Fighting Light Pollution, Venus Holding Its Atmosphere, Space Under New Administration | Q&A 279

[@robbob1866]

Light pollution is terrible for wildlife and ourselves. Lights are insect graveyards. Lights disrupt migrating birds. And it messes with our sleep. Insect populations have plummeted, and we really need them. I think these are very important points to make on top of a better view of the cosmos

[@Threedog1963]

I agree. When I was a kid, growing up in the 70's we had fireflies in our area all of the time. I haven't seen a single one in decades.

[@robbob1866]

@Threedog1963 For me these last few years, it's the absence of bird song. The cacophony of screaming birds that would wake me up before sunrise is now gone, and that was in Toronto. I miss Fireflies. Nothing more magical than walking in the middle of the night, looking up at the Milky Way, surrounded by Fireflies

[@agustinussiahaan6669]

I think light pollution could be classified as a crime. We need a law to curb it. Otherwise the light maniacs would grow uncontrolled and add other problems into our existing ones.

[@danman6431]

@@agustinussiahaan6669I think making it a crime is too far. Government has too much power already. Like sone incentives not to have street lights needs to be setup somehow.

[@stocky9218]

In my area in Australia all of our streetlights will illuminate stuff above the level of the light itself, it's just ridiculous. The need to be totally shrouded to point towards the ground and they need to be a less bright and warmer colour. I did see a new area being developed and I noticed that they had these nice, old looking shrouded lights that would be really good.

[@arthurballs9632]

They change all our streetlights to the new ones in 2018. It's so much better. But I still live on the outskirts of London, a few miles north of one of the world's busiest airports. So, there's still rarely many stars to see.

[@StuSaville]

I remember as a kid in the northern suburbs of Perth in the 80's when they would shut off all the streetlights at 1am every morning. Used to be so cool to be able to walk outside your house and see the stars.

[@iliyanz_]

even if lights are pointed down some of the light will reflect off of the pavement into space. warmer colors are better for night vision so either warm LED or sodium, also very efficient and lasting much longer. bluish LED is the exact opposite of what we should use yet it is insane with the new headlights on cars

[@myleswillis]

You gotta fight! For your right! To (Star)Party!!!

[@RandomUser311]

Recently bought a small smart telescope and took a picture of Andromeda right after sunset. I got a ton of satellite steaks in the image, but since the telescope takes individual 10 second exposures and over time stacks those into the final image, it was easy to just remove the frames that contained streaks and stack the remaining exposures into a clean image. There's even software that can remove the streaks so you don't have to throw out the whole exposure. Terrestrial light pollution is a whole different story. There are filters to allow only specific wavelengths to pass but those are mostly useful for emission nebulas. If you want to image galaxies, reflection nebulas or whatever from a light polluted area you're basically just screwed and will have to take a lot more exposures to try and get enough signal/noise ratio.

[@josephmanktelow3560]

Love your channel my friend very interesting love watching your stuff before bed

[@MCsCreations]

Thanks, Fraser! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@Stegibbon]

I fight light pollution with a CPL filter, long exposures, image stacking (when I've set up my telescope properly), and editing. It's a never-ending battle.

[@utofbu]

Helium leaving Earth's atmosphere is a real concern, as it is generally non-renewable without nuclear stuff... However, if that was ever a manageable production line, capture would be much more efficient.

[@jamesmack9990]

I cant wait to see the first picture of a SMBH transiting a quasar

[@tokk3]

Living in between 2 of the largest harbors in europe. Insane how much light there is outside during the night.

[@Dam-a-fence]

I can see Vega, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, occasionally I can see a few of the other bright ones, don't know their names, never really been able to see it from home. Been to places where I could, wish I could, unfortunately, people think after the fact detection is akin to security. I prefer picket fences myself.

[@Jenab7]

Hey Fraser, do you happen to know the extent to which quasar jets are columnated? What is the solid angle typical for a quasar jet?

[@lemdixon01]

Here in the UK, I first saw the milky way for the first time in my life when I was 24 and went to the Lake District in the North of England, because its a national park so no big cities there.

[@Thomas-gk42]

Interesting questions, well made answers, thank you. The "crisis" in cosmology is not just an issue of measuremnets and observations, but it´s also a systemic and methodological problem of physics in general, as science communicator, author an physicist Sabine Hossenfelder points out since years.

