@Roklimber: I can recommend ROVING MARS by Steve Squyres. Squyres was the head of the science team for the Rover mission. It's a great book if you're into [1] space, [2] tales of intrepid scientists as heros, or [3] high tech product development.
I'm sorry, but all storms must now be rated on the Metal Tornado scale.
If it's not an unstoppable vortex of whirling jagged metal (or alternatively, some sort of evil djinn that looks like a tornado with badly CGIed red eyes), wake me when Bill Paxton shows up.
With eyes typically 20-40 miles wide, it would probably be fairly easy to thread it all the way to land. You'd better have a good place to dock quickly though and get under cover...
@Gann: having been through the eye of multiple 'canes, I can tell you that even in the eye the waves are HUGE (normally). The waves were jumping about 70-90 feet when they hit the seawall during Hurricane Ike (even during the calm of the eye). Not a place you'd want to put a boat.
@Bootknife-Jackson: You took the words right out of my mouth! I keep thinking: what would these look like if they didn't pseudocolour them, pre-black and white IR and UV imaging? #space
@Anekanta - Former Space Hippy!: as a scientist (much like Jeff Goldblum), i can tell with much certainty, that yes. You can indeed do these things on this star. #whitedwarfs
@Anekanta - Former Space Hippy!: HAHAHA. you need some liquid moon beams? i can get you those. real cheap. way better than blotter moon beams.... look, i deal in quality products here... #whitedwarfs
@Indigen: Oh, what happens on the surface of a white dwarf? If you are made of normal atomic particles all of your atomic structures will be torn apart and reduced to neutrons. You would be crushed into a super thin mass and splattered on the surface of the star.
A white dwarf is ALMOST a black hole. Just not enough initial mass to ignite the space folding. #whitedwarfs
@FrankenPC: Well, sort of. A white dwarf is any stellar remnant no longer fusing and supported by electron degeneracy pressure. If they accumulate enough mass, (1.4 solar masses) they don't collapse, they undergo sudden ignition of carbon fusion and explode as Type 1a supernova. Between 1.4 and 3.0 solar masses, for the remnant (so larger than 97% of stars) you get neutron stars supported by fermion degeneracy pressure, and somewhere higher than that one gets black holes (assuming that quark stars do not exist, which is an open question.) #whitedwarfs
@Strakus: Quark stars??? That's something I've never heard of. Wouldn't the compression energy required be more than enough to form a black hole? (FYI: You're talking to a moran here...). #whitedwarfs
@FrankenPC: Not a problem :-) It's not a matter of compression energy per se, it's just a matter of density and the forces that serve to arrest increases in said density. Really, the only thing important about a black hole is its density- take any mass and you can compute the Schwarzschild radius, or how small a sphere you would have to compact it into before no events at the surface can have a causal effect outside the radius.
The deal is we don't really know a whole lot about what matter does under really extreme pressure. Squeeze it enough, and it turns into electron degenerate matter, like a white dwarf. Squeeze it more, it undergoes reverse beta decay (the electrons and protons form neutrons, and thus there is no electron degeneracy pressure to prop it up) and it compacts down until it is propped up by neutron degeneracy pressure- roughly, the neutrons running into each other. At the density of neutron star matter, at about 3 solar masses, the star should exceed its radius and form a black hole. There is a window in there, however, where before we reach that size, the star might undergoes another degenerate pressure shift, the neutron disassociating into quarks. The end result is that there is some evidence that a number of objects we believe are neutron stars are in fact quark stars- theory says they should look pretty similar, but there are a number of neutron stars that are denser than they should be and might be made of quark matter. #whitedwarfs
@Strakus: So, in theory, a collapse of a sun could simulate what happens in a particle collider. But, on a large enough scale to create a massive body that would retain all those free quarks due to their combined gravity??? #whitedwarfs
@FrankenPC: Yeah, if ya want to put it like that. You can just think of degenerate matter as a fluid kept above its vapor pressure- a monoatomic carbon fluid for a white dwarf, a neutron fluid for a neutron star (or one big atomic nucleus, if you prefer) or a big drop quark fluid. It's just the next state of matter on the list as the pressure increases, and it seems conceivable, indeed probable, that it occurs as one climbs up the stellar remnant mass scale between neutron stars and black holes. #whitedwarfs
@FrankenPC: 30-50AUs between them (pluto's orbit is weird)...light speed is ~7.20 AH/h = 216-360 hours
or between 9 and 15 days one way...not sure what the distance is at the moment... #space
Ummm...your math makes no sense unless I'm reading it completely wrong. At 7.2 AUs per hour and the distance being 30-50 AUs, isn't it more like 4-7 hours? Where does 9 and 15 days one way come into play? If I'm totally screwing this up, let me know, but, otherwise, your math seems really wrong. #space
@Citizen Kang: HAHAHAHA!...
