European Spaceship (1 Viewer)

[mon_mon]

Hey guys, Not that relevant to the exams, but still really cool:

Europe is sending their first spaceship to the moon this year, using an ion drive instead of rockets.

What this means: Solar panels collect energy that ionise Xenon atoms, making them propel out the back of the ship.

Although it is slow to start, the ship can travel up to 10 times faster than a conventional rocket. And, its super efficient.

Anyways, while its orbiting the moon, this ship will use x-rays to test the moons surface to see what it is made out of. This will sound familiar to all who did Chemistry of Art, because its using the reflectance spectrum, only with x-rays from the sun instead of Infrared.

Pretty cool huh.

 

[phenol]

*grumble* what a waste of xenon

LOL

 

[mon_mon]

yeah, i think they might just extract it from space, casue the ships only about the size of a washing machine and its supposed to be able to get to Mercury.

 

[toknblackguy]

woa
profoudn stuff
i do chem of art but it doens't sound familiar
nah..i know the basic concept of it..but ididn't know they used IR, in the textbook it's referred to as xray diffraction

can't wait tilwe become more scifi
hehehe

 

[mon_mon]

i just mean how they use the deflection of the x-rays to be able to tell what elements it is reflecting off.

 

[Frigid]

Originally posted by mon_mon
i just mean how they use the deflection of the x-rays to be able to tell what elements it is reflecting off.

i assume it will be based on absorption and reflection principles? different types of matter absorb and reflect x-rays differently and so we can tell what is on the surface... i think there was an infra-red spectrometer on one of those Mars exploration satellites that did the same thing...

 

[mon_mon]

Yup, thats it. interesting to see real life versions of the stuff we do in class

 

[Frigid]

a coupla more days here and i might just change my prefs to do science/law...

 

[mon_mon]

from?

 

[Frigid]

commerce/law or arts/law... i dunno... in the end it comes down to UAI.

 

[mon_mon]

yeah, i was thinking Art/law. but im gonna have to arts then jump across cause UNSW has a UAI of 99.95ish

 

[Frigid]

not 99.95, but probly mid-99 this year? last year the cutoff was 99.3.

dun worry, there's still hope yet
i got 6 more units of exams to do (chem, ext eng, latin, latin x)... so yeah, hopefully blitz those.

 

[mon_mon]

yeah, but im doing drama, so there's no hope for me.
O well, i'll manage something.

 

[toknblackguy]

there's always hope!
never give up
and good luck

 

[mon_mon]

ok, i wont. but there's a difference between optimism and rediculous. there's no way i'll get 99. but im ok about that. i'll probably get about 84ish and get into arts.

 

[toknblackguy]

kewl
whatever makes you happy..that's important too

 

[mon_mon]

what? happiness? importnant? are you insane? oh my lordy. lol, no of course thats the most important thing. what are you doing tokn?

 

[toknblackguy]

hoping to do actuary
not for happines
for the MONEY!!
muahahaha

 

[toknblackguy]

because after the hard working couple of years comes the happiness

 

[mon_mon]

lol. pretty much my idea, except being influential as well. so if the happiness isn't how you want it, you can change it.