[@kiwanukakayiira3731]

The expense would be fine if stuff is done in time, remember the Apollo missions

[@astroartie1872]

@Sgr A*: Well, a quasar is not only the jet, but also the accretion disk, which will be very hot and very bright, also in optical light. Blazars are the ones that have their jets directed at us. Non-blazar quasars have luminosites in the range (10^41-10^47) erg s−1 = 26 million to 26 million million times the Sun's brightness (N. Sahakyan, 2018). This would make a quasar in that range, at the center of our galaxy, between a 10 millionth to a 10th of the brightness of Sirius. So visible (if not obscured by dust!), but by no means remarkable.

[@Threedog1963]

I live under the light dome of Houston, just west of Houston. It sucks. I can see Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. I can see very few stars though, even on a clear night. I made a camping trip to West Texas a few years ago and it was amazing. I have also stayed in Davis Mountains state park which is near the MacDonald observatory. Every time we stay there, we go to their star party which is fun and informative.

[@dezekpl7485]

its actualy easy to see milky way in eu ,you just have to go on some boat ,plenty of fishing trips on our seas

[@bbartky]

I’m assume you can see the Milky Way up in the mountains in the EU. Is that correct? The first time I saw the Milky Way was in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

[@fastkicksdefendhead]

One estimate for how long it would take to terraform Venus is 500 years, Mars would also take multiple lifetimes to terraform. How would humanity be able to finance these mega projects? Countries have formed, became world hegemons and then faded in that length of time.

[@Bora1333]

Hope that if humans or some descendants still exist when we collide with Andromeda, we'll be able to visit it, see it, engineer it.

[@pgantioch8362]

QUESTION: maybe you’ve already answered this Fraser, but I still want to know if a significant fraction of Earth’s water could’ve come from Theia, the Moon Forming Impactor.

[@DannyJoh]

"Set a man on the Moon before the end of the decade" Haven't i heard someone say that before 🤔😃😃

[@GadZookz]

How fast can the Parker Solar Probe go in a pinch?

[@colinp2238]

Is Canada involved in any missions? If so how much?

[@brick6347]

They recently replaced the lights on my street with what I assume is new-old-stock stadium lighting. At 03:00, you can read a book. My street is ancient-it's cobbled, one-way, and the oldest building is from 1929. Do the LEDs use less power than the old sodium lamps? Probably; I genuinely don't know. But they're way too bright. I live pretty far north, where it gets dark at about 15:00 in winter... I get it. But how hard would it be to dim them at 20:00? That's Raspberry Pi-level tech.

[@brick6347]

Grrr, not timestamps.

[@frasercain]

They use less power, so people just make them brighter

[@jd9119]

One of Trump's key supporters during the election season was Elon Musk. I think it'd be a good bet to think that Musk is going to get bigger contracts for his Space X company.

[@FastCoachToby]

Could dark matter be clusters of micro black holes? I thought about asking this for a while, but now you mention a correlation, it's time to ask haha

[@shanahans1]

QUESTION please: What happens when Nuclear enabled satellites like the Transit spacecraft launched in 1960s deorbit? Will any radio active material still be volatile? And have any already deorbited?

[@nukenuked5749]

It’s that bad down where my mum lives every time I look up at night I cry Because your lucky if you can see one or two stars 😢

[@eneslem]

Why do super nova stay bright for so long? I thought it's a really fast explosion, but the explosion gets stronger, not instead of starting at max strength.

[@MrJPI]

Energy equipartition principle => hydrogen atoms have the highest velocities in an atmosphere.

[@dustman96]

I live in Tucson and the "dark sky" ordinance is a joke, and is not enforced. You'd have to have perfect conditions to see the milky way from in town, and it would be very faint. Personally I leave all exterior lights off at night.

[@derpymcderp42]

Head over to Kitt Peak during one of their night programs.

[@dustman96]

@@derpymcderp42 Thanks, we usually head down to Buenos Aires wildlife refuge for astronomical events. The most amazing night sky i ever saw was in hawaii volcanoes national park. It was really mind blowing.

[@frasercain]

My best seeing was in Australia. Absolutely mind blowing

[@marcekessen8003]

Mine was camping by a lake in Estes Park, Colorado during one of the meteor showers Amazing- meteors in sky reflected in the lake too

[@deadsamurai001]

How did astronauts from Apollo missions not died from cancer? When they leave earths magneto sphere into sun's radiation and back ground cosmic radiation nearly unprotected , 3 days from earth to moon one day at the lunar orbit and 3 days back from moon to earth; Is being 7 days on a unprotected from cosmic radiation enough for cancer to develop? And How much radiation is on a moons surface ?

