Comments on: Fryed astronomy

By: Hoyvin-Mayven

Hoyvin-Mayven — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:20:33 +0000

Wooster: “Do you know everything, Jeeves?”
Jeeves: “I really don’t know, Sir.”

By: CR

CR — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:45:16 +0000

@ Matt A
LOL over your apologies to me!
Also, thanks for the new link.

By: Torbjörn Larsson, OM

Torbjörn Larsson, OM — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:07:25 +0000

IVAN₃MAN, thanks! Also, I should have realized it is best described as the resonance it is.

@ Winter Solstice Man:

Which obscure comic book will be a movie, yeah – but – Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (“Who will watch “The Watchmen”?)

By: Winter Solstice Man

Winter Solstice Man — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:37:33 +0000

Steven Fry was also an actor in the films I.Q. (with Albert Einstein played by Walter Matthau) and V for Vendetta by some guy who also wrote some obscure comic book about some Watchmen.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:37:50 +0000

The Space Studies Institute is quite interested in Trojan objects, since some at least should be carbanaceous, which have significant quantities of volatiles, probably including Hydrogen/oxygen compunds. The main advantage to such “Trojans” is that the delta V required to reach them from earth and return is much more energy effective than retrieving raw materials from the moon. Great for space construction/life maintenance. I belive the Solar observation sats are nearly in position to travel thru the L4/L5 points. There is a plan to observe the local area and see if any Trojans are detectable.

Gary 7

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:41:49 +0000

Well, I knew about Cruithne quite some time ago… though I was reminded of it by QI, this is true.

First time I saw it referred to was in a Stephen Baxter sci-fi novel, “Time” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold:_Time

That was written/printed in 1999.

By: EdZ

EdZ — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:13:08 +0000

Another vote for it being a Trojan, in the tradition started around Jupiter’s L5 point, and expanded to L4 (often overriding their ‘Greek’ designation), Saturn’s L4&5 points, Neptune’s, and Mar’s. To me at least, Cruithne’s orbit looks suspiciously like a Tadpole orbit around Earth’s L4 point.

By: StevoR

StevoR — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:56:40 +0000

@ SLC

Are you out there SLC? I’ve answered a question you asked ages ago on thediffrence between giant and supergaint stars back on the “Wonder twins Telescope sees star’s dying gasps” )(T leporis)thread.

Have you seen it yet?

Please let me know. Click on my name to visit the old thread mentioned.

PS. Hope this doens’t violate netiquette too badly but I just want to know if SLC has seen my reply for him, that’s all.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:30:27 +0000

BTW, anyone who wishes to watch more QI but has the misfortune to live outside the UK…

The first three series (A, B and C) are available from Amazon.co.uk on Region 2 DVD.

I think QI is the best BBC programme since they started dumbing down Horizon. Not only is it hilarious, not only does it contain many facts and titbits of obscure science, it is the only programme on the BBC that celebrates scepticism (and, yes, because it is the BBC, you have to spell “scepticism” with a “c”, not a “k”). And this is largely due to Stephen Fry.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:25:26 +0000

D’oh! Ivan3man beat me to it.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:23:02 +0000

Grand Lunar said:

Wouldn’t this technically be a Trojan, after the groups of asteroids that follow Jupiter and a few other planets around?
Or do Trojans just hang around a particular point in a planet’s orbit?

Trojans occupy the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. So Cruithne is not a Trojan.

By: Matt A

Matt A — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:09:12 +0000

CR – I’m so sorry… that you have to live in a country that isn’t the UK. Anyway, I consulted the Tubes of You, which is probably what I should have done in the first place, and part one of the show is here…

By: quasidog

quasidog — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:52:45 +0000

Yeah it’s awesome Steven Fry is a skeptic. Maybe he should have been more skeptical.

I am getting tired of this term.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:22:19 +0000

Grand Lunar:

Wouldn't this technically be a Trojan, after the groups of asteroids that follow Jupiter and a few other planets around? Or do Trojans just hang around a particular point in a planet’s orbit?

