From the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo:
HEC: Periodic Table of Exoplanets
You know how many exoplanets were known when I was in college? None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Now? 3,700+.
Nov 162017
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Nov 162017
There are certain actors, actresses, actrons and acting units who you know aren’t *really* *good,* as such, but they’re just damned entertaining to watch nonetheless. Dwayne Johnson, aka “The Rock,” is one such… largely because you can tell that he’s generally having a blast doing whatever goofy thing he’s doing.
The forthcoming “Jumanji” movie looks like it’ll be one such entertaining flick. But perhaps even more so, the movie “Rampage,” due out in April and based on the old arcade game and directed by the director of Johnson’s disaster extravaganza “San Andreas,” looks like a hoot and a half. The addition of Neegan to the cast sure can’t hurt either.
Nov 162017
The top and middle engine loops are basically done and detailed. The bottom engine loop has been resculpted, but needs detailing. Once that’s done I’ll head back to the hull to start working on more details. The shuttlebay will almost certainly be modeled closed as at 1/1400 scale it’s really, really small. However, I’ll probably still work out the basics of it… because I want to get a 1/350 version milled out.
Nov 162017
Hmmmm…
Fisker has filed patents for solid-state batteries
So what makes this newsworthy? The claims:
- 2.5 times the energy density of current batteries
- A car would have a 500-mile range
- It would take only one minute to charge that car
- Cheaper than lithium ion batteries
- Lower risk of fire
The target is electric cars. But 2.5 times the energy density means laptop batteries that last far long, cell phones that last for days, electric aircraft from drones to airliners, man-portable lasers and railguns/coilguns capable of meaningful performance.
Nov 162017
Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It
Hmmm.
While this accusation seems about on the same level of banal scumbaggery that has torpedoed a number of Hollywood careers, I do wonder if this one will be the one where The Important People will decide that accusations aren’t enough, that before there are career implications that there needs to be an actual investigation, that “it’s not that bad.” Because this time the implications of the guy losing his job would have “unfortunate” political implications.
Personally, I think he should be treated just like Kevin Spacey. Cancel his current employment and go back and erase him and his votes from the Senate. It would be only fair.
Nov 162017
The proprietor displays an astonishing level of patience. Must have a lot of practice with this sort of thing due to the proximity to benighted Evergreen College.
Private Sector Arms in Olympia, Washington, looks like they have some neato stuff on the walls.
It would be entertaining if the end result of this interaction was that their sales go up.
Nov 152017
There’s a spaceship on the screen. It is therefore a nerd-priority to determine *everything* about it, starting with “just how big is it?” Of course this exercise could be quickly negated by a simple mention of length on screen or off. But lacking that, we can logic ourselves into a rough estimate.
First up, the internet provides two photos that show canon illustrations of the ship, diagrams that appear on display screen on the bridge of the Orville:
The first shows an inboard profile of the main hull with the engine loops; the second shows a top view of the whole ship with a closer view of the cross-section of the main hull. For scaling purposes, that cross section is what we’re after. however, it must be noted right up front that the cross section, canon and used repeatedly on-screen as it is… is WRONG. it must be an earlier iteration of the designs, since there are some meaningful detail differences. The bridge, for starters, is shown further aft that it actually is. And there are lounge “bumps” fore and aft that do not appear on the final design. So it *may* turn out that the interior arrangement could be equally erroneous. However, at this time this is what we got.
Also note that the full side-view marries the 2D-drafted interior profile with what looks like 3D rendered engine loops… loops that are shown not square side-on. So, that’s also less than entirely helpful. but again… it’s what there is to work with.
