The Universe is AWESOME!

ThunderCat

Assetbacked wrote: »

It makes one question why bother doing anything I have to say, especially doing something that you don't absolutely love (e.g. work).

It's overwhelming alright. But the fact that we can recognise what is around us and our place in it makes us not-so-insignificant in my opinion. The fact we come from elements present in the Universe makes us part of the Universe but more than that we recognise the fact. We are the Universes consciousness. It's mirror on itself.

Kermit.de.frog

Scientists search for ‘technosignatures’ in the hunt for alien life

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/seti-alien-life-signs-technosignatures

SETI will find

TheValeyard

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Scientists search for ‘technosignatures’ in the hunt for alien life

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/seti-alien-life-signs-technosignatures

SETI will find

And then we will invade!

Kermit.de.frog

The furthest man has been from earth is the moon

Yester

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The furthest man has been from earth is the moon

We will let the aliens colonise the moon and then we will invade.

TheValeyard

Yester wrote: »

We will let the aliens colonise the moon and then we will invade.

Maybe Mars.
Let them use their terraforming tech on converting the planet to more Earth like conditions, then we invade!

Kermit.de.frog

Stephen Hawking said it would be an epic bad fail for humans to contact aliens.

To paraphrase him - he said if they have the tech to travel across the galaxy then they will have the tech to destroy the planet from many light years away - they won't even visit.

Even if they did it would be like Columbus meeting native Indians in America (we'd be the Indians).

His view was keep the head down for our own good.

I'd tend to agree at our technological level.

JupiterKid

Some beautiful astronomical images to feast your collective eyes on....


Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), as seen by the HST





Butterfly Planetary Nebula (NGC 6302)





Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070), located in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Kermit.de.frog

JupiterKid when is the James Webb telescope going in to orbit?

They have been talking about it for years and years?

JupiterKid

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

JupiterKid when is the James Webb telescope going in to orbit?

They have been talking about it for years and years?

Apparrently some time between now and 2023.

Yes, the James Webb has been beset by years and years of budget and schedule overruns - I also think that the mission scientists want to make extra sure that there are no post-deployment problems like Hubble encountered with its primary mirror in 1990.

Also, unlike Hubble, the James Webb will be going into a solar orbit as opposed to Earth orbit so there would be little scope for a crewed mission to repair the telescope if problems arise.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Helena Thoughtless Toothache wrote: »

The little Milky Way alone is flush with billions of potentially habitable planets - and that's just one sliver of the universe (there are billions of other galaxies to choose from).

In total around about 6 sextillion (x21 zeros) possible habitable planets in the universe, more than there is individual specs/grains of sand on all of the earths beaches combined.

And yet there are people who think earth is the only planet in the universe with intelligent life which is slightly ironic because to think like that shows very limited intelligence.

Leroy42

Jupiter Kid, was wondering what sort of scale those pictures are. What sort of area do they show?

Potential-Monke

Leroy42 wrote: »

Jupiter Kid, was wondering what sort of scale those pictures are. What sort of area do they show?

The Catseye Nebula has a 0.2 light year radius, and is 3262 light years away from Earth, and 1 light year = approximately 9 trillion KM. So it's about 7.2 trillion km radius (Earth has a radius of 6371 km).

That's all, of course, if I did research (Google) and math correct.

If I was, then the following is also true:

Butterfly Nebula: 1.2 ly/10.8 trillion km radius

Tarantula Nebula: oh my god... 631 ly/5.679 quadrillion km radius...

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Stephen Hawking said it would be an epic bad fail for humans to contact aliens.

To paraphrase him - he said if they have the tech to travel across the galaxy then they will have the tech to destroy the planet from many light years away - they won't even visit.

Even if they did it would be like Columbus meeting native Indians in America (we'd be the Indians).

His view was keep the head down for our own good.

I'd tend to agree at our technological level.

He was making a rather large assumption here though...

If we discovered an alien civilisation, there is no guarantee that it would be any more advanced than our own. For some reason, we always seem to assume that aliens will be more advanced than us?

Also, even if they are more advanced... might their advancement have also included the ability to transcend things like war/violence/hostility/colonisation/discrimination/racism etc etc???