In astronomy, according to Wikipedia, the adjective 'Trojan' refers to a minor planet or natural satellite (moon) that shares an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but does not collide with it because it orbits around one of the two Lagrangian points of stability, L₄ and L₅, which lie 60° ahead of and behind the larger body.

The term originally referred to the Trojan asteroids orbiting around Jupiter's Lagrangian points. Subsequently objects have been found orbiting the Lagrangian points of Neptune and Mars. In addition, Trojan moons are known to orbit the Lagrangian points of two of Saturn's mid-sized moons.

By: CR

CR — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:23:22 +0000

Matt A…
Nuts! That clip you linked to is ‘available for UK viewers only…’

By: CR

CR — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:18:37 +0000

Ah, Miss Teen South Carolina… “I personally believe…” and “and, such as…” and “U.S. Americans…” and “the Iraq…” and so on.
One minute of pure nonsense gold!
It’s on YouTube, but just as funny is a parody by ‘Miss West Carolina’ who does indeed know that there’s no such place as WEST Carolina. Clever girl; she’s not even American, but had me fooled with the accent and attitude!

Stephen Fry & Quite Interesting… I’m going now to find as many clips as I can. Looks like a show I’d thoroughly enjoy. Sad to say,though, that I doubt I’ll be throwing any ‘QI’ parties any time soon.

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:35:38 +0000

Aargh – it ISBrydon – with an o! (probably pronounced “Get my name right you plonker!”)

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:33:26 +0000

Rob Bryden, not Bob, sorry. And not Brydon either, even though his name is spelled that way on Youtube. Search for "QI Bryden"

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:29:18 +0000

You can bet your old boots that Cruithne will continue to be pronounced “Kru-ITH-knee” for a long long time in the UK at least – primarily because Stephen Fry said so!

btw QI is the only weekly TV programme I take the trouble to watch. The recent episode with Bob Bryden and his doppelganger Ben Miller had me in stitches! I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but it’s on Youtube so go take a look.

Elwood (pronounced “~~~!”)

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:10:26 +0000

Wouldn’t this technically be a Trojan, after the groups of asteroids that follow Jupiter and a few other planets around?
Or do Trojans just hang around a particular point in a planet’s orbit?

By: Shane

Shane — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:36:24 +0000

Stephen Fry also wrote a very entertaining alternate history novel, Making History. Check it out.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:31:49 +0000

Torbjörn Larsson:

Btw, what is an orbit that has this type of periodic change of period called?

I can't say for certain, but I have found numerous references to "quasi-satellites" that have a 1:1 mean-motion resonance which occurs when two bodies, usually a planet and an asteroid, orbit the Sun in equal amounts of time.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:05:34 +0000

“my task was to count the stars in it and get their positions and brightnesses at various wavelengths, and I spent a long time writing buggy code that never quite did the trick”
—
Ah, that takes me back to my uni days. My final year astrophysics project was to look at three plates of little white dots and work out which ones were galaxies clustered around a distant radio galaxy. It’s been over ten years now so I can’t really remember how I did it, but it had something to do with writing similar buggy code to calculate the positions of all of the little dots (stars or galaxies) on each of the images (two narrow band filters and one broad band filter) and comparing them, with all the stars and other galaxies at different redshifts falling along a straight line on the graph, and the galaxies clustered around the radio galaxy as points away from the line. Funnily enough, two other guys doing exactly the same project got completely different results to me…

I luvs science! D

By: Winter Solstice Man

Winter Solstice Man — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:49:34 +0000

And then of course there is the infamous Miss Teen America who gave that bizarre comment during a pageant on maps and Iraqs and I don’t know what the heck else she was getting at.

But being a male, I also admit I found myself able to forgive her. :^)

By: Winter Solstice Man

Winter Solstice Man — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:47:20 +0000

Nothing beats the time Kelly Pickler (a finalist on American Idol) was on So You Think You Are Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and publicly declared she did not know that France was an actual country. That she says this without too much shame in her voice or attitude is beyond sad.

Check it out on YouTube, then do not admit to anyone for a while that you are an American.