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The Universe is AWESOME!

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    #302
    Professor Moriarty
    Registered Users Posts: 14,359 ✭✭✭✭Professor Moriarty


    Kermit.de.frog wrote: »
    SaturnEarthMoon_Cassini_960.jpg

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

    I can see my house.


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    #303
    storker
    Registered Users Posts: 5,644 ✭✭✭storker


    Kermit.de.frog wrote: »
    The Earth and the moon seen through the rings of Saturn. Taken by the Cassini orbiter.

    Beautiful, beautiful picture.


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    #304
    NIMAN
    Registered Users Posts: 33,015 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    I prefer the famous Little Blue Dot picture we have all seen.

    Looks lot more natural and as a result fills me with more awe.

    This is a beautiful picture but looks like there has been a lot of editing, pgotoshopping done to it.


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    #305
    DanielODonnell
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 652 ✭✭✭DanielODonnell


    The universe is a nothing more than a sea of misery with waves of despair.


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    #306
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    I can see my house.

    You’ve horrible taste in curtains.


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    #307
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,073 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    Why would we assume that aliens would identify us as 'life', and would we be aware that aliens had been looking at us? And if they did recognise us as life, would they have any awareness of our attitudes, opinions, beliefs etc - or even that we had them?


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    #308
    Quantum Erasure
    Registered Users Posts: 8,170 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?…
    Are we or they Lords of the World?…
    And how are all things made for man?


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    #309
    Cordell
    Registered Users Posts: 5,790 ✭✭✭Cordell


    looksee wrote: »
    Why would we assume that aliens would identify us as 'life', and would we be aware that aliens had been looking at us? And if they did recognise us as life, would they have any awareness of our attitudes, opinions, beliefs etc - or even that we had them?

    The sad truth is that it's very likely that the difference between them and us will be greater than the difference between us and ants and bees - sure we acknowledge that them insects have some group intelligence and social order, but we're unable to communicate with them and we consider them inferior and unable to communicate with us anyway.


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    #310
    Kermit.de.frog
    Registered Users Posts: 23,473 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHHSSJDJ4oo


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    #311
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,074 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Cordell wrote: »
    The sad truth is that it's very likely that the difference between them and us will be greater than the difference between us and ants and bees - sure we acknowledge that them insects have some group intelligence and social order, but we're unable to communicate with them and we consider them inferior and unable to communicate with us anyway.
    It's not particularly likely either way C. If intelligence similar to ours pops up in the universe... Actually that's a big if right off the bat. After all in the billions of years of life on our planet unlike swimming and flight and a host of other tweaks in the evolutionary arms race that happened across different species(sometimes quite different) intelligence popped up as an evolutionary adaptation only the once.

    And for most of that intelligence's trajectory it wasn't like us. In the sense of rapid invention and abstract thinking and networking*. There was us and maybe/probably Neandertals and Denisovans, but we really stand apart in these things. If you collected all the evidence, even possible evidence for abstract thought from hominids before us including Neandertals the vast bulk of it would fit in a shoebox, maybe two. One square metre of a French cave inhabited by modern humans would show more abstract thought than all of the 6 million odd years of hominid evolution put together.

    So intelligence might never get started on many if not most planets and if it does it might stay at the Neandertal stage(and they were around happy out for double the time we've been), if life itself ever moves much beyond single celled organisms when it does. After all the biomass of our planet is mostly simple "thick" life. The smallest percentage of Earth's biomass is made up of social predators* like us, none of whom are close to our brain power.

    But let's imagine an alien world brings forth brains similar to ours. Curious abstract inventive technological brains. OK, well first off their planet has to be about the same size as ours, because if it's much bigger they won't be able to escape their gravity to get into space. So it is and they do. There's no reason to believe they'll keep going, or have much of an interest to. If they had a Mars type planet nearby only it was habitable that would be an incentive, but if they don't... Then they could wipe themselves out or bugger their home world up and go extinct, or revert back to a tiny population. They might keep building networks like our internet and VR and move into them and look inward or outward only virtually.

    Their best hope is likely that they end up replacing themselves with living "machines" rather than wait around for evolution to do it. That's another killer app of ours; we externalised our own evolution. In that case with low energy requirements and essentially being immortal then they might travel outward exploring. If they keep the curiosity factor going. Machine intelligence might not and might have totally different drives. We don't know. But if they do then I would say any aliens we do encounter will be those kind of intelligences. Would they understand us? I would say so yes. They were born of similar and would have complete records of that. They'd have to dumb down to our level for us to understand them, but they could likely do that too.

