IF YOU HAVE ECLIPSE GLASSES, GO OUTSIDE AND LOOK AT THE SUN RIGHT NOW
There is currently a dark spot on the surface of the Sun visible as a black dot, it’s called AR3664 These sunspots happen very often but ones this big are very rare, and this one is visible without a telescope
this sunspot is also releasing massive solar flares that will cause auroras to be visible in northern US states and all of canada
this is extremely rare, STARE DIRECTLY AT THE SUN RIGHT NOW (if you still have eclipse glasses)
so here’s two fun facts i learned about saturn today that just prove that this planet is the physical embodiment of chaos
1. saturn’s biggest moon, titan, is currently moving away from saturn. As it does, saturn’s obliquity (it’s axial tilt, which is just how tilted the planet is toward the sun) will increase. This increase then destabilizes titan’s orbit, which causes it to move away further, which causes the obliquity to increase more, in a feedback loop that will eventually -eject titan from the system entirely, flinging it off into space -cause saturn to flip on its side, like uranus is today we don’t know when this will happen but we know it will (it will probably be between 1-100 billion years from now)
and 2. Saturn’s moon Hyperion has a chaotic rotation. Earth takes 24 hours to complete one rotation, and it’s very stable. Hyperion is not
Hyperion’s day length and axial tilt constantly changes chaotically and unpredictably due to interactions with saturn and the other moons. This is so chaotic that it becomes physically impossible to predict where hyperion will be more than a month in advance Even with things like supercomputers, we genuinely have no idea how long a day on hyperion will be or how tilted it will be more than 1 month from today
fun fact: there is an area on the Moon called the Sea of Moscow that was discovered by (who would’ve guessed) Russia in the 1960s
however, the rules for naming places on the Moon said that you couldn’t name them after anything political, and the city of Moscow fell under that category
but the soviet union was determined so they argued that the city of Moscow was “a state of mind” and so not political
your daily reminder that the United States Space Force has a classified “fleet” of space planes very similar to the Space Shuttle but with no crew and they only do military stuff
they’re called X-37s and every once and a while one will launch, stay in orbit for a few months, and come back down what they do up there is classified we have no idea what is on board
(it’s probably just spy satellites and stuff but i like to tell people this because as much as people like to joke about the Space Force, it’s a serious organization that actually does stuff)
so i’m sure you guys know boeing at this point the airplane company that keeps having doors fall off their planes and other wacky events
well a lot of people don’t know that Boeing is also a space company and has launched things into space
and now they’re working on the first crewed flight test of Boeing Starliner, which is a new vehicle meant to take people to the International Space Station
let’s go over a brief history of Boeing Starliner because it is the worst crewed spacecraft since Apollo 13
the first flight test of Starliner occurred in 2019, it didn’t have people on it and was just trying to get to the ISS It was almost ready to approach the ISS and then MISSED
the second test, also with nobody on it, went fine a few years later keep in mind that Boeing wanted people on Starliner in 2018. It’s now 2024 and a crewed flight test is just now about to happen
istg if Boeing kills a bunch of astronauts I think that’ll just be the end of the company the first company to kill someone in space let’s hope that doesn’t happen
time to perform ritualistic sacrifices to Artemis, Selene, Chang’e, Chandra, and whatever other moon gods i can think of for the successful landing of the VIPER rover sometime this year dear god this thing needs to succeed we aren’t sending humans back to the moon without it
the tin can (starship, the most powerful rocket ever built that will eventually send humans back to the Moon and to Mars) hopped (launched successfully, reached orbit for the first time, we are so back, humans will be back on the moon before the end of the deacde)
here's something interesting I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtdcdxvNI1o an interview with Neil Armstrong about what being on the Moon was actually like (what the sky was like, could they see stars, what did the surface look like, etc) interesting stuff
ofc the saddest part was when he said that he expected to have lunar bases in the near future 50 years later and here we are not even the most pessimistic people about space wouldve guessed that we wouldnt have had a base on the Moon by now
