Space and Science BS Thread

From the engineering camera, not the high res..

 

That's one of the problems with NASA. There is a disconnect with what's happening and how they keep people informed/interested. We've been really spoiled by Spacex's inability to hide a lot of starship's progress, but even they suffer from the same shortcomings.

 

That was just in case everything was NOT fine.

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...mars-where-it-is-and-what-the-next-steps-are/

 

Good bye 2024 (as if it was ever realistic).

HLS decision now expected in mid- to late-April.

However Artemis plugs along..

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...24-moon-landing-no-longer-a-realistic-target/

 

https://youtu.be/vsTTXYxydOE

 

I've been asking this question for about 10 years and not finding anything substantive: why are scientists not looking at the relationship between our changing climate and the changes in earth's magnetic field? Finally somebody who doesn't think I'm crazy.

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to an Ancient Geomagnetic Disruption

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/science/laschamp-earth-magnetic-climate.html

 

I'd say there's two major reasons, at least two that I thought of immediately.

One is that the Van Allen Belts, the area where most of the solar wind particles get trapped from our magnetic field, have not weakened along with the decrease in the intensity of the magnetic field. In other words, we aren't seeing more solar wind particles hitting the upper atmosphere than we normally do over the time we've been able to measure that. The particles the earths magnetic field protects us from are still, for the most part, trapped far above where they could do any harm. We do see the amount of solar wind vary, and the amount of plasma in the ionosphere change along with it, but there isn't a change that's been measured related to the earths magnetic field strength.

The second is the science itself. Our understanding of the process of magnetic field reversal and what actually happens before, during, and after is poor at best. I've read several of these articles yet and they're clearly written to excite the reader rather than point out the truth. The truth is that when we seem to find evidence of climate change around the time of a geomagnetic dipole flip, we go looking for that evidence in similar rocks, ice, and lake bottoms in other areas and don't find enough consistency to support the claims. You can find what looks like excellent evidence in a lake somewhere, and then go look at samples from the same time period somewhere else where the effect should of been greater and find nothing, which is what has happened. To put it in perspective, it took about ten to twenty years after discovering the huge crater in Yucatan for the scientific community to accept the K-T boundary was actually a layer of material deposited from a massive bolide impact and that evidence is consistent throughout every part of the planet. When you try to link paleoclimate change to a weak magnetic field, the data is far too narrow for scientific consensus. It's a relatively unproven hypothesis still, at best, compared to human induced climate change. Occam's razor, in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary. Until there is substantial global data and observation behind Geomagnetic Disruption it'll be a neat theory that's not widely accepted.

 

Simple. If that's the cause of climate change, then there is nothing our current technology can do. If people knew there was nothing that could be done to be stop what has happened many times, they might stop caring. They might suddenly stop supporting billions in tax dollars being spent on green energy and things like LA smog/pollution might come back.

 

Don't assume for a second that one is related to the other. We've had climate changes throughout the eons related to many factors, including but not limited to:
- Too much microbial oxygen production in the oceans
- Tectonic shifts and a (literal) explosion in volcanic activity
- Collision of all tectonic plates into a single land mass that prevented moisture (rain) from reaching the interior of the supercontinent
- Break-up of that giant supercontinent into smaller masses that permitted the explosion of plant growth (mostly ferns and conifers, which we burn in our trucks today)

and of course
- Giant fucking meteors
- Pyromaniacal hairless apes

PBS Eons (outstanding material)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA

Journeys through Geologic Time
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi6K9w_UbfFSFIpEU9VMavTM5MIbOAiW5

 

There wasn't too much Oxygen in the atmosphere. If that didn't happen, we wouldn't be here . The great oxygen catastrophe is what likely lead to true multicellular life.

I'm bugging you and know what you mean. I bring this up anytime people say extinction is unacceptable. We are here because other stuff that was really successful died lol. I also don't put too much investment into paleoclimatic modeling or paleometeorology and trying to apply it now. Just because the planet had 25% available oxygen, 3% CO2, and basically burnt down every year in a massive forest fire doesn't mean we shouldn't avoid dumping shit at a rate we don't understand, including emissions, into the atmosphere.

 

It's the same reason if we ever face a true cataclysmic event it's very likely the wotlds governments would hide it until the absolute last moment with every resource, legal and illegal, available. Not only to give them time to try some solutions, but mostly to prevent widespread panic that would freeze the economy and make it impossible to produce a solution.

 

I agree with that. I disagree with a causal relationship between earth’s polarity and climate change, and that we can’t do anything to positively affect it. Knowing what the causal relationships are is precisely how we can make positive changes.

 

Climate change discussions never end well.

 

We need to prove the relationship first. We need to understand something to actually direct any effective changes. We haven't even come close to that. We've proven their is life on Europa about as well as we've proven there is a link between polarity and climate change. For all we know there could be another process at play between the two that actually makes them corelated but not caused by one another.

 

I didn’t say that it killed everything. I simply pointed out that the reduction of greenhouse gas changed the climate to cold, just as the addition later (by volcano or giant fucking meteor) made it hot.

 

Well, I mean, the French hosted the last conference so you know it was bound to be a loss for everyone at some point .

WE SURRENDER lol.