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Space Stuff Collection
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| Watsisname | Date: Friday, 16.08.2013, 06:38 | Message # 211 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| Your question was also answered in the link you provided, in the first paragraph!
Yes, it's bright enough to see with the unaided eye, but only if you are at a very dark sight and know exactly where to look. It's about fifth magnitude at last report, possibly still brightening.
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| anonymousgamer | Date: Saturday, 17.08.2013, 03:53 | Message # 212 |
 World Builder
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 1011
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| If other planets were as close to Earth as the Moon is to Earth
Desktop: FX-8350 4.0 GHz, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW 8 GB, 2 TB HDD, 24 inch 1920x1080 screen
Laptop: Core i5 480M 2.66 GHz (turbo 2.93), 8 GB DDR3 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6550m 1 GB, 640 GB HDD, 17.3 inch 1600x900 screen
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| Aerospacefag | Date: Saturday, 17.08.2013, 05:30 | Message # 213 |
 Pioneer
Group: Users
Russian Federation
Messages: 401
Status: Offline
| Short demoscene I discovered around 2009. It means, actually, this is some executable file by the size of 4 kb (4000 bytes), that produces 3,5 minutes animated film with music and procedural landscape. I still have it on my PC, but i can't execute it on my Win7 system...
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| anonymousgamer | Date: Saturday, 17.08.2013, 05:39 | Message # 214 |
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World Builder
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 1011
Status: Offline
| Quote (Aerospacefag) It means, actually, this is some executable file by the size of 4 kb (4000 bytes), that produces 3,5 minutes animated film with music and procedural landscape.
I have a huge collection of these somewhere on my computer.
Desktop: FX-8350 4.0 GHz, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW 8 GB, 2 TB HDD, 24 inch 1920x1080 screen
Laptop: Core i5 480M 2.66 GHz (turbo 2.93), 8 GB DDR3 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6550m 1 GB, 640 GB HDD, 17.3 inch 1600x900 screen
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| midtskogen | Date: Monday, 19.08.2013, 17:38 | Message # 215 |
 Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote (Aerospacefag) this is some executable file by the size of 4 kb (4000 bytes), that produces 3,5 minutes animated film with music and procedural landscape.
Damn. I was active in the demo scene back in the C64 and Amiga days, made a name as a coder then, I'm partly updated on x86 ISA and extensions (not much on GPU stuff, though), but I don't really have much clue of they pulled off this though it does depend on a library. It didn't run in Wine on Linux. 
The snow even looks more realistic than in SE.Added (19.08.2013, 20:38)
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Some very good footage of noctilucent clouds featured on today's APOD:
Some aurora as well disturbing the show, though.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| werdnaforever | Date: Monday, 19.08.2013, 19:20 | Message # 216 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Pirate
Messages: 897
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| Quote (midtskogen) Interesting animations
Watching the icy areas come and go in the breathing earth animation really makes you think about how balanced Earth is (how incredibly fragile it's habitable conditions are). It's almost like Earth is walking on a tightrope around the sun, slowly wobbling back and forth from winter to summer. It wouldn't take much of a difference for it to fall off either way.
(it's not a perfect metaphor)
(You could compare it to Venus or Mars, where things are pretty much the same all year... unless my assumptions about seasonal climate change on those planets are flat-out-wrong.)
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| midtskogen | Date: Monday, 19.08.2013, 19:41 | Message # 217 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote (werdnaforever) Watching the icy areas come and go in the breathing earth animation really makes you think about how balanced Earth is (how incredibly fragile it's habitable conditions are). It's almost like Earth is walking on a tightrope around the sun, slowly wobbling back and forth from winter to summer. It wouldn't take much of a difference for it to fall off either way.
Yes, this stability for several hundred million years seems remarkable. Or not remarkable depending on which end you view it from. We might have to search for a very long time to find another planet with the right temperature, atmosphere and stability. But this is viewing it from the wrong end, I think. We have to recall that we are the product of this balance. We didn't come into existence and simply were very lucky that Earth had the right conditions for us. So even if this kind of stability is a one in a million or one in a billion thing, it's not really remarkable since we wouldn't be around to ponder this question in the other 999,999 or 999,999,999 cases.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
Edited by midtskogen - Monday, 19.08.2013, 19:41 |
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 19.08.2013, 20:44 | Message # 218 |
 Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
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| Quote (werdnaforever) unless my assumptions about seasonal climate change on those planets are flat-out-wrong
If we had a map like this of Mars, it would look much the same, with the ice caps advancing and retreating dramatically over the course of the year.
