Near Earth Objects

[Deepwater6]

https://www.space.com/40089-china-space-station-tiangong-1-radar-images.html

 

Space.com has these images from an institute in Germany that are taking these radar images as it descends. Chances are slim to none we'll get the camera footage we did when the Columbia spacecraft broke up during re-entry, but if you could it would be something to see, especially if you were to observe it at dusk or during the night.

[LaurieAG]

https://www.space.com/40089-china-space-station-tiangong-1-radar-images.html

 

Space.com has these images from an institute in Germany that are taking these radar images as it descends. Chances are slim to none we'll get the camera footage we did when the Columbia spacecraft broke up during re-entry, but if you could it would be something to see, especially if you were to observe it at dusk or during the night.

 

Hi Deepwater6, while that article is recent (March 26) those radar images were from around the 1st of March and the projection is the current ESA one on March 27, so the article must has been updated.

 

The current estimated reentry window runs from the morning of 31 March to the early morning of 2 April (in UTC time); this is highly variable.

 

Highly variable is the word because if you take the data at face value, as all the times given were reasonable when I wrote them down, it's interesting. Here's a different perspective based on back calculated 9 hour Alt diffs just using the latest times I recorded. Note the * Avg 9h Alt diff calc = (drop/time diff)*60*9.

Drop    Time diff  * Avg 9h Alt diff
17.41     7980        1.18
00.59      540        0.59
03.55     1062        1.80
03.54      944        2.025
00.33      360        0.495
00.99      180        2.97

I back projected the last reading on Satview web (wifi shortly after it came out) to the Indian ocean between Perth and Capetown almost directly south of the Sri Lanka. Interestingly enough my phone (phone not wifi) has a new reading (time 5:59pm AEST 28th March) but the time on my wifi says the same as the previous reading so I'll just choose 3 hours from the previous reading at 9:06pm AEST. Are they tracking the same thing or has it now got a leader? the one I photographed in my last 2 pics running 5 mins faster? My adjusted reading puts the location at just east of the bottom tip of Madagascar and the phone puts it further down to the sse of Madagascar.

 

The USstratCom projection hasn't changed so it probably doesn't take this into account, yet. 

 

Now off the top of my head, pulling that long bow again, what would happen if it had split in 2 on a previous bounce, that's what could have created the leader and the screwy calculations, and the first sphere burnt up on reentry while the second stronger sphere skipped (a la dam busters) in the ocean off China to a point south east of Guam, then went around another time to skip again at a point south west of Sri Lanka and due south off the bottom tip of India, to drop finally where I projected just after midnight on March 2, that's the safest path. 

 

If anybody interferes with this ball it could go anywhere, that's for sure, and everybody would probably know about it. 

 

The splashes would create rainbows so, apart from a good show as earth spins, it could even be that ancient Greek messenger from the 'gods', Iris, if it isn't actually Tiangong 1, and the Chinese had just been tracking it. The ancient Greeks had a different religious culture, than most of our modern western world, so they would have described repeating astronomical observations in a way that their own populace might understand. Probably the Chinese too as they have been around for a lot longer. If that's the case I wouldn't want to steal any 'god's' ball as you never know what 'it' might pick up in lieu. Also, the ancient Egyptians also recorded events with 'cups' so what would you expect to happen if a hot metallic spinning orb bounced in the ocean? Probably be a good idea to keep ships and planes away as they might create an accidental 'own goal' and that could end up messy. 

[Deepwater6]

You mentioned splitting in two. Do you think it's possible for the craft to have that occur, and as a result 1 half continues on through the atmosphere to land in the ocean, and the other half skips off the atmosphere and misses Earth altogether? Or by the time it has enough gravitational force exerted on it to split the craft in two there is no escape? 

 

It's curious that there is so much data discrepancy concerning time. I would think in space that these would be hard numbers and universal.

