Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - Philae's lost seven months were completely unnecessary

StartsWithABang writes: This past weekend, the Philae lander reawakened after seven dormant months, the best outcome that mission scientists could've hoped for with the way the mission unfolded. But the first probe to softly land on a comet ever would never have needed to hibernate at all if we had simply built it with the nuclear power capabilities it should've had. The seven months of lost data were completely unnecessary, and resulted solely from the world's nuclear fears.

Submission + - 'Warm Neptune' Exoplanets May Have Lots of Helium (slate.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait reports on new research into exoplanets that came to an unexpected and non-obvious conclusion. Throughout the galaxy, astronomers have been finding exoplanets they call "warm Neptunes" — bodies about the size of Neptune, but orbiting their parent star more closely than Mercury orbits the Sun. When astronomers looked at spectra for these planets, they found something surprising: no methane signature (PDF). Methane is made of carbon and hydrogen, and it's generally assumed that most large, gaseous planets will have a lot of hydrogen. But this class of exoplanet, being significantly smaller than, say, Jupiter, may not have the mass (and thus the gravity) to hold on to its hydrogen when it's heated by the close proximity to the star. The result is that the atmosphere may be largely made up of helium instead. If so, the planet would look oddly colorless to our eyes, very unlike the planets in our solar system.

Comment Re:Big Models (Score 2) 64

"The technical term for that kind of "research" would be nit-picking, and is generally frowned upon by real researcher. You know, the kind of people who actually knows up from down, contrary to you."

Actually the term is cherry-picking. Nit-picking is focusing on trivial details.

Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 1) 476

1) If it's that cold out, why wouldn't the condensation freeze in the tank? I've never seen a heated gas tank...

It probably does and won't cause a problem in that case.

2) Most of the really cold places I've seen put 10% ethanol in the gas... this should help dissolve any condensation nicely into the fuel, letting it just run through the system without freezing up.

Not always.
3) Really Cold also means Really Dry, which should mean little to no condensation. The condensation happens when warm, moist air hits really cold things or air. Unless someone's making out with their gas tank, there shouldn't be much opportunity for warm, moist air to enter.

I Should have been clearer here. I have had it happen to me when the temperature went from -5C to -20C (approx). Plenty of opportunity for condensation to occur.

4) Anyone who has a major problem with condensation should consider using additives (methanol/ethanol) to take care of the problem. These are plentiful and cheap - I believe last time I bought the Walmart version I paid $0.50/pint (clearance after winter last year).

Doesn't refute my point that it can occur and when it happened to me it was a rental car

Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 1) 476

Gas lines can freeze when it gets colder (-20C or colder) not because the gasoline freezes but because of condensation in the gas tank. The small amount of water will freeze when it comes in contact with the cold gas line restricting the flow of fuel. This can be avoided by keeping your gas tank full, limiting the amount of condensation.

Comment Re:So true (Score 1) 366

I use it keep from filling up my boss's inbox. When troubleshooting problems, there is often a lengthy back and forth email session involving several people. I will Bcc: my boss occasionally, so that he gets updated, but doesn't have to deal with every reply to all.

Comment Re:Bad GUI and no CLI: way too common (Score 1) 617

SMIT (System Management Interface Tool) on AIX has been automatically creating a script for all of the tasks you do within the GUI. There is even a button to push that will display the command you are about to run with the approriate flags and parameters. This functionality has been there since last millenium. HP-UX's SAM has something similar as well. Don't know about Solaris as I only use the CLI on that OS.

Slashdot Top Deals

Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.

Working...