The Universe is AWESOME!

Hector Savage · 25-07-2019 9:06am

Ineedaname wrote: »

Not anymore. It lost that title to the peak in the Rheasilvia crater on the asteroid Vesta.

Ah, interesting I didn't know that!

nthclare · 25-07-2019 9:15am

Living on a lunar landscape myself, Poor man's moon.... "The Burren"

There's life Jim but not as we know it...

Kermit.de.frog · 16-10-2019 12:17am

Amazing coincidence that the moon just happens to be precisely the right distance from the earth and precisely the right size to precisely block out the sun in an eclipse.

Extraordinary really.

bilbot79 · 16-10-2019 12:22am

Ineedaname wrote: »

Not anymore. It lost that title to the peak in the Rheasilvia crater on the asteroid Vesta.

Do we know the topography of Jupiter underneath the gas?

Beeping Kitchen Appliances · 16-10-2019 1:41am

bilbot79 wrote: »

Do we know the topography of Jupiter underneath the gas?

The gas giant might have a solid part, deep down. But that is as yet unknown.

Kermit.de.frog · 16-10-2019 1:43am

Not solid but believed to be liquid metal.

ThunderCat · 16-10-2019 9:26am

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Amazing coincidence that the moon just happens to be precisely the right distance from the earth and precisely the right size to precisely block out the sun in an eclipse.

Extraordinary really.

That's only the case for people who are alive right now to see them. It won't always be the case. In 600 million years Earth will see it's last total solar eclipse as by that time the moon will have moved far enough away so that it no longer completely blocks the sun. I know 600 million years is an unfathomably long time however on a cosmic timescale it's not all that significant.

Hector Savage · 16-10-2019 1:23pm

ThunderCat wrote: »

That's only the case for people who are alive right now to see them. It won't always be the case. In 600 million years Earth will see it's last total solar eclipse as by that time the moon will have moved far enough away so that it no longer completely blocks the sun. I know 600 million years is an unfathomably long time however on a cosmic timescale it's not all that significant.

Beat me to it Thundercat!!

I remember reading an article or maybe part of a popular science book about that fact (Moon is 400 times smaller than the sun and 400 times closer) and he reckoned that this is most likely the ONLY example of this in the UNIVERSE.

I was thinking surely on probability alone he'd be wrong, but he had a convincing argument - which I can't remember ... sorry !!

dxhound2005 · 16-10-2019 1:32pm

I heard the stat again about the number of trees v number of stars in the Milky Way. Three trillion trees on earth, a lot fewer stars in the galaxy. But another of the bigger galaxies has 100 trillion stars. So imagine how big the earth would be if there was billions of miles between each tree.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 16-10-2019 1:50pm

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 some idiots people insist that we are alone in the universe.

How anyone can be so small minded to believe that is beyond me.

Drumpot · 16-10-2019 2:14pm

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

And yet some idiots people insist that we are alone in the universe.

How anyone can be so small minded to believe that is beyond me.

What do you think of when you say “alone” in the universe? Do you mean alone in the context of complicated organisms like us ?

I saw some documentary (can’t remember where or what it was) that calculated out the chance of us being the most advanced species in the universe. Can’t remember what the results were but no matter what information or explanation scientists can give to suggest “we are alone” it’s hard to not be dubious even if I don’t fully understand all the methods they use to calculate this probability.

I mean, we can work out stuff with maths, but you can’t overcome our limits. We have never physically gone past our moon and id say it’s generous to even compare what we can view in the universe to looking out the window and trying to paint a picture of the world and all its complexities.

I just find this sort of stuff fascinating and mind boggling.

Hector Savage · 16-10-2019 2:19pm

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

And yet some idiots people insist that we are alone in the universe.

How anyone can be so small minded to believe that is beyond me.

I think it's very possible we are the only intelligent life.
Don't dismiss the opinion as idiotic, I believe Brian Cox is of similar opinion.

I'm sure the universe is teeming with life though, but mainly simple bacterial like, the earth really is a little gem.

Gonad · 16-10-2019 2:23pm

JupiterKid wrote: »

It is indeed OP. That’s why I’ve had an interest in astronomy since I was about 17.