[LaurieAG]

You mentioned splitting in two. Do you think it's possible for the craft to have that occur, and as a result 1 half continues on through the atmosphere to land in the ocean, and the other half skips off the atmosphere and misses Earth altogether? Or by the time it has enough gravitational force exerted on it to split the craft in two there is no escape? 

 

It's curious that there is so much data discrepancy concerning time. I would think in space that these would be hard numbers and universal.

 

Tiangong 1 was built in 2 sections Deepwater6, so it is possible for it to split up if the links were broken.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1

 

Structurally, Tiangong-1 is divided into two primary sections: a resource module, which mounts its solar panels and propulsion systems, and a larger, habitable experimental module.

 

Probably not one in and one out as as we don't know what it's constructed of or even if it is Tiangong 1 at all, especially as it was supposed to deorbit in 2013.

 

In January 2013 we had this weird low that generated in central Queensland, moved into the Gulf of Carpentaria and became a cyclone, then tracked down our Great dividing range and eventually went all of the way down past Tasmania in a 1.5 to 2 week period so I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually Tiangong 1 coming in because I've never seen a cyclone behave like that in over 50 years.

 

 

Here's the link to my old thread below, it's a real pity they don't let me post attachments anymore because I'd update the image.

 

http://www.scienceforums.com/topic/27082-weird-weather-patterns/?hl=%2Bweird+%2Bweather

 

[LaurieAG]

It's curious that there is so much data discrepancy concerning time. I would think in space that these would be hard numbers and universal.

 

Yes Deepwater6, it's almost like Sideshow Bob (SB) is running the show, again. If you read my 'Weird Weather' thread you'll see when I mentioned time discrepancies in the radar dates and times in the past. The BOM Mt Stapylton radar was offline for almost a week recently for the manufacturer to do some updates and lo and behold, it was back on UTC for a while before it was set right. Surely the manufacturer has QA procedures for this sort of thing? 

 

Well, Satview has declared that Tiangong 1 will come in on April 1 at 23:59 AEST (1st at 17:05 AEST projecting from now on Satview to their location) and and USstratCom has around 00:40 AEST on the 2nd (projecting from now on Satview to their location) so there's still a lot of leeway, especially from the latest figures that Satview has been producing, Sideshow Bob must have been caught in Groundhog's day. ;)

Date      Time (AEST)   Alt     Velocity  (watch Time) Drop  T diff  Avg9hAdiff AdjTdiff  Adj9hAdiff
March 28    23:53       197.39  28028.40               1.65   347     2.57                  2.57
March 29    01:53       197.39  28028.40               0.00   120     0.00        467       1.91(SB)
March 29    05:46       195.90  28031.59               1.49   353     2.28                  2.28
March 29    13:07       193.97  28035.69               1.93   441     2.36                  2.36
March 29    17:11       193.97  28035.69               0.00   246     0.00        687       1.52(SB)
March 29    19:00       192.12  28039.65               1.85   355     2.81                  2.81
March 30    00:53       190.65  28042.78  (03:33P)     1.47   353     2.25                  2.25
March 30    01:53       189.48  28045.27  (05:58P)     1.17   120     5.26                  5.26(SB)
March 30    08:11       189.48  28045.27  (12:03P)     0.00   378     0.00        498       2.14
March 30    17:11       189.48  28045.27  (18:04W)     0.00   540     0.00       1038       0.91(SB)    
March 30    17:11       187.36  28049.81  (19:40W)     2.12     0     0.00       1038       1.10(SB) 
March 29    17:11       193.97  28035.69  (19:45W)    -6.61   246   -14.51      -1440       2.48 
March 30    19:41       193.97  28035.69  (19:50P)     0.00  1530     0.00       1530      -2.33(SB)  
March 30    19:41       187.36  28045.81  (21:11W)     2.12    90    12.72        360       3.18     

I'm just lucky I copped a dose of bad data in 2000, so I'm wary of SB's BS. :)

Edited March 30, 2018 by LaurieAG

[LaurieAG]

Just a minor correction, the BOM radar is always on UTC and provides an excellent service, so when it was recently brought back up the time stayed at UTC 00:00 until they corrected their error and re enabled the link in their images.  It's a pity that many commercial websites don't cater for public holidays and just state their normal business hours. I suppose it's a sign of the times but I was educated at a higher standard so commercially it's really just the old 'one step forward and 2 steps back'.

