thumb. Retcons can retcon lol.