Just look at this close up image of the atmosphere of the planet Jupiter, taken by the orbiting Juno probe. Surreal!!:cool:

It’s so fake looking it actually looks fake

dxhound2005 · 16-10-2019 2:26pm

It's the distances involved which mean that billions of years could go by without life like ours being able to make contact. Simply sending a message, and waiting for a reply, could take millions of lifetimes. Unless someone can invent something quicker than the speed of light.

arctictree · 16-10-2019 2:41pm

I read somewhere that life has only happened once on Earth. We are all descended from one organism. So with the billions of molecules on early Earth, only once did life evolve. Very hard to extrapolate the probability of life on another planet based on that.

dxhound2005 · 16-10-2019 2:49pm

Our star, the Sun has only been around for 5 billion years, and has another 5 to go. Earth and the other planets came along much later. There are much older stars and planets, so if that means anything, life could have evolved and even died out elsewhere.

Cina · 16-10-2019 2:53pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Our star, the Sun has only been around for 5 billion years, and has another 5 to go. Earth and the other planets came along much later. There are much older stars and planets, so if that means anything, life could have evolved and even died out elsewhere.

The Sun formed ~4.6bn years ago and Earth formed ~4.54bn years ago so in the scale of the universe it's actually not much later at all, even though 66 million years might seem like a fair auld whack of time to us measly humans

Drumpot · 16-10-2019 3:11pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Our star, the Sun has only been around for 5 billion years, and has another 5 to go. Earth and the other planets came along much later. There are much older stars and planets, so if that means anything, life could have evolved and even died out elsewhere.

This most definitely closer to the probability, that at the very least we are certainly not the only ever "intelligent" (debatable as a collective :pac: ) life in the universe.

Ive tried to get my head around the concept of parallel universes and/or a finite universe but I just cant get it. . What happens at the edge of the universe? Is it like Neo at the train station in the matrix where he runs into one tunnel and just comes out the other side in the same station ?

Cordell · 16-10-2019 3:33pm

firemansam4 wrote: »

I could be wrong on my figures, I'm sure some will point it out if I am wrong..

You are wrong because you ignore time. We may be close enough to a planet that can harbor life, but extremely far away in time. Maybe there was life on Mars, 1 billion years ago, or maybe it will be in 1 billion years. Same difference to us.

Agent Smith · 16-10-2019 3:34pm

Everybody lives on a street in a city
Or a village or a town for what it's worth.
And they're all inside a country which is part of a continent
That sits upon a planet known as Earth.
And the Earth is a ball full of oceans and some mountains
Which is out there spinning silently in space.
And living on that Earth are the plants and the animals
And also the entire human race.
It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not.
And we're part of a vast interplanetary system
Stretching seven hundred billion miles long.
With nine planets and a sun; we think the Earth's the only one
That has life on it, although we could be wrong.
Across the interstellar voids are a billion asteroids
Including meteors and Halley's Comet too.
And there's over fifty moons floating out there like balloons
In a panoramic trillion-mile view.
And still it's all a speck amid a hundred billion stars
In a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
It's sixty thousand trillion miles from one end to the other
And still that's just a fraction of the way.
'Cause there's a hundred billion galaxies that stretch across the sky
Filled with constellations, planets, moons and stars.
And still the universe extends to a place that never ends
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!

dxhound2005 · 16-10-2019 6:35pm

Cina wrote: »

The Sun formed ~4.6bn years ago and Earth formed ~4.54bn years ago so in the scale of the universe it's actually not much later at all, even though 66 million years might seem like a fair auld whack of time to us measly humans

I should have checked that. But the more relevant dates is one billion years later, when the first life forms developed. And billions of years later when we came along. I remember seeing on a TV programme that a lot of the iron on earth had to be turned into rust in the oceans before any form of life could evolve, and that it took 700 million years.

In that 700 million years a super intelligent life form could have developed in a galaxy far away, and sent out signals. But those signals might only arrive here after the sun has burnt out 5 billion years from now. And their sun might have burnt out billions of years ago. That is the scale we are dealing with, and because of that life could come and go around the universe, and nobody will ever know it even existed.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-10-2019 6:37pm

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y

Before peer review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA

After peer review

Capt'n Midnight · 16-10-2019 6:45pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I remember seeing on a TV programme that a lot of the iron on earth had to be turned into rust in the oceans before any form of life could evolve, and that it took 700 million years.