[LaurieAG]

Date           Time  (AEST)   Altitude     Difference ANB 

26/2/2018      9:00pm         255.18km     0.70km     211
27/2/2018      7:00pm         254.42km     0.76km     220
28/2/2018      7:00pm         253.97km     0.45km     217
01/3/2018      7:00pm         252.50km     1.47km     217

That's interesting, despite the wobbles the object drops 6km over 8 days making the plot (on a km/day scale) a 3,4,5 right angled triangle with the wobble going from trough to peak in 4 days.

 

I can even see a little sub wobble within the main wobble so It leads me to wonder if these changes in drop rate/altitude reflect an increasingly elongated orbit (time per rotation wouldn't change much) or the rotation (skewed?) of the object and any subsequent friction and surface area changes. 

 

Regardless US StratCom had it coming down at 217km in 41 days (at my last data point) which is a linear 0.82 km/day to (my rough plot is 0.80 km/day) so I'll change my forecast to April 2 just after midnight because 1km per day is a more reasonable average. 

 

 

On the latest projections (07:11 UTC, April 1) Satview has Tiangong 1 reentering on 2 April at 01:39 UTC and USstratCom has it reentering at 00:15 UTC. Both projections have an altitude of nominal burst of 128km.

 

13h 15m as I post.

[LaurieAG]

(2) Today a thought popped into my head, Jesus what if there was some poor bastard(s) in that thing trying to bring it down safely (ocean not land) so here's the longest bow pull ever seen for the reentry location if this is the case. 17,17 S 17,3 W near Ascension Island, a British overseas territory in the southern Atlantic with an RAF base. My date/time forecast stays the same.

 

The US Strategic Command reported via Satview that Tiangong 1 reentered the atmosphere on April 2 at 00:16 UTC +/- 1 minute. Their last projection, as shown on Satview, had a location very close to the coordinants I posted 2 weeks ago. I'm getting good at pulling that long bow. ;)

 

It looks like the Chinese have introduced fault tolerant engineering into their design so it could glide in safely should they lose control. This is evident in the German x-ray image in the link posted to this thread by Deepwater6, thanks mate. :)

 

https://img.purch.com/w/640/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA3NS8xOTgvaTAyL2NoaW5hLXNwYWNlLXN0YXRpb24tdGlhbmdvbmctMS1yYWRhci0yYS5qcGc/MTUyMjA5Mzc2MA==

 

I must say congratulations to the Chinese engineers and astronauts, there should be more international teamwork if mankind ever expects to get to Mars. :)

[LaurieAG]

 Also, USstratCom only said that Tiangong 1 had reentered the atmosphere on April 2 at 00:16 UTC +/- 1 minute so how far did the US Space Shuttle glide before it came in to land? 

[Deepwater6]

 

 

 

I must say congratulations to the Chinese engineers and astronauts, there should be more international teamwork if mankind ever expects to get to Mars. :)

 

Impressive projection estimate LaurieAG, well done.

 

I also feel that humanity could accomplish much more if we worked at Science together and held it above politics. From my understanding China has asked us Americans several times for joint missions and access to the ISS but all those request were rebuffed. I presume there is a fear among high level US military personnel that China would steal some of the advancements the US has made in space.

 

I see this as ridiculous, With the combined and coordinated efforts of the US, China, Russia, India, and many other countries exploring space, we would achieve goals much faster. I also believe that most countries have already acquired these closely held technological secrets, either through hacking or good ole plain physical spying at NASA. 