    The last problem is when all this happens. The age of just the Milky Way where stars and planets could form is around 10 billion years IIRC. These intelligences could have come and gone a billion years ago. They might have passed by here 10 million years ago. Hell a million years ago, even 200,000 years ago they'd not see much unless they stuck around and looked very closely and even then there'd not be a lot to work with. Or they might show up in ten or a hundred million years time when there's no trace of us left, unless someone looks extremely closely. If they were looking with huge feck off radio telescopes and pointed directly at us they'd have to be living within 100 light years of us to hear anything. In recent years the amount of radio waves we're sending out has dropped off appreciably. IN a hundred years time we might be "silent" again.


    *Networking seems to be the killer app. Previous humans don't seem to have networked much beyond their small family groups. We show up and established networks across continents in short order. A Neandertal might have been an Einstein or DaVinci, but their ideas would die with them and not transmit far. If they were tolerated at all. There are cultures today like the Andaman islanders who reject novelty sometimes aggressively. If we use a rough analogy of computers: home computers were a novelty a toy in many ways and a minority interest and would have stayed that way before he internet came along and suddenly... Disconnect the interwebs from your phone or PC and no matter how powerful/intelligent it is on its own see how long it's useful for the vast majority of people.

    ** could social herbivores make the cut? Unlikely. One singular advantage of being a predator is that you can move into a totally different environment and ecosystem and so long as there are herbivores you will survive. Herbivores are much more restricted in range. Plus sourcing plant foods requires less brainpower in the first place and plants don't for the most part have the energy and nutrients to drive big brain evolution. We can only be vegans now because our meat eating ancestors grew bigger brains and came up with agriculture and a wide range of domesticated plants. A vegan would starve in very short order 20,000 years ago

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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    #312
    Poor Uncle Tom
    Registered Users Posts: 14,545 ✭✭✭✭Poor Uncle Tom


    Wibbs wrote: »
    It's not particularly likely either way C. If intelligence similar to ours pops up in the universe... Actually that's a big if right off the bat. After all in the billions of years of life on our planet unlike swimming and flight and a host of other tweaks in the evolutionary arms race that happened across different species(sometimes quite different) intelligence popped up as an evolutionary adaptation only the once.

    And for most of that intelligence's trajectory it wasn't like us. In the sense of rapid invention and abstract thinking and networking*. There was us and maybe/probably Neandertals and Denisovans, but we really stand apart in these things. If you collected all the evidence, even possible evidence for abstract thought from hominids before us including Neandertals the vast bulk of it would fit in a shoebox, maybe two. One square metre of a French cave inhabited by modern humans would show more abstract thought than all of the 6 million odd years of hominid evolution put together.

    So intelligence might never get started on many if not most planets and if it does it might stay at the Neandertal stage(and they were around happy out for double the time we've been), if life itself ever moves much beyond single celled organisms when it does. After all the biomass of our planet is mostly simple "thick" life. The smallest percentage of Earth's biomass is made up of social predators* like us, none of whom are close to our brain power.

    But let's imagine an alien world brings forth brains similar to ours. Curious abstract inventive technological brains. OK, well first off their planet has to be about the same size as ours, because if it's much bigger they won't be able to escape their gravity to get into space. So it is and they do. There's no reason to believe they'll keep going, or have much of an interest to. If they had a Mars type planet nearby only it was habitable that would be an incentive, but if they don't... Then they could wipe themselves out or bugger their home world up and go extinct, or revert back to a tiny population. They might keep building networks like our internet and VR and move into them and look inward or outward only virtually.

    Their best hope is likely that they end up replacing themselves with living "machines" rather than wait around for evolution to do it. That's another killer app of ours; we externalised our own evolution. In that case with low energy requirements and essentially being immortal then they might travel outward exploring. If they keep the curiosity factor going. Machine intelligence might not and might have totally different drives. We don't know. But if they do then I would say any aliens we do encounter will be those kind of intelligences. Would they understand us? I would say so yes. They were born of similar and would have complete records of that. They'd have to dumb down to our level for us to understand them, but they could likely do that too.

    The last problem is when all this happens. The age of just the Milky Way where stars and planets could form is around 10 billion years IIRC. These intelligences could have come and gone a billion years ago. They might have passed by here 10 million years ago. Hell a million years ago, even 200,000 years ago they'd not see much unless they stuck around and looked very closely and even then there'd not be a lot to work with. Or they might show up in ten or a hundred million years time when there's no trace of us left, unless someone looks extremely closely. If they were looking with huge feck off radio telescopes and pointed directly at us they'd have to be living within 100 light years of us to hear anything. In recent years the amount of radio waves we're sending out has dropped off appreciably. IN a hundred years time we might be "silent" again.


