4 ms·

There's a flurry on new info. In particular the variance of surface temperature at the lunar south pole, from 60 degree Celsius on the lunar surface, to -10 deg

by dxbydt 3y ago

There's a flurry on new info. In particular the variance of surface temperature at the lunar south pole, from 60 degree Celsius on the lunar surface, to -10 degree Celsius if you probe just 8cm below the surface https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FF4hsyEQaEAAB-AS.png https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FF4hsyEQaEAAB-AS.png A whole seventy degree temperature difference over such a small height delta. There were a bunch of scientists trying to explain this on Indian news TV & it was quite amazing. I'm actually very happy in ages! As an immigrant there is this bittersweet relationship with the home country. You want your home country to do well but at the same time you are hyperaware of its numerous deficiencies. I haven't been back to India in a few decades now. But so much science! And presented in such down to earth language. Its really like watching some of the old Apollo footage where you can actually understand the scientist. He's using simple graphs & charts & simple math to make his point, instead of drowning you in technojargon. Their project scientist is a very ordinary guy with extremely average test scores, for an Indian aspirant. But this chap persisted & pursued his education throughout his adulthood, finally earning his PhD in aeronautics. He comes from a shithole village that is about 50km from my shithole village. I mean, growing up we didn't have fucking electricity until my teens. No proper drinking water. No phone no TV no nothing. Now he gets to put a rover on the moon! I had tears in my eyes at the end of his TV interview. https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q

saiya-jin 3y ago
Cannot this gradient be used for some sort of heat pump? Or is it more effective to just outright collect the photons with solar panels.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  The gradient is there for the exact same reason that you your pump won't reach a lot of material and will just create a hot mini-island near you heat exchanger.
jamal-kumar 3y ago
Honestly super happy for India for pulling this off. People don't seem to acknowledge the amount of science that's been coming out of India for a long time now and I hope this enlightens people a little on the fact that the country has a lot of strong intellect to share with the world.
- junon 3y ago
  Seconded. India has some terrific development culture.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
penguin_booze 3y ago
On that graph: isn't it conventional for the independent variable (in this case, depth) to be on the x-axis?
- perihelions 3y ago
  But "depth" is literally the down direction, so I think it's also acceptable to do this y/x thing. I've seen this choice in other places too, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Standard_Atmosphere#/media/File:Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Standard_Atmosphere#/medi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Titan#/media/File:Titan_atmosphere_detail_narrow.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Titan#/media/File:T... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline#/media/File:ThermoclineSeasonDepth.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline#/media/File:Thermo...
- dxbydt 3y ago
  https://www.dataanalytics.org.uk/reversing-the-axis-of-an-excel-chart/ https://www.dataanalytics.org.uk/reversing-the-axis-of-an-ex... "sometimes you want to make a plot that reflects the real situation rather than a plain mathematical one"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
__rito__ 3y ago
What does this point to- https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q? Can't access it. Could you please share the original link or a link that works?
- dxbydt 3y ago
  looks like HN hug-of-death, sorry about that. https://www.indiatoday.in/science/chandrayaan-3/story/chandrayaan-3-p-veeramuthuvel-simple-man-average-student-who-put-india-on-moon-2425977-2023-08-24 https://www.indiatoday.in/science/chandrayaan-3/story/chandr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMbpU_viwvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMbpU_viwvA https://www.latestly.com/agency-news/india-news-vikram-lander-observes-temperature-variation-on-lunar-surface-records-high-of-70-degree-celsius-5368901.html https://www.latestly.com/agency-news/india-news-vikram-lande... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrr1-XrCoDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrr1-XrCoDU
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
Totally tangential: Did you see the Indian 4x400m relay team made the world finals, but in qualifying, dared to try to pass the US team on the final leg? India has never had a particularly good track and field team, but allegedly they are encouraging running and fitness more there. For those that don't know, the US 4x400m relay team in track and field is about the most dominant thing ever. If they don't drop the stick, it is assumed they are going to win. Even the qualifier team virtually always wins the heats. So an unknown like India having the temerity to try to take the lead against the US team is a huge shot across the bow. It seemed significant for other reasons. First, based on very light googling and looking at names, the team was of mixed religion with two Muslims (two guys with Muhammed first names) and two Hindi-seeming names. They seemed to genuinely like each other and support each other. That might have progressive steps for the long standing religious conflicts in India, that a mixed religion team came together for a historic moment in Indian athletics. Second, track might be a very interesting sport for "echoes of caste system" India (there was just a Caste news on HN a day ago so it's still obviously somewhat important). Unlike any team sport with selection, in track, if you are faster, well .... you're faster. Doesn't matter the race / religion / caste / connections, if you can run a 50 second 400m and the other guy runs a 53, it is VERY apparent who wins or should be selected for a team. Track and fitness in general is a kind of class-smasher in that regard, and could be a harbinger of big (positive) social change. But maybe I'm reading a bit too much into a small sample. Also, an Indian won the Javelin throw, beat a Pakistani who got silver, and there were two other Indians in the top six.
dang 3y ago
Please edit provocations and swipes out of your comments here. The provocation "shithole" led to a bunch of flamewar that I'm certain you didn't intend, and yet your comment is responsible for starting it. (I've detached those subthreads as offtopic and collapsed them, but they can be found at the bottom of the page.) The site guidelines specifically include rules to prevent this kind of thing, so it would be good to review them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your comment was otherwise fine, so I'm going to downweight this reply to the bottom of the subthread. (Oh, but also please don't use link shorteners on HN.)
- ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago
  I felt like it was okay-ish given he immediately qualified his own, nearby hometown with the same descriptor. I think it changed the effect from discriminatory to almost a term of chagrined endearment which lent weight to his subsequent commentary. Would I have written it myself? Probably not, especially given who recently popularized the term "shithole". But I think as a rhetorical device it did what he wanted it to in his writing.
  - dang 3y ago
    That's nicely put and of course I agree! but the problem is that such subtleties don't survive the statistics of a large forum. Even if 95% of readers get it, the 5% who don't are enough to derail the thread. Even if 95% of that 5% are willing to move on, that leaves 0.25% of readers triggered—more than enough to turn any thread into a flamewar. It's similar to this dynamic that comes up fairly often: User: $group is so $pejorative Mod: Please don't post slurs to HN User: But I'm one of $group It's fine conversation in a cohesive context (e.g. friends over drinks), but that's precisely what a large forum like HN is not. That's why we have to moderate comments by effect, not intent [1], and that's why the burden is on commenters to disambiguate their intent [2]. The cost is a certain blandness [3], but the alternative is the end of HN as an interesting place. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=troll%20effects%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=burden%20disambiguate%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-corporate%20-title%20bland&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
SEJeff 3y ago
As a native born American (USA) and long time lover of al things space, I've always been of the opinion that ISRO really punches above their weight. You look at their success and resources vs Roscosmos and it is crazy. India has built a really good native launch capability for overall very affordable prices totally independently. It speaks extremely highly of the engineering and materials scientists in that program. There's no need for this to be bittersweet. Use this as fuel to show that India can do better in other areas if they focus on it. Take the win :) Also, every extraordinary or above average person starts out average at some point. The biggest differentiator is perseverance. He kept it up and look what he's doing now! It is amazing and as a fellow space fan I'm so happy to see what they are sharing from the Chandrayaan mission.
photochemsyn 3y ago
Nice story. I watched the landing live it was quite exciting, it's great to see how the entire world is starting to join the space voyage.
andrewflnr 3y ago
> Their project scientist is a very ordinary guy with extremely average test scores, for an Indian aspirant. Almost like test scores don't tell the whole story and aren't a great measure of a human's potential... (I'm sure you get this, but I wish it wasn't a topic)
V1ndaar 3y ago
Thank you for sharing your perspective. It's nice to read something positive once in a while! :)