 

Space travel is a chance for all the worlds countries to truly come together on one endeavor and rise above our differences. Yes countries have, can, and will use space to set up weapons aimed at each other, but space is too large to be monopolized by one country. This makes it the perfect tool to bind us together in peace as we explore the universe together. Hopefully some day space will become the great melting pot of our planet if we work together.   

[LaurieAG]

Impressive projection estimate LaurieAG, well done.

 

I also feel that humanity could accomplish much more if we worked at Science together and held it above politics. From my understanding China has asked us Americans several times for joint missions and access to the ISS but all those request were rebuffed. I presume there is a fear among high level US military personnel that China would steal some of the advancements the US has made in space.

 

I see this as ridiculous, With the combined and coordinated efforts of the US, China, Russia, India, and many other countries exploring space, we would achieve goals much faster. I also believe that most countries have already acquired these closely held technological secrets, either through hacking or good ole plain physical spying at NASA. 

 

Space travel is a chance for all the worlds countries to truly come together on one endeavor and rise above our differences. Yes countries have, can, and will use space to set up weapons aimed at each other, but space is too large to be monopolized by one country. This makes it the perfect tool to bind us together in peace as we explore the universe together. Hopefully some day space will become the great melting pot of our planet if we work together.   

 

Thanks Deepwater6. :)

 

China has been making Japanese components and many of the worlds hi tech goods, ever since the US allowed its hyper capitalists to ship their production facilities OS along with many middle class jobs, so any military action seems like some bizarre love/hate relationship. 

 

But there are also some loose strings still hanging with possible regards to what I called Tiangong 1's leader (or guardian) as the UTC clock on the local BOM Radar at Mt Stapylton has been behaving strangely for the past 2 days. Yesterday morning and this morning at 06:00 AEST the BOM UTC clock was 28 hours slow until they reset it around 10:00-11:00am AEST both days. We also have had cyclone Iris reform off the north Queensland coast and now, while it is not expected to cross the coastline, it is slowly tracking southwards following the coast.

 

As we saw with the Satview plots and times, where it appeared their radar timers were being reset during Tiangong 1's orbit passovers, it leaves only 2 possible causes if this pattern is also occurring around the world. Time to go for that long shot again.

 

(1) That someone is interfering with the time servers deliberately, possibly the usual suspects who use other countries passports to do their dirty work, and I don't mean Russia, North Korea, Iran, the USA or China etc. A nation of capricious people who are either extremely religious or have an unnatural murderous lust for money and power. 

 

(2) Or Tiangong 1 was actually observing it's leader/guardian and it was this that was causing the interference in the first place. One thing I noticed about Tiangong 1's orbit is that it 'crossed' and 'passed over' at many places on the surface of this planet so that could be linked to the many religious sacred places all around the world and a common religious 'god'. There is an Island just over from where I live that has huge shell middens near the inside shore and fresh rain water basins, that are approximately 2km from the current beachfront and you can count the 8 ancient sand dunes, approximately 250m apart as you drive from one side to the other. I don't expect that the local aboriginals would have made the long trek back there unless that location was originally just behind the first dune. While the midden has been dated more recently, at 1,000 years to build each dune with natural sand gains and losses you get around 8,000 years. 

 

In a way I kinda hope it is proven to be option 1, because if it is option 2 the useless politicians who have caused so much pain and agony to innocents on this planet, for a seat in just one 'heaven', will fervently wish that the Pope is correct when he was reported as saying that 'there is no eternal hell'! ;)

 

Either way it's important that a genuine international scientific effort be undertaken for mankind's future space operations, among other things, without continuing the cloak and dagger BS. 