Oxygen is highly toxic to organisms that aren't used to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation

An asteroid (estimated at 10 km across) slammed into waters about 1,000 m deep some 1.85 billion years ago. Computer models suggest that the tsunami would have been at least 1,000 metres high at the centre, and 100 metres high about 3,000 kilometres away. Those immense waves and large underwater landslides triggered by the impact stirred the ocean, bringing oxygenated waters from the surface down to the ocean floor.

cj maxx · 16-10-2019 6:54pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I heard the stat again about the number of trees v number of stars in the Milky Way. Three trillion trees on earth, a lot fewer stars in the galaxy. But another of the bigger galaxies has 100 trillion stars. So imagine how big the earth would be if there was billions of miles between each tree.

The one I heard was if the sun was the size of a basketball , the nearest star would be in New York

BDI · 16-10-2019 6:59pm

cjmc wrote: »

The one I heard was if the sun was the size of a basketball , the nearest star would be in New York

So all we need for space travel is to be about 7 times the mass of the sun.
Going to need a big spaceship.

ThunderCat · 17-10-2019 1:34pm

cjmc wrote: »

The one I heard was if the sun was the size of a basketball , the nearest star would be in New York

Get this - If we shrunk our Solar System down to the size of a coin, on that scale the Milky Way galaxy is the size of North America.

JupiterKid · 17-10-2019 9:30pm

We may be just a tiny insignificant speck in space, on our Pale Blue Dot as the late, great Carl Sagan put it, but we have sent 5 robotic emmissaries - the 2 Voyager probes, Pioneer 10 and 11 and New Horizons, into deep interstellar space, where they will sail among the stars and will preserve a record of our fleeting existence long after we are gone...

Kermit.de.frog · 18-10-2019 5:11am

Stephen Hawking said it's a bad idea to be sending signals to ALIENS in to space.

Reckoned we might get our asses kicked.

I think there is some merit in the argument to be fair.

EmmetSpiceland · 18-10-2019 10:38am

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Stephen Hawking said it's a bad idea to be sending signals to ALIENS in to space.

Reckoned we might get our asses kicked.

I think there is some merit in the argument to be fair.

Which, if you think about it, is a bizarre claim. I mean, think about it, what’s here that any advanced spacefaring “civilisation” could possibly need?

Covering all that distance, and time, just to wipe us out or “enslave” us? Doesn’t really sound likely at all. There’s nothing on, or in, the earth that isn’t floating around in space. Same goes for our bodies.

Smacks of bad science fiction, to be honest.

Drumpot · 18-10-2019 11:08am

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Stephen Hawking said it's a bad idea to be sending signals to ALIENS in to space.

Reckoned we might get our asses kicked.

I think there is some merit in the argument to be fair.

Would the main motives to annihilate us not come from either wanting our resources or seeing us as a potential threat on some level? I know Columbus and the Indians are an example used, but Indians were a serious threat and there were casualties as they were forced back. I don’t see us causing any casualties to a potential advanced species. If they are clever enough all they need to do is blow up our moon and we are finished as a threat so it wouldn’t be that difficult to end us. As such, I personally think the only reason an advanced race ends us is resources.

I mean technically There could be philanthropic or curios intelligence that’s been happy to look at us from afar. I mean we can’t get past the moon, aliens destroying us in our current situation is like an army bombing a building of deaf, dumb and blind ,paralysed monkeys. We really are so insignificant and irrelevant from a universe point of view , if aliens know we exist they are already way advanced of us and should see us as zero threat right now.

A flaw in some of these musings is our that we tend to rationalize motives in even hypothetical aliens from a flawed , binary human perspective. We can use maths and science and even projecting our own drivers into calculations to come up with reasonable and many case accurately objective conclusions but sometimes they amount to best guess that could add up to nothing. That’s not to say we shouldn’t follow these trail of thoughts but what I’m learning is to question everything , including looking at peoples own motives and prejudices. Even our brightest minds can fall foul of human fallibility.

The Universe is AWESOME!

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