DARKMOOR: Aha, jsem tak tochu doufal, že něco dostanou i z Lisy při testech.

Simtě ono je to celé hodně komplikáre, jak jde o náročný projekt trvající dekády, tak jen ať se vyhnem zmatkům.
LISA jako projekt už neexistuje, poté co z něj odstoupila NASA (2011?). ESA pokračuje v odlehčené verzi eLISA,
ale ta ještě ještě fyzicky neexistuje. Nebo si myslel současnou sondu LISA Pathfinder? Ta se teď zrovna testuje.
Bohužel u sondy LPF nedosahuje citlivost hranice, kdybychom GV detekovali. Do budoucna je potřeba ji 10x zvýšit.
Na sondě jen testujeme, zdali vůbec technologie budou použitelné, a jak se přístroje budou vůbec ve vesmíru chovat.
(Druhá věc která se zatím neofiko řeší, je budoucnost proj. eLISA jako taková. Ale na to je ještě brzy...)

VIRGO: Aha, jsem tak tochu doufal, že něco dostanou i z Lisy při testech. Aktuální úspěch by je mohl navnadit to aspoň zkusit.

NASA poskytla ke stazeni ve vysoke kvalite radu retro plakatu, lakajicich na cestu do vesmiru: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the-future/

DARKMOOR: To potrvá ještě čtvrt století, než bude eLISA měřit.
Ale za chvilku bude v Itálii hotový projekt VIRGO (po upgradu), pak LIGO India,
a pak Japonci, co na to jdou ještě jinak. LIGO jsou zatím na třetinovém výkonu,
za chvíli je opět zavřou, a provedou další upgrade. Tak za dva roky bude husto.

ARCHIMEDES: To budou hodně zajímavé výsledky až gravitační vlny zachytí LIGO i LISA. Jsou od sebe kus cesty, tak se bude krásně určovat pozice zdroje. To budou žně :)

NECROMAN: Zatím byly počítané (cokoliv jiného než triviální případy vyžaduje právě ten velký výpočetní výkon) a pozorované jen nepřímo, jako interptetace zkracování oběžné doby rádiových pulzarů (a už na tohle padla jedna Nobelova cena).
Tohle je první PŘÍMÁ detekce gravitačních vln a první pozorování (a charakterizace) nějakého objektu výhradně pomocí nich.
Je to myslím srovnatelné s tím, když H.Hertz přímo prokázal existenci elektromagnetického vlnění. A technicky je to jako by se povedlo v jaderné fúzi překonat "breakeven" (energie vydaná > vložená). Taky se ví, že to musí jít, ale až se to OPRAVDU povede, bude to důvod pro velkou party.
Mimochodem, LIGO teď projektu LISA namastilo schody (LISA nebude první) a zároveň pomohlo (je jasné, že bude užitečné a ne jen drahá hračka).

Nejsladší čtvrtek této dekády!

I found a couple of neat HRSC images from May and June 2014 showing some really high altitude clouds. I really don't know what to make of them, I haven't seen clouds like them in Mars images before. These images are through the instrument's green filter. There are corresponding blue filter images, although for whatever reason that color channel is a lot noisier than the green. I've tried to brighten the clouds without overexposing the surface; I still need to figure out where the spacecraft was looking when it took these images...



Hi-res: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132160802@N06/24829566772/



Hi-res: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132160802@N06/24854226741/

Zdroj: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6828&view=findpost&p=229492

Putting Pluto’s Geology on the Map
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/putting-pluto-s-geology-on-the-map



How to make sense of Pluto’s surprising geological complexity? To help understand the diversity of terrain and to piece together how Pluto’s surface has formed and evolved over time, mission scientists construct geological maps like the one shown above.