[LaurieAG]

It looks like cyclone Iris has been projected to slow down, reverse its track and turn into a tropical depression so that's good news for the Commonwealth Games that are starting in my city tonight. And the BOM's Mt Stapylton radar's UTC timer went 'insane' again this morning, so that's 3 mornings in a row. Cisco has some interesting papers on this phenomenum but they don't actually explain why this happens, only on ways to counter it, which is bad for autonomous systems of any kind (it's not just Cisco with the problem). A human with eyes on their watch (not their phone) is one good stop gap though. :)

 

Also I found out this morning that the main western church's computation of Easter is different to the Greek Orthodox church which computes Easter as the weekend after the Jewish passover (i.e. next weekend) so I expect that the radar insanity will go away after next weekend.

 

It's just a real pity that lawyer politicians don't learn the lessons of history, otherwise why would the UK produce a very recent legal ruling that made 98% of Semites, anti Semitic, have they all gone insane, will their insanity go away too? If so will their insane judgements still stand? That reminds me when. in the new millennium, all the economists decided that two quarters of negative growth didn't mean a recession, just before the dot com bubble burst. Will they ever learn? ;)

 

[LaurieAG]

Here's a basic summary of how to project the reentry time of NEO's like Tiangong 1 as it might prove useful in the future. :)

 

It's probably a little bit easier to look at rough approximates, as I never managed to find out how the US Strategic Command, or anybody else for that matter, calculated their Altitude of Nominal Burst (ANB), so here's the basic methodology.

 

The Chinese Space Station looks very much like a glider i.e. a bit like the US Space Shuttle (i.e. solar panels are made of similar materials to Space Shuttle tiles with much less friction), as the German radar images show in the link below, so it most probably wasn't tumbling but yawing from left to right and pitching and rolling just like a glider would, as it came down to land. 

 

https://www.space.com/40089-china-space-station-tiangong-1-radar-images.html

 

The rough rule of thumb I found is that when the natural descent becomes a Pythagorean right triangle with a ratio of  3:4:5 over 8 days. i.e. it drops 6km over 8 days, the time to atmospheric reentry is approximately 1 kilometre per day until the average ANB (over those 8 days) is reached plus an adjustment factor. 

 

I made rough plots and a projection on the link below on March 1 and wasn't sure how recent the data was as the Satview UTC timers (and the ANB) were all over the place for most of the reentry so the end figure I used was 252.5 - 220.25 = 32.25 days - an adjustment from my last plot (i.e. 09:00 UTC March 1) because I didn't know how accurate the timing/altitude was.

 

http://www.scienceforums.com/topic/24218-near-earth-objects/page-11?do=findComment&comment=354689

 

Note that my figures don't actually reflect the eventual altitude of atmospheric reentry (ANB), they just indicate the time of atmospheric reentry based on the last data point and the average ANB projections over the previous 8 days. Even without the timing adjustment this projection was much more accurate than the forecasts by the US Strategic Command and the European Space Agency (ESA) for most of March.  

 

The eventual atmospheric reentry time given by the US Strategic Command via Satview.org was April 2, 2018 at 00:16 +/- 1 minute UTC (below) and China Manned Space give the reentry altitude as approximately 132.75 km (below).

 

http://www.satview.org/?sat_id=37820U

http://en.cmse.gov.cn/col/col1763/index.html

 

BTW, it looks like somebody else did an all night vigil like I did last night as the Mt Stapylton BOM radar's UTC timer went out by 30 mins at 03:30 (it was correct at 03:00) this morning AEST and was corrected by 03:35 AEST. I think I might have been a bit tired when I said earlier that the radar was out by 28 hours as it was consistently out by only 4 hours every morning since my last post. On Friday morning I had a meeting at 10:00am AEST and at 10:30 I showed the person who I had the meeting with that the UTC time was still yesterdays date and 4 hours slow. AEST is UTC+10.

[Deepwater6]

Very busy week at work the last few days so I haven't had time to peruse my space websites lately, but do you know of any recovered wreckage from the water? Is anyone even looking?

[LaurieAG]

Very busy week at work the last few days so I haven't had time to peruse my space websites lately, but do you know of any recovered wreckage from the water? Is anyone even looking?

 

Hi Deepwater6,

 

I just had a quick look on Google and there's nothing, not even any images of it 'burning up' as it came in, it should have stuck out like dog's balls. 

