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[alway]

Towards midnight on
12 August, one astronomer noticed a great cloud of hot gas on
the surface of the planet.

...

Thick clouds of smoke or dust, which looked like little grey,
moving spots through a powerful telescope on Earth, spread
through the clearness of the planet's atmosphere and hid its more
familiar features

War of the Worlds, Chapter 1.

[i2amroy]

Has anyone seen the news about the very high plumes over Mars?

Neat.

I do wonder what it is.
'Tis a mystery.

The Moon Nazis colonized Mars back in the 70's to build a vast space armada in order to re-take Earth once and for all, and now they've finally finished. Invasion fleet in 30 minutes.
/shitposting

I seem to remember a film that was very similar except about the moon, lets see if I can find it... ah, here it is!

[Graknorke]

War of the Worlds, Chapter 1.

If this wasn't your first thought then you lose.

[WillowLuman]

http://www.space.com/29072-mars-liquid-water-at-night.html

Don't get too excited, but this is pretty cool.

[alway]

The SpaceX launch was scrubbed today for bad weather; another attempt tomorrow. Notable because they will be attempting a barge landing again. Last I heard, Tuesday/Today/Tomorrow, depending on time zone, is the next launch attempt, with ~50% chance of good weather.

[Rose]

what was today's chance?

[Parsely]

There's the legal problem there of essentially developing an anti-sat laser. Not to mention the engineering problems of lasing through that much atmosphere while still retaining the power to vaporize.

Unless you push your laser into space and give it a bunch of radiators! Solar power FTW.

How would you slow something down that is in or it with lasers? Wouldn't they just speed up again because they are orbiting? Or do I just not know anything?
((I'm not very well educated on this stuff, I'm a guy that wants to be a nuclear or aerospace engineer so zero g stuff is not my forte))

When you strike something with a sufficiently powerful laser, the surface is vaporized and ablated. Striking the side of an object against the direction of its orbit would cause the resulting vaporized debris to propel it the other way.

Yup. Laser-powered engines have been theorized. Since all an engine does is burn reaction mass which is exhausted from the rear of the ship, propelling it forward, all you do is aim a big dumb laser at the solid remass on the back of the ship and it flies away at speed.

[sneakey pete]

what was today's chance?

60.

From what I understand the weather issue is storm cells, not a widespread weather pattern as such, so really its just pot luck.

[Magistrum]

I don't even know what this thread is about, but I miss the space core...

[Rose]

This thread is mostly about real life space travel news and developments.

[Tylui]

ptw!

[RedKing]

Some interesting bits about the "bright spots" on Ceres. Some are quite cold, but the "twin" spots that you've seen so much in the headlines are the same general temperature as the rest of Ceres. DAWN should be back in the illuminated side of Ceres on April 23, and much closer than its previous pass (abut 8400 miles).

Still have my fingers crossed for landing pad/obelisk/sign saying "Kang was here".

[Gigaz]

Here is some pretty interesting stuff about finding Aliens. Puts quite a constraint on them, I think.

http://marketbusinessnews.com/no-signs-of-super-advanced-alien-life-after-100000-galaxies-searched/56636

[olemars]

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/6540154

T -5 minutes

[Dutrius]

Perhaps we're just looking for the wrong things? They could be using different wavelengths to us, for example.