opps...
you're right...I'm doing like 10 things here at work...silly me...silly copy/paste...silly work...I'm going home. #space
11/21/09
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Hey, thanks for the recommendation, Chip. I've now added it to my list of books to read. Here's the amazon link:
[www.amazon.com]
11/21/09
[coverclock.blogspot.com]
11/21/09
11/19/09
If it's not an unstoppable vortex of whirling jagged metal (or alternatively, some sort of evil djinn that looks like a tornado with badly CGIed red eyes), wake me when Bill Paxton shows up.
11/20/09
11/20/09
Hmm, maybe that's how SyFy channel gets it's movie ideas.
11/18/09
11/18/09
averages around 15-20 mph"
[hurricanes.noaa.gov]
With eyes typically 20-40 miles wide, it would probably be fairly easy to thread it all the way to land. You'd better have a good place to dock quickly though and get under cover...
11/19/09
Of course, I'd love to try...
11/19/09
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11/13/09
BTW- what does this look like in the visable spectrum? #space
11/14/09
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11/14/09
(I bet Sinatra didn't know what he was getting into when he wrote that song, did he?) #whitedwarfs
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#whitedwarfs
11/13/09
11/13/09
If you can survive next to a white dwarf, needing oxygen would be the LEAST of your biological worries. #whitedwarfs
11/13/09
11/13/09
Are you saying we are susceptible to electromagnetic fields if they are strong enough? What happens? #whitedwarfs
11/13/09
Check this out: [www.youtube.com]
Frog levitating over a VERY powerful electro-magnet. #whitedwarfs
11/13/09
A white dwarf is ALMOST a black hole. Just not enough initial mass to ignite the space folding. #whitedwarfs
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
The deal is we don't really know a whole lot about what matter does under really extreme pressure. Squeeze it enough, and it turns into electron degenerate matter, like a white dwarf. Squeeze it more, it undergoes reverse beta decay (the electrons and protons form neutrons, and thus there is no electron degeneracy pressure to prop it up) and it compacts down until it is propped up by neutron degeneracy pressure- roughly, the neutrons running into each other. At the density of neutron star matter, at about 3 solar masses, the star should exceed its radius and form a black hole. There is a window in there, however, where before we reach that size, the star might undergoes another degenerate pressure shift, the neutron disassociating into quarks. The end result is that there is some evidence that a number of objects we believe are neutron stars are in fact quark stars- theory says they should look pretty similar, but there are a number of neutron stars that are denser than they should be and might be made of quark matter. #whitedwarfs
11/13/09
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11/12/09
#space
11/12/09
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11/12/09
or between 9 and 15 days one way...not sure what the distance is at the moment... #space
11/12/09
From Earth, figure it's about the same (as we're only 8 light-minutes away... THAT'S how far away Pluto is, folks). #space
11/12/09
Ummm...your math makes no sense unless I'm reading it completely wrong. At 7.2 AUs per hour and the distance being 30-50 AUs, isn't it more like 4-7 hours? Where does 9 and 15 days one way come into play? If I'm totally screwing this up, let me know, but, otherwise, your math seems really wrong. #space
11/12/09
opps...
you're right...I'm doing like 10 things here at work...silly me...silly copy/paste...silly work...I'm going home. #space
11/12/09
11/12/09