 

The only observatories near the path after atmospheric reentry are magnetic ones at Port Stanley in the Falklands and Ascension Island, All the observatories in Chile seem to be in the Atacama desert and too far north. (image below from Aerospace)

 

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/operations/falklands.html

http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-predictions/tiangong-1-reentry/

 

[LaurieAG]

Here's a special note for Sideshow Bob. 

 

It's strange that it seems the UTC timers were out from at least March 27 to April 1 per my posts and 4 hours out (I noticed the actual difference) from April 2 to April 6 from 3:00am AEST to 11:00am AEST (08:00pm until 04:00am Damascus time) until it was only out by 30 mins on April 7 as the UTC timers are set off the GPS timers according to Google. 

 

The GPS navigation message includes the difference between GPS time and UTC. As of January 2017, GPS time is 18 seconds ahead of UTC because of the leap second added to UTC December 31, 2016. Receivers subtract this offset from GPS time to calculate UTC and specific timezone values. Dec 31, 2016

 

If I recall correctly US GPS is usually only out when 1 thing is about to happen, so it's also very strange that the reason for this 1 thing happening was actually on April 8 and happened on April 14. 

 

Sideshow Bob, I have been following your trail of dead female children around the world since the Clark US airforce base in the Phillipines was closed in 1991, so you couldn't continue to prey on the local populace anymore. You were transferred to the Osan US airforce base in South Korea and, as a result, were the major reason for the South Korean people saying that the US was more of a threat to them than North Korea. Then you were transferred to Lakenheath in Cambridgeshire Suffolk where you just couldn't help yourself again in 2002. You then appeared again in Iraq at the US Al Assad airforce base, during the operation to liberate Iraqi oil reserves for your influential buddies, because you didn't want to miss out on any 'action'.

 

So you now occupy a position of power and influence in the US military, obviously as a result of your industry and dedication to your job, despite your obhorrent pecadillo's. If you are lucky you and your Organisation of Corrupt Individuals (OCI) will be locked up and have the key thrown away for your crimes against humanity. You may hold a high position now but all of your fellow partners in crime will share the same punishment as you if they don't turn themselves in and rat on the king rat.

 

We have already seen one example of your considerable influence and loyalty to your RAAF friends here so I must warn you of the alternative to the type of justice you will get should you not be taken out of action by your masters. Do the words 'hoist by your own petard' have any meaning to you? There are several historic precedents for your alternate punishment should you and your cronies choose not to fess up to your crimes and hand yourselves in. 

 

One is what happened to the English Officer in Cromwells army during the 'Seige of Drogheda'. He was killed by his own troops after using Irish children as human shields against the Irish pikes as they massacred the final holdouts in the garrets. I heard that method was popular during the Vietnam war. I also read a good thesis about OCI's and was surprised that the head of the organisation the student worked for was involved in a paedophile ring with a bunch of cronies just like you and your deviate 'mates'. Apparently the ring leader was found mutilated with numerous knife wounds and had his appendage cut off and put in his mouth by one of their many victims. The authorities didn't bother to look too hard for the culprit for obvious reasons.

 

So farewell Sideshow Bob, by the time you read this you will only have one possible option left if your fate hasn't caught up with you already. I know it's the cowards way out, confessing all your transgressions and dobbing your 'mates', but hey that's you to the core isn't it. 

[LaurieAG]

https://www.space.com/40532-exiled-ancient-asteroid-discovered.html

Astronomers have spotted a carbon-rich asteroid in the icy region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt — the first such asteroid ever found exiled from the inner solar system.

This asteroid, known as 2004 EW95, likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter but was soon hurled out into the Kuiper Belt, according to a statement released today (May 9) by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This ancient, exiled rock from the solar system's primordial days provides unprecedented evidence of what that early time was really like, researchers said in the statement.

Lets hope this one doesn't come back for a visit.