OK, so how to use these images to determine scale? “The Orville” clearly hearkens back to TNG-era Trek for much of the styling. But the Orville is not a major capital ship like the Enterprise was, but a smaller vessel… like Treks Voyager. Fortunately Voyager has been well defined. There are a large number of “master systems display” inboard profile diagrams of the Voyager to pick from, including this one:
The Voyager MSD clearly shows the decks. The Orville “MSD” also shows its decks:
It’s by no means certain that the Orville uses the same spacing between decks that Voyager did… but again, it’s the best assumption that can be made at this time. So, the thing to do is to take the decks of the known-quantity-Voyager and scale the decks of the Orville to line up, like this:
Once you’ve scaled the Orville diagrams to match the deck-scale of the Voyager diagram, everything lines up looking like this:
And what this results in is the Orville being *really* close in length to the Voyager… 337 meters for the Orville, 345 meters for Voyager. I don’t know if this was intentional on the part of the shows producers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s an in-joke here that the Orville is supposed to be exactly the same length as Voyager.
So for now, and until I see something better, I’m going with a length of 337 meters for Orville. Given the lack of a “secondary hull” the Orville thus seems to have substantially less internal volume than Voyager, so probably a smaller crew. But interestingly the Orville is *much* faster than Voyager. In the episode “Pria” it is claimed that Orville can fly at 10 light years per hour. If it was suddenly dumped 70,000 light years from home as Voyager was, it could fly home in 7,000 hours… 291 days. “The Orville” could thus copy the “ST:V” model by having the ship tossed to the other side of the galaxy – say, a season finale – and could wrap things up entirely within the next season. When the Orville gets back to Earth, rather than being met with celebrations, it’s met with “where the hell have you been? You’re late.”
Sanity check – a comparisons of the lounges and shuttlecraft between the two ships:
Looks about right.
Nov 152017
A new potentially Earth-like exoplanet has been announced, Ross 128 b. It’s 10.89 light years away (12th closest star system to Earth), the planet masses about 1.35 Earths and is in the inner edge of the habitable zone, getting about 1.38 time the solar radiation as Earth. Ross 128 is a red dwarf, so:
1: the”year” is only 9.86 days
2: The planet very probably doesn’t have a moon due to the close distance to the star
3: The planet is probably tidally locked, or in some rotational resonance
Fortunately, Ross 128 is a very quiet and well-behaved red dwarf, unlike Proxima Centauri which is constantly having massive flares. So while Proxima b almost certainly has long since had any atmosphere stripped away, Ross 128b, if it had an atmosphere, has a good chance of still having it.
Ross 128 is also an old star, meaning lots of hydrogen and helium and little else. Which *may*mean that the planetary system *may* also be low in the heavier metals. So even though Ross 128 b is more massive than Earth, if it doesn’t have as heavy of a nickel-iron core, the bulk density could be far lower and the surface gravity could be Earthlike. But without a metal core the chances of a magnetosphere are greatly reduced, especially if it only rotates every 9.86 days. Without a magnetosphere, the atmosphere has undoubtedly suffered and the surface will be badly irradiated.
Nov 152017
Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs
“Salvator Mundi” was sold at auction in London in 1958 for a whopping £45.
It’s not in great shape. For centuries it was not known to be a da Vinci, and apparently some of the attempts to clean it were less than stellar. Still, someone thought it was worth the better part of half a *billion* dollars.
Some neato features: the face is in “soft focus,” while the hands are clearly in focus. The crystal orb shows a number of internal flaws. But I don’t know about the view *through* the orb; I would think that the hand and cloth behind it would be far more distorted. This might indicate that the artist – presumed to be Leonardo da Vinci, and boy howdy won’t the buyer be annoyed if it turns to to not actually be a da Vinci – didn’t actually have a true crystal ball at the time and was just guessing about how it would distort the image.
Nov 152017
A while ago an ebay seller had a display model of a maneuverable re-entry vehicle, a warhead for an ICBM.There was apparently no documentation to go with it, so details are pretty much utterly lacking. Still, it does look reasonably likely to have been a “real” display model built by or for the USAF or a defense contractor. It’s simple… a cone with four sides shaved off with four added flaps for control. This basic geometry has been popular for maneuverable warhead concepts for decades; McDonnell-Douglas used a similar shape (explicitly stated as having been derived from their maneuverable MIRV studies) for their Delta Clipper SSTO, and an even closer shape for their X-33 and follow-on concepts.