Quote (werdnaforever) Watching the icy areas come and go in the breathing earth animation really makes you think about how balanced Earth is (how incredibly fragile it's habitable conditions are). It's almost like Earth is walking on a tightrope around the sun, slowly wobbling back and forth from winter to summer. It wouldn't take much of a difference for it to fall off either way.
It's not that fragile. Climatic conditions have varied considerably on this planet throughout its history, with global temperature changes of perhaps as much as 50 °C, and life has persisted through all of it.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| RockoRocks | Date: Monday, 19.08.2013, 22:17 | Message # 219 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Belgium
Messages: 674
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) It's not that fragile. Climatic conditions have varied considerably on this planet throughout its history, with global temperature changes of perhaps as much as 50 °C, and life has persisted through all of it.
That's quite amazing.
I will be inactive on this forum for the time being. Might come back eventually
AMD AR-3305M APU w/ Radeon HD 1.90 GHz 6,00 GB RAM
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| midtskogen | Date: Tuesday, 20.08.2013, 07:47 | Message # 220 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
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| Quote (RockoRocks) That's quite amazing.
What is amazing, that Earth climate may have changed as much as 50 °C or that life persisted?
Consider that there are different places on Earth today with yearly means of 30 °C and of -20 °C and you will find life in either extreme environment, even on land (of course, the ocean temperature varies less, but still as much as 30 °C).
But if we limit the period only to go back to include the Cambrian explosion, excluding the period when life was no more than single cells or colonies of them, then the change may have been as low as 10-15 °C (I'm not sure of this number, one Wikipedia graph suggests 10 °C, but that seems a bit low unless it's a million year mean or something). That would be similar to or less than the seasonal variation for much of the planet. I wonder if life itself has served as an effective thermostat preventing runaway cooling or warming.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| Watsisname | Date: Tuesday, 20.08.2013, 09:22 | Message # 221 |
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Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
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| Yep, Earth has experienced significant temperature changes (50C sounds likely during snowball earth episodes), and life evidently did persist through them. That's saying a lot about how difficult it is to kill life completely, once it's well established on a planet. Of course in the example of Snowball Earth's the only organisms that survived were probably extremophiles deep underground, in sea-floor vents, or already tolerant of extreme cold. There might have also been a narrow equatorial band that didn't freeze over completely, AKA 'Slushball Earth' event.
Quote (midtskogen) I wonder if life itself has served as an effective thermostat preventing runaway cooling or warming.
Quite possible, like a form of the Gaia hypothesis. The idea has seen some interesting studies, from the Daisyworld simulations, to dimethylsulfide (DMS) produced by marine organisms (see CLAW hypothesis). Whole ecosystems also modify their regional climates, one of the most notable being Amazonia. However, the most powerful natural thermostat for planetary temperature throughout Earth history seems to be the CO2/rock-weathering cycle.
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| midtskogen | Date: Thursday, 22.08.2013, 05:51 | Message # 222 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Zooming into star birth:
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| werdnaforever | Date: Thursday, 22.08.2013, 14:45 | Message # 223 |
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World Builder
Group: Users
Pirate
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| Quote (Aerospacefag) Short demoscene I discovered around 2009. It means, actually, this is some executable file by the size of 4 kb (4000 bytes), that produces 3,5 minutes animated film with music and procedural landscape. I still have it on my PC, but i can't execute it on my Win7 system...
It's amazing how much you can create with so little information.
That said, the program still uses resources from other software- like OpenGL or DirectX, right? You can't fit a modern-day graphics engine in 4000 bytes...
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| midtskogen | Date: Thursday, 22.08.2013, 16:08 | Message # 224 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote (werdnaforever) That said, the program still uses resources from other software- like OpenGL or DirectX, right?
It needs d3d9_33.dll, whatever that is.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Thursday, 22.08.2013, 16:53 | Message # 225 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
Pirate
Messages: 3600
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| Part of the aero system I would assume.
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
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