Starship Asterisk*

blergnaut wrote:Of all websites, I wouldn't think APOD would mess up a post such as this. You refer to Mt. Rainier as a mountain, in the geologic sense it is only a volcano, NOT A MOUNTAIN! I know the whole Mount part is confusing, but it doesn't mean you get to remain 'ignant'!
-Your friendly pedantic neighbor

blergnaut wrote:Of all websites, I wouldn't think APOD would mess up a post such as this. You refer to Mt. Rainier as a mountain, in the geologic sense it is only a volcano, NOT A MOUNTAIN! I know the whole Mount part is confusing, but it doesn't mean you get to remain 'ignant'!
-Your friendly pedantic neighbor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons wrote:
Olympus Mons (Latin for Mount Olympus) is a large shield volcano on the planet Mars. By one measure, it has a height of nearly 22 km (14 mi).[3] This makes it the tallest mountain on any planet in the Solar System

Chris Peterson wrote:

blergnaut wrote:Of all websites, I wouldn't think APOD would mess up a post such as this. You refer to Mt. Rainier as a mountain, in the geologic sense it is only a volcano, NOT A MOUNTAIN! I know the whole Mount part is confusing, but it doesn't mean you get to remain 'ignant'!
-Your friendly pedantic neighbor

Volcanoes are mountains, both technically and colloquially. Volcanism is one of the mechanisms of mountain building, after all!

zbvhs wrote:My favorite lenticular cloud picture is a long-ago APOD showing a single lenticular cloud with what appreared to be wingtip vortices trailing downwind from the edges. I suppose these things could behave like lifting surfaces if pressure distributions were right. I did a search on "lenticular" and only got back today's APOD. By the way, down in Texas it's "ignernt". Don't know where people say "ignant".

darkgently wrote:Oh come on guys, there are so many beautiful pictures out there to show us - why waste a day repeating one? I'm hoping this was just an oversight rather than a deliberate ploy!

henrystar wrote:Vulcanism, surely? My we ARE having a bad day at APOD!

henrystar wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

blergnaut wrote:Of all websites, I wouldn't think APOD would mess up a post such as this. You refer to Mt. Rainier as a mountain, in the geologic sense it is only a volcano, NOT A MOUNTAIN! I know the whole Mount part is confusing, but it doesn't mean you get to remain 'ignant'!
-Your friendly pedantic neighbor

Volcanoes are mountains, both technically and colloquially. Volcanism is one of the mechanisms of mountain building, after all!

Vulcanism, surely?

Mokurai wrote:Two words: Mount Shasta.

http://images.google.com/search?num=10& ... unt+shasta

APOD Robot wrote:
On some days the city of Seattle, Washington, USA, is treated to an unusual sky show when
lenticular clouds form near Mt. Rainier, a large mountain that looms just under 100 kilometers southeast of the city.

Kudos to an APOD that actually neglected ( ) to translate kilometers into miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication#Accidents_and_incidents wrote:

[img3="the "Gimli Glider""]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... glider.JPG[/img3]

<<Confusion over units during the process of metrication can sometimes lead to accidents. One of the most famous examples was during Canada's metrication: in 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767, nicknamed the "Gimli Glider" after the incident, ran out of fuel in mid-flight. The incident was caused, in a large part, by the confusion over the conversion among litres, kilograms, and pounds, resulting in the aircraft receiving 22,300 pounds of fuel instead of the required 22,300 kg.

On 25 September 2009, the British Department for Transport published a draft version of legislation to amend its road signage legislation for comment. Amongst the proposed changes is an amendment to existing legislation to make dual unit height and width warning and restriction signs mandatory. This is justified in Paragraph 53 of the Impact Analysis by the text "... Based on records from Network Rail's incident logs since April 2008, approximately 10 – 12% of bridge strikes involved foreign lorries. This is disproportionately high in terms of the number of foreign lorries on the road network." This proposal was shelved with the change of government in 2010, though many bridges are now dual signed.

Only the United States continues to see significant popular opposition to metrication, the main objections being based in localism, tradition, cultural aesthetics, economic impact, or distaste for measures viewed as "foreign". Japan had significant popular opposition at one time for similar reasons. Popular opposition in the United Kingdom exists to a lesser degree and can be associated with anti-European Union sentiment. France, where the measures were largely invented, saw popular opposition during the early 19th century, though not for long. Thus, with the exception of the United States, metrication is now fully or substantially accepted in all countries.>>

• - - CASSIUS, Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure wrote:

---

<<The Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) was a 338 kilogram (750 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998 to study the Martian climate, atmosphere, surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program, for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion.

On November 10, 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board released a Phase I report, detailing the suspected issues encountered with the loss of the spacecraft. Previously, on September 8, 1999, Trajectory Correction Maneuver-4 was computed and then executed on September 15, 1999. It was intended to place the spacecraft at an optimal position for an orbital insertion maneuver that would bring the spacecraft around Mars at an altitude of 226 kilometers on September 23, 1999. However, during the week between TCM-4 and the orbital insertion maneuver, the navigation team indicated the altitude may be much lower than intended at 150 to 170 kilometers. Twenty-four hours prior to orbital insertion, calculations placed the orbiter at an altitude of 110 kilometers; 80 kilometers is the minimum altitude that Mars Climate Orbiter was thought to be capable of surviving during this maneuver. Final calculations placed the spacecraft in a trajectory that would have taken the orbiter within 57 kilometers of the surface where the spacecraft likely disintegrated because of atmospheric stresses. The primary cause of this discrepancy was engineering error. Specifically, the flight system software on the Mars Climate Orbiter was written to take thrust instructions using the metric unit newtons (N), while the software on the ground that generated those instructions used the Imperial measure pound-force (lbf). This error has since been known as the metric mixup and has been carefully avoided in all missions since by NASA.

The discrepancy between calculated and measured position, resulting in the discrepancy between desired and actual orbit insertion altitude, had been noticed earlier by at least two navigators, whose concerns were dismissed. A meeting of trajectory software engineers, trajectory software operators (navigators), propulsion engineers, and managers, was convened to consider the possibility of executing TCM-5, which was in the schedule. Attendees of the meeting recall an agreement to conduct TCM-5, but it was ultimately not done.>>

quigley wrote:Okay, boys and girls. The APOD staff does a terrific job of bringing us interesting stuff each and every day. Even if it's a repeat, the marvels portrayed are worth another look. I'm saddened when I see the thread of posts reading like an episode of the Big Bang Theory TV show. Let's keep it civil...k?

em53x_B wrote:
Could these lenticular cloud formations be caused or influenced by a Von Karman vortex street forming on the leeward side of the mountain?