(As we would tend to view this as a significant sign of our own advancement as a species, if we ever managed to completely eradicate such problems!)

And yes, in case you were wondering... I am smarter than Stephen Hawking, obviously!!

Kermit.de.frog

JupiterKid wrote: »

Apparrently some time between now and 2023.

Yes, the James Webb has been beset by years and years of budget and schedule overruns - I also think that the mission scientists want to make extra sure that there are no post-deployment problems like Hubble encountered with its primary mirror in 1990.

Also, unlike Hubble, the James Webb will be going into a solar orbit as opposed to Earth orbit so there would be little scope for a crewed mission to repair the telescope if problems arise.

Hopefully soon. I never fully considered the maintenance point. I see now they only get one chance.

jiltloop

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

He was making a rather large assumption here though...

If we discovered an alien civilisation, there is no guarantee that it would be any more advanced than our own. For some reason, we always seem to assume that aliens will be more advanced than us?

Also, even if they are more advanced... might their advancement have also included the ability to transcend things like war/violence/hostility/colonisation/discrimination/racism etc etc???

(As we would tend to view this as a significant sign of our own advancement as a species, if we ever managed to completely eradicate such problems!)

And yes, in case you were wondering... I am smarter than Stephen Hawking, obviously!!

Actually I think you are making a mistake with context, I may be wrong but I would assume that Stephen Hawkins was specifically referring to us sending out signals trying to communicate with other possible alien civilisations that have the ability to reach us. If there are such alien civilisations which are scanning the universe (for whatever reason) looking for an Earth like planet with intelligent life and we are naively waving our arms in the air, maybe we should have a serious think about the possible intentions of who we are trying to get noticed by.

As I said though, I could be wrong.

EmmetSpiceland

jiltloop wrote: »

Actually I think you are making a mistake with context, I may be wrong but I would assume that Stephen Hawkins was specifically referring to us sending out signals trying to communicate with other possible alien civilisations that have the ability to reach us. If there are such alien civilisations which are scanning the universe (for whatever reason) looking for an Earth like planet with intelligent life and we are naively waving our arms in the air, maybe we should have a serious think about the possible intentions of who we are trying to get noticed by.

As I said though, I could be wrong.

But why would they have any interest in us other than “curiosity”?

There is nothing here that can’t be found in abundance in space, itself. It would appear that the “conditions” of our planet are not unique so there would be easier places to settle if that’s what they wanted.

Unless misery and suffering is the “currency” of the extra-solar empires then there’d be no other reason to come here other than to say “hello” or to simply monitor our behaviour.

jiltloop

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

But why would they have any interest in us other than “curiosity”?

There is nothing here that can’t be found in abundance in space, itself. It would appear that the “conditions” of our planet are not unique so there would be easier places to settle if that’s what they wanted.

Unless misery and suffering is the “currency” of the extra-solar empires then there’d be no other reason to come here other than to say “hello” or to simply monitor our behaviour.

Of course there are minerals aplenty in the universe so I agree that they are unlikely to looking for those kinds of resources. However they may have some interest (nefarious or otherwise) in the life on this planet or on the micro-organisms/bacteria etc.

I'm not saying that I would agree with Hawkin's level of caution, I'm merely giving a context for it that I thought may have been missed from the post I quoted.

Leroy42

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

But why would they have any interest in us other than “curiosity”?

There is nothing here that can’t be found in abundance in space, itself. It would appear that the “conditions” of our planet are not unique so there would be easier places to settle if that’s what they wanted.

Unless misery and suffering is the “currency” of the extra-solar empires then there’d be no other reason to come here other than to say “hello” or to simply monitor our behaviour.

If aliens ever did visit us, I think the mixture of religious zealots, military crack pots and just simple people being scared would mean that would would quickly find ourselves at war with them, even if that meant annihilation.

Lets face it, we can't even agree that we should do something to help save the planet we all live on, never mind people losing their minds when faced with the 'reality' that ours is not the only race in the universe.

jiltloop

Leroy42 wrote: »

If aliens ever did visit us, I think the mixture of religious zealots, military crack pots and just simple people being scared would mean that would would quickly find ourselves at war with them, even if that meant annihilation.

