News of the Wyrd

**Viking** · 01-16-2008, 19:47

Originally Posted by Sigurd Fafnesbane

I still don’t buy it.
I mean, which of the different radiation (roentgens) types from a nuclear bomb can affect a piece of rock floating in space?

EMP will do no damage to or effect rock.
Thermal radiation is non-existent.
Radio waves?
UV radiation ?
X-rays?
Alpha rays?
Beta?
Gamma?

You say energy will transform into kinetic energy? Wouldn’t most of the energy from a nuclear detonation be transformed to light? … I doubt you can move a piece of rock with the beam of a flashlight.

Thermal radiation is exists in space, yes; also known as infrared light

All sort of electromagnetic radiation will give the asteroid a push (as a side note, we have the Yarkovsky effect caused by the Sun and that works over time, pushing small astronomical bodies). The (electromagnetic) radiation will also cause vast surface areas to melt; the vaporized regolith will work as a thrusting force in addition to the push that the radiation delivers.

Originally Posted by Husar

To come back to the topic, the intensity of the explosion of a nuke and the fact that all it's energy would go into all these radiation particles(whereas down here, the air would absorb a lot of the energy by heating up and transporting it away in the shockwave) so the radiation should have the same strenght as the radiation, shockwave and heat here on earth have combined due to the law of the conservation of energy, I think.

Exatcly. Just as on Earth, the energy will go in all directions; though at an asteroid, only one is favourable.

**Viking** · 02-08-2008, 22:16

Old news, but thought I'd post it anyway; the fascinating radar images from the Saturnian moon Titan:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Photojournal (caption)

The colours are false. Dark colour indicates areas that poorly reflect the radar waves; likewise bright colours indicates areas that better reflects the radar waves from Cassini. The lakes are thought to consist of liquid hydrocarbons; the lake at right is greater than Lake Superior on the borders of the US/Canada.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 02-09-2008, 02:27

So basically if we can build a giant rail gun on Titan and set up a base there we could fire fuel back to Earth and keep our oil addiction going for hundreds of years?

Let's start shelling out the big bucks for space research guys, it's our only way out of green technology!

**Viking** · 02-09-2008, 12:18

Nah, hydrocarbons makes up a great range of different substances; and here we're tallking about methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6).

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 02-09-2008, 16:01

Originally Posted by Viking

Nah, hydrocarbons makes up a great range of different substances; and here we're tallking about methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6).

Both methane and ethane can be used as fuels as far as I know.

Just check out Cow Power, it runs off of natural methane!

**Viking** · 02-09-2008, 19:14

Originally Posted by Uesugi Kenshin

Both methane and ethane can be used as fuels as far as I know.

Just check out Cow Power, it runs off of natural methane!

Yeah, but the cars would need a few upgrades before we could start utilizing it.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 02-09-2008, 19:46

Originally Posted by Viking

Yeah, but the cars would need a few upgrades before we could start utilizing it.

I never said anything about cars. The future lies in electric cars run by Martian methane powered power plants!!!

**Viking** · 03-04-2008, 19:27

Avalenche...on Mars

A NASA spacecraft has taken the first-ever image of an avalanche in action near Mars' north pole.

The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photograph Feb. 19. The image, released today, shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...avalanche.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Just to show how powerful cameras the space probes carries today. This is a photograph of the Earth and the Moon talke by a Martian space probe from Mars orbit. It is the same camera that took the picture above.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: