Starship Asterisk*

Meteors that go below about 30 km height also makes an infrasound roar at a few Hz. If there are several infrasound microphones within reach, it can be combined with wind data to triangulate the path even during the dark flight period. Infrasound triangulations may be very accurate due to the low sp...

Alex: The bluring effect is "optical unsharpness", and not a fuzzy star. We just dont have big enough telescopes to get higher resolution visible light images. Maybe radio telescope interferometry may help. Or just wait for JWST.

They probably use lots of techniques. First removing all the known disturbances like internal reflections inside LORRI and compensating for vignetting. Deconvolution are "wrapping" optical distortions backwards via advanced knowledge of how the distortions are made and computer algorithms....

The size threshold at which a body becomes round is highly uncertain, perhaps 200-1200 km. Ref http://mel.ess.ucla.edu/jlm/epo/planet/AAS09JLM.pdf p.12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_objects_by_size Pluto is almost 1200 km in diameter and thus at the high end of sizes that might ...

I think its a too interesting thought to skip. Let me try four scenarios: 1.1 New Horizon is passing by a California Air Base at 10 000 km distance (same as New Horizons will pass Pluto) at a speed of 13,8 km/s. In comparison ISS is in a low earth orbit currently about 355 km altitude and 7,66 km/s ...

A total solar eclipse will occur on Friday and be visible from the north Atlantic Ocean.

More important in this context, the total eclipse this friday will be observable from the north pole, as the sun slides along the horizon.

What does it take to make a digital solargraphy? I don't mean scanning the film or photopaper, but with a digital sensor. It's not as simple as setting the camera to bulb. The scene may be much to contrasty for digital sensors. The sensor will get saturated and the battery will drain. An very dark N...