    *Networking seems to be the killer app. Previous humans don't seem to have networked much beyond their small family groups. We show up and established networks across continents in short order. A Neandertal might have been an Einstein or DaVinci, but their ideas would die with them and not transmit far. If they were tolerated at all. There are cultures today like the Andaman islanders who reject novelty sometimes aggressively. If we use a rough analogy of computers: home computers were a novelty a toy in many ways and a minority interest and would have stayed that way before he internet came along and suddenly... Disconnect the interwebs from your phone or PC and no matter how powerful/intelligent it is on its own see how long it's useful for the vast majority of people.

    ** could social herbivores make the cut? Unlikely. One singular advantage of being a predator is that you can move into a totally different environment and ecosystem and so long as there are herbivores you will survive. Herbivores are much more restricted in range. Plus sourcing plant foods requires less brainpower in the first place and plants don't for the most part have the energy and nutrients to drive big brain evolution. We can only be vegans now because our meat eating ancestors grew bigger brains and came up with agriculture and a wide range of domesticated plants. A vegan would starve in very short order 20,000 years ago

    On the other hand, intelligence could be as developed as ourselves in several areas with the same ability to contact us as we have to contact them.

    The vastness of the universe means we are just standing on the edge of the abyss shouting into the nothingness hoping that our voice is heard , understood and responded to while we stand there!

    The odds of that happening are directly proportional to the level of our intelligence!


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    #313
    Cordell
    Registered Users Posts: 5,790 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Wibbs wrote: »
    It's not particularly likely either way C. If intelligence similar to ours pops up in the universe... Actually that's a big if right off the bat. After all in the billions of years of life on our planet unlike swimming and flight and a host of other tweaks in the evolutionary arms race that happened across different species(sometimes quite different) intelligence popped up as an evolutionary adaptation only the once.
    What I'm trying to say is that "intelligence similar to ours" is a very narrow target, if some alien species evolve to be intelligent and advanced enough to be able to contact us probably the gap between them and us will be so large that they may not consider us intelligent species.
    Wibbs wrote: »
    But let's imagine an alien world brings forth brains similar to ours.
    Why brains? Why individual central nervous systems? Why not some sort of hive mind, pragmatic and devoid of feelings that will see us as feed rather than partners? Why do we expect them to be similar in any shape or fort with us?


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    #314
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,074 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Cordell wrote: »
    What I'm trying to say is that "intelligence similar to ours" is a very narrow target, if some alien species evolve to be intelligent and advanced enough to be able to contact us probably the gap between them and us will be so large that they may not consider us intelligent species.
    Possibly though I doubt it. They might view us like we'd view "cavemen", primitive, but on the way to more and clearly intelligent. We understand the basics of reality at a pretty fundamental level, we can build impressive structures and engineering projects and we have externalised and in many ways directed and offset natural selection. Things ants and bees don't do, even though we may appreciate how they evolved into different niches. To think they'd not understand or appreciate us because they're a million years ahead, suggests they've no memories and aren't very bright. We appreciate the intelligence and artistry of the aforementioned cavemen and we're way ahead of them to the point that most of the things you see and do around you would be unfathomable magic to a caveman.

    Why brains? Why individual central nervous systems? Why not some sort of hive mind, pragmatic and devoid of feelings that will see us as feed rather than partners?
    The big problem with hive minds outside science fiction flics is that they tend to revert to stasis. Cultures that are more of a mutually agreed reality are less innovative than those who are not.

    Aliens may not see us as partners, but that doesn't mean they'll see us as feed either. Again that's more the paranoia of scifi flics. What would they want from us? Food? If they're a million years ahead of us and can get here across vast unimaginable distances they've long cracked energy production. Elements common on Earth but not common where they live? Again completely unlikely. 1) it would be much easier for them to mine any rock you pick of in space. 2) they could easily enough manipulate matter itself and create what they need. You can turn lead into gold in theory, just the practicalities and energies required are beyond us. They'd not beyond an interstellar species. Living space? Earth could be toxic to them and again there's plenty of space out there anyway.
    Why do we expect them to be similar in any shape or fort with us?
    Well if they're still biological and evolved on land then to become a technological species they'd likely share some similarities. Binocular vision to perceive depth, opposable digits to manipulate their environment, large brains to process the information from the environment and an ability to move around into different environments. If we look at other evolutionary niches we tend to see the same basic shapes and frameworks. So flight requires wings of some nature, though one could imagine a species that produces a lighter than air, or water, gas that floats around, but for direction they're going to need wings or reaction propulsion. Swimming things either look like fish or snakes or billowy floating things, the fish or snake shapes being the most efficient. If they evolved on a water world, the binocular perception and manipulating digits and ability to efficiently move about would still be in play. I doubt any are going to look like humans, but I'd be surprised if they were so different we couldn't see why and how they got so advanced. If they're machine intelligence then they might be very different, but they still have to perceive and manipulate the environment and get around. Our Mars rovers are pretty thick, but they have wheels to get around, "hands" to manipulate things and "eyes" to see things.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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    #315
    Kivaro
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,105 ✭✭✭Kivaro


    So, like, we landed on an asteroid to pick up some material.
    That's big news, right?
    Hello Bennu! Anybody home?