luckily we have the Artemis Program now at least and China doing shenanigans on the Moon
lots of news about china’s plans to put people on the moon today
1. their Chang’e 8 mission (launching 2028) plans to use lunar material to build bricks in preparation to build a larger base on the moon
2. China’s spacecrafts they’re planning to use to send people to the Moon now have names, Mengzhou (the thing they will use to go to the moon) and Lanyue (the lander)
things are happening dont be surprised if china sends people to the moon before 2030 my guess is 2029 or 2030 for chinese crewed moon landings things are about to get fun
IM-1 IS ON THE MOON THE FIRST AMERICAN MOON LANDING IN 52 YEARS THE FIRST LANDING OF THE ARTEMIS PROGRAM (which will eventually put humans back on the moon AND create a permanent base there)
so a few things 1. china has a series of moon missions called Chang’e that have been landing on the moon (only robots, not people yet) 2. Shackleton is a crater on the south pole of the moon that is unique because it possesses huge deposits of water ice, making it the best place on the moon to establish a permanent human colony 3. China currently has plans to establish a base on the moon, and they do have the capability to do it
china’s 7th chang’e mission is targeting a landing near Shackleton because of shackleton’s potential, this is definitely more than a just a science-focused mission
thing is the usa also has interests of landing people near shackleton crater
yeah the outer space treaty isn’t gonna help lmao because 1. you don’t need to claim land to establish a colony, just build something there and say “this building is mine, and due to safety concerns there is a radius 50m around said building that belongs to me” which is completely allowed under the outer space treaty because you technically didn’t claim any land The Artemis Accords is (i think) the only law that even talks about this and they say (i think) that a country can claim a 10m area around their habitats for safety. Only thing is China hasn’t signed the artemis accords and so isn’t subject to that number
2. the outer space treaty was never meant to be permanent space law, it’s considered to just be a placeholder until something more serious gets put in place, so i don’t expect it to hold any weight for much longer
3. even if people took the outer space treaty seriously there’s no way to enforce it, and a law without a way to make sure people follow it isn’t really a law
4. China has been known to take a… unique viewpoint on laws. They’ve literally built islands in the ocean and said “hey look since I own this island my border actually extends out to here, not the internationally recognized one” and i find it extremely likely they’ll do the exact same thing on the moon (“hey look, i built another storage facility here, my colony borders are actually here”)
5. The outer space treaty says nothing about private companies, so countries could just get companies to build stuff for them and then eventually take over (british east india company is a nice example of this from the past that i could see something similar happening with the moon)
…but, but, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty "[precluds] any country from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body", so nothing bad can happen 'cuse there's paper….
i wonder how close ive been to something classified in my life surely there has been one moment in my life where i was closer to something classified than any other point
the graphics are kind of low quality, but most of these pictures were taken hundreds of miles above the ground so its actually crazy how detailed it is also the controls are very finnicky so if you dont know how to move around on the moon ill help
it has come to my attention that my last post did not in fact contain the smaller screenshot of the mariner valley image like i wanted but in fact was the full 23,000x11,000 pixels
out of all the websites for that picture to work why planet minecraft
anyways don’t look at my last post it’ll lag your computer really badly (i can’t delete it for this reason it keeps lagging i’ve tried like 3 times)
TheSurfinBird
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EpicBaller
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milology
sarith
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![Kryptonite Tools Mod 1.3.2 [ModLoader] [WILL BE UPDATED] Minecraft Mod](https://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1243/2012-10-25_205706_3979337_thumb.jpg)
Strikerboy606
•10/28/12 11:35
![More Gems mod! 1.3.2[WIP] V10.5.1 [5100 DOWNLOADS] NOW WITH DIMENSIONS! Minecraft Mod](https://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1234/ModPic_3340605_thumb.jpg)
Legendary Soldier
11/16/12 1:19
• posted 6/19/12 11:18
it's been raining all day here lol