This map covers a portion of Pluto’s surface that measures 1,290 miles (2,070 kilometers) from top to bottom, and includes the vast nitrogen-ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum and surrounding terrain. As the key in the figure below indicates, the map is overlaid with colors that represent different geological terrains. Each terrain, or unit, is defined by its texture and morphology – smooth, pitted, craggy, hummocky or ridged, for example. How well a unit can be defined depends on the resolution of the images that cover it. All of the terrain in this map has been imaged at a resolution of approximately 1,050 feet (320 meters) per pixel or better, meaning scientists can map units with relative confidence.

Meet "Hedgehog": Engineers build cube-like rover for exploration of asteroids, comets
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-hedgehog-cube-like-rover-exploration-asteroids.html

Meet Hedgehog, who could become our guide to exploring the small bodies such as asteroids and comets whirling about the solar system. Designed by Stanford's Marco Pavone, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and Ben Hockman, graduate student in mechanical engineering, this space rover has no wheels for rolling, no arms for grabbing and no legs for stepping. It's just a single overgrown die with the ability to hop and tumble itself across the unknown terrain of asteroids, comets and small moons. And while Hedgehog is not yet part of any planned space missions, the rover's research team recently cleared a significant hurdle along the way to turning their block robot into a space-exploration dynamo.

Curiosity update, sols 1218-1249: Digging in the sand at Bagnold Dunes | The Planetary Society
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/02100935-curiosity-update-sols-1218-1249.html

Curiosity has spent the last month sampling and processing dark sand scooped from the slip face of an active Martian sand dune. The activity saw some mission firsts. Sol 1228 was the first time that the rover took advantage of a special screen inside the CHIMRA sample mechanism to sieve sand into multiple size fractions; the rover delivered a sample of the intermediate-sized fraction to SAM on sol 1230. But the very next sol, the rover experienced an anomaly with CHIMRA that has not yet been resolved. The anomaly forced them to cut short the planned sampling activities, and they left the sample site on sol 1244. Two sols before they left, the MAHLI team, working closely with the rover drivers, captured the closest-ever images of a science target on the surface of Mars, capturing a photo with a scale of 15.6 micrometers per pixel of the fine grains sieved from the Namib dune sand.

rozhovor s A. C. Clarke a R. Heinlein pár hodin po přistání Apollo 11

Mondo Cult Presents Walter Cronkite Apollo 11 Interview with Robert A. Heinlein & Arthur C. Clarke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMAmk5Rp1tk

SpaceX na twitteru:
Our 212-foot tall Transporter Erector went vertical on Pad 39A today. Built to support Falcon 9 and Heavy

Parádně zeditovaný timelapse kladení segmentů:
Science Channel on Twitter: "Incredible time-lapse footage of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror assembly! https://t.co/65hQTsIzyy"
https://twitter.com/ScienceChannel/status/695717361765191681

Pro všechny co to dnes nestihli jako já...
Atlas V, GPS IIF-12, Cape Canaveral, 5. 2. 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQT48Fz6a_s

Pluto’s Mysterious, Floating Hills
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-mysterious-floating-hills

The nitrogen ice glaciers on Pluto appear to carry an intriguing cargo: numerous, isolated hills that may be fragments of water ice from Pluto’s surrounding uplands. These hills individually measure one to several miles or kilometers across, according to images and data from NASA’s New Horizons mission.

The hills, which are in the vast ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum within Pluto’s ‘heart,’ are likely miniature versions of the larger, jumbled mountains on Sputnik Planum’s western border. They are yet another example of Pluto’s fascinating and abundant geological activity.

Because water ice is less dense than nitrogen-dominated ice, scientists believe these water ice hills are floating in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean. The hills are likely fragments of the rugged uplands that have broken away and are being carried by the nitrogen glaciers into Sputnik Planum. ‘Chains’ of the drifting hills are formed along the flow paths of the glaciers. When the hills enter the cellular terrain of central Sputnik Planum, they become subject to the convective motions of the nitrogen ice, and are pushed to the edges of the cells, where the hills cluster in groups reaching up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across.