    For the first time ever, a NASA probe has performed a sample-snagging operation on an asteroid in deep space. Linky.

    We like pictures, here you go:

    osirisrexbeauty.jpg


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    #316
    dxhound2005
    Registered Users Posts: 20,514 ✭✭✭✭dxhound2005


    Some fun facts about black holes.



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    #317
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,821 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    Pretty sure I saw Mars with the naked eye recently. A very bright red star in the sky. Using Google Sky Maps, it more or less lined up with Mars. First time seeing/noticing it. I was as giddy as a school kid! Must get me a telescope, but the brother would kill me as he's wanted one for ages.


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    #318
    Bunnypaws
    Registered Users Posts: 20 ✭Bunnypaws


    I think the vastness of the Universe is overwhelming I just can't get my mind around it


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    #319
    Kermit.de.frog
    Registered Users Posts: 23,473 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    NASA Perseverance Rover landing on Mars in next few minutes, live stream

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A_j8X2Wgoo


    https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1362447018279325699


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    #320
    RobbingBandit
    Registered Users Posts: 18,087 ✭✭✭✭RobbingBandit


    You know what's great about pigs in space?

    Me neither!!


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    #321
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,746 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    RobbingBandit wrote: »
    You know what's great about pigs in space?

    Me neither!!

    hOPsQYG.png


    Pigs in spacccccceeeee


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    #322
    Poochie05
    Registered Users Posts: 4,208 ✭✭✭Poochie05


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    hOPsQYG.png


    Pigs in spacccccceeeee

    You pushed the wrong button, bacon brain:pac:


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    #323
    Kermit.de.frog
    Registered Users Posts: 23,473 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1362508307529785346

    The rotorcraft will be something to look forward to. First flight on Mars.


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    #324
    Andrewf20
    Registered Users Posts: 3,187 ✭✭✭Andrewf20


    If you were in a space ship looking at the view below out the front window and you were to travel at the speed of light for your entire life (say 80 years), you would pretty much see no change in the view below. These galaxies wouldn't look any closer to you.

    Thats how big it is.

    Hubble deep field:
    _STScI-gallery-1427a-480x630.png


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    #325
    Leroy42
    Registered Users Posts: 15,483 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Andrewf20 wrote: »
    If you were in a space ship looking at the view below out the front window and you were to travel at the speed of light for your entire life (say 80 years), you would pretty much see no change in the view below. These galaxies wouldn't look any closer to you.

    Thats how big it is.

    Hubble deep field:
    _STScI-gallery-1427a-480x630.png

    Is that true? Its mind bending


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    #326
    dxhound2005
    Registered Users Posts: 20,514 ✭✭✭✭dxhound2005


    And half way there say you came across something really interesting and you wanted to report it back to Earth. You would need to stop there and radio back, and wait for 80 years to get a reply.

    Communications shrunk the world, but they cannot shrink space.


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    #327
    irishproduce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,805 ✭✭✭irishproduce


    Kermit.de.frog wrote: »
    https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1362508307529785346

    The rotorcraft will be something to look forward to. First flight on Mars.

    Anyone know why the camera images are so poor and kind of like looking through a door viewer on your front door?
    You'd have thought they'd put proper high res cameras on it.


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    #328
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,746 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Andrewf20 wrote: »
    If you were in a space ship looking at the view below out the front window and you were to travel at the speed of light for your entire life (say 80 years), you would pretty much see no change in the view below. These galaxies wouldn't look any closer to you.

    Thats how big it is.
    Some of the galaxies are 13.2 Billion years old. So you'd have to travel for billions of years to get appreciably closer to them.


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    #329
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,746 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    irishproduce wrote: »
    Anyone know why the camera images are so poor and kind of like looking through a door viewer on your front door?
    You'd have thought they'd put proper high res cameras on it.
    It has lots of cameras https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/ eg: 20 megapixel 5120 x 3840 pixels

    The helicopter has a 55 Megapixel camera


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    #330
    irishproduce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,805 ✭✭✭irishproduce


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    It has lots of cameras https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/ eg: 20 megapixel 5120 x 3840 pixels

    The helicopter has a 55 Megapixel camera

    Yeah see it now thanks.
    Looks like initial images are from the front and back haz cams


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    #331
    pnecilcaser
    Registered Users Posts: 95 ✭✭pnecilcaser


    "Humans are actually made from stardust"

    ... or "nuclear waste" if you look at it another way.


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