by dxbydt 3y ago

saiya-jin 3y ago

Cannot this gradient be used for some sort of heat pump? Or is it more effective to just outright collect the photons with solar panels.

marcosdumay 3y ago
The gradient is there for the exact same reason that you your pump won't reach a lot of material and will just create a hot mini-island near you heat exchanger.

jamal-kumar 3y ago

Honestly super happy for India for pulling this off. People don't seem to acknowledge the amount of science that's been coming out of India for a long time now and I hope this enlightens people a little on the fact that the country has a lot of strong intellect to share with the world.

junon 3y ago
Seconded. India has some terrific development culture.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

penguin_booze 3y ago

On that graph: isn't it conventional for the independent variable (in this case, depth) to be on the x-axis?

perihelions 3y ago
But "depth" is literally the down direction, so I think it's also acceptable to do this y/x thing. I've seen this choice in other places too, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Standard_Atmosphere#/media/File:Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Standard_Atmosphere#/medi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Titan#/media/File:Titan_atmosphere_detail_narrow.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Titan#/media/File:T... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline#/media/File:ThermoclineSeasonDepth.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline#/media/File:Thermo...
dxbydt 3y ago
https://www.dataanalytics.org.uk/reversing-the-axis-of-an-excel-chart/ https://www.dataanalytics.org.uk/reversing-the-axis-of-an-ex... "sometimes you want to make a plot that reflects the real situation rather than a plain mathematical one"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

__rito__ 3y ago

What does this point to- https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q https://urlis.net/npi7rk3q? Can't access it. Could you please share the original link or a link that works?

