The Pod Bay

Engineers document cargo as it is unloaded from the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft after it landed with Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers: Mike Hopkins of NASA, and, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos, near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, March 11, 2014. Hopkins, Kotov and Ryazanskiy returned to Earth after five and a ha…

3 hours later…

David Hammen

3:23 PM

:14210649

@TildalWave Anyone watched Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey yesterday? I did. I thought it was very good for the target audience (for the most part, that's not the people on space.stackexchange.com). A minor nit: I didn't like when the ship of imagination flew through a Star Wars-esque asteroid belt (and a bit later, a Star Wars-esque Kuiper belt).

Also, the longish cartoon on Bruno was perhaps a bit overdone. Whether Bruno truly was a martyr for science is a bit suspect. I expect we'll see more of this to come in the series to counteract the growing influence of anti-science in the US.

geoffc

3:38 PM

I think there is a subtle distinction, that for idealogical reasons is being exagerated in the notion of 'anti-science'. I think there is a real loss of respect and trust in science based on large scale frauds perpetrated all over the place. That is not anti-science, but is being portrayed that way, to mock those who have lost their trust.

TildalWave

Ah so it's "preaching science" to offset the "preaching religion", and dumbed down so everyone can understand it, even if that means it'll be mostly wrong? Dunno, didn't yet watch it, but it doesn't sound like it's living up to expectations. So, lots of CGI and cartoons, and calming narrative? Is that it?

David Freitag

4:00 PM

@DavidHammen Regrettably, i watched it on Sunday on Fox

TildalWave

@DavidFreitag So you wouldn't recommend it either? And I just noticed it on torrents ... bah

David Freitag

4:41 PM

@TildalWave No the show was awesome

But i had to watch it on Fox

Which sucked

Like most people are saying, the animations were too long-winded and a bit overdone. Other than that it was great

Stu

@DavidHammen yea i couldn't help but think that they completely misrepresented asteroid fields

David Hammen

5:49 PM

@TildalWave Not at all. This show was much better than any of the stuff put out by BBC or PBS for a long, long time. There we have a choice of quantum woo from Brian Cox or Brian Greene, or even worse nonsense from Michio Kaku. Discovery Channel has discovered reality TV. Cosmos reboot is excellent compared to that (not a good comparison). It is on a par with the original Cosmos. It is excellent scientific TV. That I criticized tiny bits of it means it's good, not bad.

Stack Exchange

6:20 PM

astrobites: One Star, Two Star, Brown Star, Blue Star

posted on March 11, 2014 by Meredith Rawls

Enter the observed oddball: a subdwarf B (sdB) star. These unexpected stars are fusing helium into carbon and oxygen in their core and only have a thin hydrogen envelope. So, where did the hydrogen go?

TildalWave

6:38 PM

ah OK then I'll give it a go, I thought you guys were telling me it's a waste of my time

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