Lets face it, we can't even agree that we should do something to help save the planet we all live on, never mind people losing their minds when faced with the 'reality' that ours is not the only race in the universe.

Agreed! We'd probably have religious crack pots trying to persuade everyone (including the aliens) that the aliens are indeed a manifestation of their god.

We'd have the US either being aggressors or trying to gain a secret advantage ahead of the Russians, it'd be a sh!t show even if the aliens were coming in peace. :pac:

EmmetSpiceland

jiltloop wrote: »

Agreed! We'd probably have religious crack pots trying to persuade everyone (including the aliens) that the aliens are indeed a manifestation of their god.

We'd have the US either being aggressors or trying to gain a secret advantage ahead of the Russians, it'd be a sh!t show even if the aliens were coming in peace. :pac:

By the time it would take them to get here we’ll either be extinct or “moved on”, the latter being highly unlikely unless it was to somewhere within the solar system.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

IN Sweden, there is a full scale replica of the solar system.

The Sun is represented by "Globen", an events area in Stockholm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_Globe

Pluto is represented by a 4-inch ball by a lake 200 miles north of Globen

Capt'n Midnight

JupiterKid wrote: »

Apparrently some time between now and 2023.

Yes, the James Webb has been beset by years and years of budget and schedule overruns - I also think that the mission scientists want to make extra sure that there are no post-deployment problems like Hubble encountered with its primary mirror in 1990.

Also, unlike Hubble, the James Webb will be going into a solar orbit as opposed to Earth orbit so there would be little scope for a crewed mission to repair the telescope if problems arise.

The story I heard is that the Webb had to have a complex folding mirror to fit in a US launch vehicle which drove up the price. But now it's going up on a European Ariane 5 so it could have been simpler.

Like most spacecraft it has attachment points to the launch vehicle. So in theory could be docked with in future. And SLS should have no problem getting to the place where the sun don't shine, if the SLS actually delivers anything other than pork barrelling. Webb uses the entire planet as a sun shield


Cost has gone from $500m to twenty times that thanks in large part to corporate welfare.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-northrop-grumman-cost/566186/

Northrop Grumman is in charge of building and testing Webb’s sun shield and spacecraft elements. For a project as complex and pioneering as Webb, errors are to be expected. But the errors made under Northrop Grumman’s watch were avoidable, according to independent reviews. Workers used the wrong solvent to clean the observatory’s propulsion valves. A wiring error severely damaged the spacecraft’s pressure transducers. During an important test, the fasteners designed to hold the sun shield together came loose, scattering dozens of bolts that took months to find

These mistakes alone resulted in a schedule delay of about 1.5 years and $600 million. Northrop Grumman will spend the summer recovering from these errors, under increased oversight from NASA.

Northrop Grumman has a so-called cost-plus contract with NASA for Webb, which means the space agency assumes the risk of overruns.

JupiterKid

Some stunning views of our planetary neighbours....


Sublime Saturn, as seen by the Cassini orbiter mission





Jupiter, king of the planets, and its highly volcanic moon Io





Io closer up, you can see a volcanic plume erupting in the upper right of the moon





Layered mesa terrain at Gale Crater on Mars, as seen by the Curiosity rover





The beautiful deep blue planet Neptune, as seen by Voyager 2 on its journey out of the solar system

The_Kew_Tour

One of best threads I have read on boards.

Fascinating plus little scary to think what the hell this whole universe is about

Kivaro

Looks like we have a new moon orbiting us. And it's temporary.
No worries though, it should burn up on entry in the upper atmosphere. "Should".

Capt'n Midnight

Kivaro wrote: »

Looks like we have a new moon orbiting us. And it's temporary.
No worries though, it should burn up on entry in the upper atmosphere. "Should".

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-earth-captures-mini-moon.htmlabout the size of a car, according to astronomers who spotted the object circling our planet.



Hmmm ... I wonder ....



https://www.space.com/spacex-starman-tesla-falcon-heavy-first-orbit-sun.html

JupiterKid

Sunset on Mars, as seen by the Spirit rover in 2005

Great thread, thanks guys

Kermit.de.frog

The Earth and the moon seen through the rings of Saturn. Taken by the Cassini orbiter.