[@utofbu]

With Boeing's decade of faux pas, I am hesitant to be 100% for the decision-making behind this program progression.

[@nadahere]

Elon, "Hold my beer"

[@takehirolol5962]

Light pollution? Where I live it's quite dim.

[@damanybrown5036]

I thought that it was discovered there will be no joining of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way? Mikdromeda is a silly name. Milky 31 is better

[@nadahere]

ALLRIGHTY. New admin. YEAH!!!

[@oldschoolman1444]

Yup, say goodbye to any funding for space.

[@maGnetar333]

​@@oldschoolman1444 Say goodbye to TAX PAYER FUNDED decade long boondoggles. Now, go learn a thing or two.....

[@Vaeldarg]

@@maGnetar333 "Now, go learn a thing or two.." You know you all can't complain about "them college-educated elitists" at the same time as pretending to be the ones that know better, right?

[@andrewsturridge6880]

Would the human race have to move to another galaxy before the Milky Way and Andromeda collide?

[@MikinessAnalog]

been drinking too much coffee???

[@nadahere]

Russia did not invade Ukra. It's a Special Military Op. Know the diff. =]

[@jamesdukes6833]

It took you entirely to long to answer dude about light pollution. I got go that was Irritating

[@lucashouse9117]

Can we please not talk about Trump ever again? It's going to be a nightmare.

[@frasercain]

It all depends on whether he generates any news that has implications for space exploration and astronomy. Sorry, I've got to be a journalist.

[@kamilZ2]

Please ignore this comment, 99% nobody will see it. Just checking which of my comments are shadow-banned by KZbin without any reason known to me.

[@HebaruSan]

If you have been posting comments and then refreshing the page to find them, give it an hour or two to propagate to all the mirrors.

[@frasercain]

And remember that KZbin automatically bans any comments with links.

[@derpymcderp42]

Certain keywords will also cause comments to disappear.

[@rtxagent6303]

𝖳𝗋𝗒 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖴𝗇𝗂𝖼𝗈𝖽𝖾 𝗂𝗇𝗌𝗍𝖾𝖺𝖽. 𝖸𝗈𝗎𝖳𝗎𝖻𝖾 𝖼𝖺𝗇’𝗍 𝖺𝗎𝗍𝗈 𝖽𝖾𝗅𝖾𝗍𝖾 𝗂𝗍 𝗂𝖿 𝗂𝗍’𝗌 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝗇𝗈𝗋𝗆𝖺𝗅 𝗍𝖾𝗑𝗍.

[@rudyberkvens-be]

I don’t agree that in general sace exploration is neutral. It is right wing, like it or not. It thrives more with a conservative president than a democratic. But Kennedy, you will say? Well, he was a kinda right wing democrat. And Nixon continued the Apollo program.

[@lambofgodfan6661]

I think you just proved it is neutral. You named a republican and a democrat that helped advance it and you didn’t even mention LBJ who probably did the most for space exploration while he was in the senate.

[@bbartky]

You’re ignoring the Nixon and Reagan administrations. When Nixon took office he became the first president to make huge cuts in NASA’s budget. And when Reagan took office he increased military space spending and massively decreased civilian space spending. In fact, Reagan killed every single planned planetary mission, including the Venus VOIR orbiter. Thankfully, after VOIR was canceled NASA came up with Magellan to replace it. NASA was able to get it approved by building it from spares from previous missions like Voyager. Also, you’re leaving out LBJ when NASA’s budget was the biggest it’s ever been. LBJ had a lot of faults but as Tom Wolfe points out in _The Right Stuff_ it was LBJ, not JFK, who made the Apollo program succeed. The only Republican presidents who could legitimately be called pro space were Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush. Eisenhower, of course, made the great decision to create NASA from NACA. Bush had very ambitious plans for space exploration but he had zero allies in Congress for them. The NASA budget was either flat or declined slightly in the Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. I’m pessimistic about NASA’s future right now but I hope I’m wrong.

[@ilovepepsi6670]

What is that one thing scientists say is 100% true, but you absolutely disagree or at least you have your doubts about it.

[@nadahere]

Reg the NJ drones, they could use a drag net w a helicopter...but wont. I said it's a distraction for the Syrian fiasco. But potentially ​🇫​​🇦​​🇱​​🇸​​🇪​ ​🇫​​🇱​​🇦​​🇬​ to enact anti-drone / personal air mobility legislation...and weapon systems. Đł₳฿ØⱠł₵₳Ⱡ

[@j.b.onesnap]

😳