dxbydt 3y ago
looks like HN hug-of-death, sorry about that. https://www.indiatoday.in/science/chandrayaan-3/story/chandrayaan-3-p-veeramuthuvel-simple-man-average-student-who-put-india-on-moon-2425977-2023-08-24 https://www.indiatoday.in/science/chandrayaan-3/story/chandr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMbpU_viwvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMbpU_viwvA https://www.latestly.com/agency-news/india-news-vikram-lander-observes-temperature-variation-on-lunar-surface-records-high-of-70-degree-celsius-5368901.html https://www.latestly.com/agency-news/india-news-vikram-lande... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrr1-XrCoDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrr1-XrCoDU

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

Totally tangential: Did you see the Indian 4x400m relay team made the world finals, but in qualifying, dared to try to pass the US team on the final leg? India has never had a particularly good track and field team, but allegedly they are encouraging running and fitness more there. For those that don't know, the US 4x400m relay team in track and field is about the most dominant thing ever. If they don't drop the stick, it is assumed they are going to win. Even the qualifier team virtually always wins the heats. So an unknown like India having the temerity to try to take the lead against the US team is a huge shot across the bow. It seemed significant for other reasons. First, based on very light googling and looking at names, the team was of mixed religion with two Muslims (two guys with Muhammed first names) and two Hindi-seeming names. They seemed to genuinely like each other and support each other. That might have progressive steps for the long standing religious conflicts in India, that a mixed religion team came together for a historic moment in Indian athletics. Second, track might be a very interesting sport for "echoes of caste system" India (there was just a Caste news on HN a day ago so it's still obviously somewhat important). Unlike any team sport with selection, in track, if you are faster, well .... you're faster. Doesn't matter the race / religion / caste / connections, if you can run a 50 second 400m and the other guy runs a 53, it is VERY apparent who wins or should be selected for a team. Track and fitness in general is a kind of class-smasher in that regard, and could be a harbinger of big (positive) social change. But maybe I'm reading a bit too much into a small sample. Also, an Indian won the Javelin throw, beat a Pakistani who got silver, and there were two other Indians in the top six.

dang 3y ago

Please edit provocations and swipes out of your comments here. The provocation "shithole" led to a bunch of flamewar that I'm certain you didn't intend, and yet your comment is responsible for starting it. (I've detached those subthreads as offtopic and collapsed them, but they can be found at the bottom of the page.) The site guidelines specifically include rules to prevent this kind of thing, so it would be good to review them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your comment was otherwise fine, so I'm going to downweight this reply to the bottom of the subthread. (Oh, but also please don't use link shorteners on HN.)

ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago
I felt like it was okay-ish given he immediately qualified his own, nearby hometown with the same descriptor. I think it changed the effect from discriminatory to almost a term of chagrined endearment which lent weight to his subsequent commentary. Would I have written it myself? Probably not, especially given who recently popularized the term "shithole". But I think as a rhetorical device it did what he wanted it to in his writing.
- dang 3y ago
  That's nicely put and of course I agree! but the problem is that such subtleties don't survive the statistics of a large forum. Even if 95% of readers get it, the 5% who don't are enough to derail the thread. Even if 95% of that 5% are willing to move on, that leaves 0.25% of readers triggered—more than enough to turn any thread into a flamewar. It's similar to this dynamic that comes up fairly often: User: $group is so $pejorative Mod: Please don't post slurs to HN User: But I'm one of $group It's fine conversation in a cohesive context (e.g. friends over drinks), but that's precisely what a large forum like HN is not. That's why we have to moderate comments by effect, not intent [1], and that's why the burden is on commenters to disambiguate their intent [2]. The cost is a certain blandness [3], but the alternative is the end of HN as an interesting place. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=troll%20effects%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=burden%20disambiguate%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-corporate%20-title%20bland&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

SEJeff 3y ago

As a native born American (USA) and long time lover of al things space, I've always been of the opinion that ISRO really punches above their weight. You look at their success and resources vs Roscosmos and it is crazy. India has built a really good native launch capability for overall very affordable prices totally independently. It speaks extremely highly of the engineering and materials scientists in that program. There's no need for this to be bittersweet. Use this as fuel to show that India can do better in other areas if they focus on it. Take the win :) Also, every extraordinary or above average person starts out average at some point. The biggest differentiator is perseverance. He kept it up and look what he's doing now! It is amazing and as a fellow space fan I'm so happy to see what they are sharing from the Chandrayaan mission.

photochemsyn 3y ago

Nice story. I watched the landing live it was quite exciting, it's great to see how the entire world is starting to join the space voyage.

andrewflnr 3y ago

> Their project scientist is a very ordinary guy with extremely average test scores, for an Indian aspirant. Almost like test scores don't tell the whole story and aren't a great measure of a human's potential... (I'm sure you get this, but I wish it wasn't a topic)

V1ndaar 3y ago

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It's nice to read something positive once in a while! :)