Various astronomy news

[impaktor]

Possibly not astronomy or news, but Google Earth VR looks pretty damn good... in 2D.

"Nerd³ Plays... Google Earth VR - I've Got The Whole World... ":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NsI6XgzSn8

[bobtheterrible]

Hi All,

I have been a way for a while with RL but came across the following news and thought I would throw it in here If you haven't seen it already:

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/#Poster

Six Earth-ish planets, all potentially within their stars habitable zone, all well within Mercury's orbit, orbits measured in days, all likely to be tidally locked and most importantly (aesthetically) are visible from one another!

Could this be modelled? It would make an interesting system to start on with no hyperdrive with potentially many cities and stations to visit.

EDIT: Ahem... obviously I meant to say Seven planets.....

[Marcel]

Bob, you're terrible! You beat me to it! :D Yes, it can be modelled. It would be a new custom system entry. I don't know the Lua details, but I agree that it should be added. The principle astronomer, Michaël Gillon, said he wanted to name the planets after Belgian beers! I like this place already.

[bszlrd]

I definitely want to put TRAPPIST-1 in the game. My thinking for names was all kinds of cheese (trappist after all), but beer names sound good too.
It would be nice to have it's coordinates for it too, so I can figure out it's position relative to Sol.

[bszlrd]

I started working on it yesterday, but I have to figure out some stuff.
Here's what I have right now. It's position is just 2ly from Sol on all three axes until I find the right coordinates. And It's called Regula Benedicti, which is the regula Trappist monks strive to follow closely.

[FluffyFreak]

Ok then Noz, do you want to do a PR for that new system?

[bszlrd]

Oh, damn I have to finish up the little details.

[Marcel]

Possibly not astronomy or news, but

I recently found this tour of the ISS and think it's kind of cool. I thought my fellow space nerds would like it too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOIyBAcz1yI

[impaktor]

"Astronomers Just Found a Star Orbiting a Black Hole at 1 Percent the Speed of Light"
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomer ... d-of-light

[bszlrd]

Seems like Phobos is tearing apart. Wasn't even a proper body, but a pile f rubble held together by it's crust. Close or within Mars's roche limit.

How about putting the tearing apart into somewhere late 21th century or so in our fiction? The wikipedia article puts it to some million years away. But maybe some reckless expedition could have done something that accelerates it, so it happens a hundred year after that incident?
My guess is that the ring could form by 3200, and could look quite nice from the surface of Mars. But Mars would need a quite crater pocked surface then, and a rough history.