*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***
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Sorry, but that looks a bit dull... Sure it will float some people's boats though.
Lol...
Anyway, check this out, 3 Super Earths discovered 22 light years away, previously in April NASA announced finding 2 but this system has 3 totally covering the habitable zone. They're only a bit larger than Earth as well.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/scientists-discover-nearby-star-harboring-174136156.html
Can you imagine Earth being in that solar system, being able to planet hop between each one, looking up at the sky and seeing the other planets? If there is life on either of the 3 then they probably have an amazing view.
I liked this quote:
"Do more planets mean that life is out there? We don't yet know, and the reason we don't yet know is because we don't know the probability that life begins at all, even given the right conditions. But, because we apparently have an abundance of laboratories in our galaxy (some 17 billion), that should at some point turn out to be a knowable thing -- a point made beautifully by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf in Aeon recently. Scharf writes:
The special thing about our planet-rich universe is that it's tuned both for life and for finding out about life. If we were [in an] imaginary universe with only one planetary system, we would have no way of learning how frequently life arises. We live in a universe that allows us to get some measure of our own significance. There is nothing in our present understanding of the nature of life or the universe that says this was absolutely necessary, yet here it is.
It's not clear that we'll ever be able to solve this puzzle. To start with, we need to build that equation for abiogenesis, we have to dig deeper in the astrophysical dirt to find places in the universe that might harbour life, to follow nature's breadcrumbs, as it were. The strategy is straightforward: seek out more worlds that might share some of Earth's characteristics, and search their surfaces for the chemical signatures of life. It won't be easy but, unlike 20 years ago, we now know we have a galaxy's worth of planets to chase, and we know that if we persevere, the equation will eventually come into focus.
That this work is even possible has, in a very real sense, already changed our universe. Not because it's told us anything quantitatively new about life elsewhere, but rather because it's raised the stakes for evaluating our significance, our cosmic loneliness, to a whole new level. Not only are the fundamental properties of our universe aligned, and tuned to, the needs of life, they also promise success in our quest to discover life's frequency, origins, and perhaps the very causes of this tuning itself. And it didn't have to be like this at all. If you turn it over in your mind enough times, you realise that Albert Einstein was right when he said: 'The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.'"
Anyway, check this out, 3 Super Earths discovered 22 light years away, previously in April NASA announced finding 2 but this system has 3 totally covering the habitable zone. They're only a bit larger than Earth as well.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/scientists-discover-nearby-star-harboring-174136156.html
Can you imagine Earth being in that solar system, being able to planet hop between each one, looking up at the sky and seeing the other planets? If there is life on either of the 3 then they probably have an amazing view.
I liked this quote:
"Do more planets mean that life is out there? We don't yet know, and the reason we don't yet know is because we don't know the probability that life begins at all, even given the right conditions. But, because we apparently have an abundance of laboratories in our galaxy (some 17 billion), that should at some point turn out to be a knowable thing -- a point made beautifully by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf in Aeon recently. Scharf writes:
The special thing about our planet-rich universe is that it's tuned both for life and for finding out about life. If we were [in an] imaginary universe with only one planetary system, we would have no way of learning how frequently life arises. We live in a universe that allows us to get some measure of our own significance. There is nothing in our present understanding of the nature of life or the universe that says this was absolutely necessary, yet here it is.
It's not clear that we'll ever be able to solve this puzzle. To start with, we need to build that equation for abiogenesis, we have to dig deeper in the astrophysical dirt to find places in the universe that might harbour life, to follow nature's breadcrumbs, as it were. The strategy is straightforward: seek out more worlds that might share some of Earth's characteristics, and search their surfaces for the chemical signatures of life. It won't be easy but, unlike 20 years ago, we now know we have a galaxy's worth of planets to chase, and we know that if we persevere, the equation will eventually come into focus.
That this work is even possible has, in a very real sense, already changed our universe. Not because it's told us anything quantitatively new about life elsewhere, but rather because it's raised the stakes for evaluating our significance, our cosmic loneliness, to a whole new level. Not only are the fundamental properties of our universe aligned, and tuned to, the needs of life, they also promise success in our quest to discover life's frequency, origins, and perhaps the very causes of this tuning itself. And it didn't have to be like this at all. If you turn it over in your mind enough times, you realise that Albert Einstein was right when he said: 'The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.'"
^^ Personally I suspect life is common place. I also suspect intelligent life is fairly common too!
However, I suspect most intelligent life - intelligent enough to be space fairing - never gets to space travel to any real degree, or that level of technology only lasts a few hundred years before the culture drops back down technology wise...
Space travel (& hi-tech) takes a lot of resources, and I suspect most races, just like us, are too predisposed with day to day events to take a long term view. In short I suspect most races (us included) will end up like Easter Island, with the natural resources required to get more resources, having been used up (squandered) elsewhere.
ie: I suspect most race end up being marooned, so fall back to a simpler/lower non-space-fairing level of technology, most likely not even capable of sending/receiving long distance radio communications. Hence the quiet we find ourselves in...
However, I suspect most intelligent life - intelligent enough to be space fairing - never gets to space travel to any real degree, or that level of technology only lasts a few hundred years before the culture drops back down technology wise...
Space travel (& hi-tech) takes a lot of resources, and I suspect most races, just like us, are too predisposed with day to day events to take a long term view. In short I suspect most races (us included) will end up like Easter Island, with the natural resources required to get more resources, having been used up (squandered) elsewhere.
ie: I suspect most race end up being marooned, so fall back to a simpler/lower non-space-fairing level of technology, most likely not even capable of sending/receiving long distance radio communications. Hence the quiet we find ourselves in...
Why would culture drop back down? To be able to travel the vastness of Space in manned vehicles means that civilisation has evolved beyond the point of where you might think things would turn backwards. Technology has gone beyond requiring natural resources of a home planet and instead more exotic ways of generating energy will have been discovered and harnessed no?
I think you're thinking way too much about it in a worst case scenario and only in a life as we know it with our current understanding route - Which is the wrong way to look at it
Space travel for us takes up too much time and resource now because that's our current state of technology. Another 100 years from now things will be a lot different, a hundred years from then even more so because 100 years back from the present space travel was only a dream through the spotting scopes of big thinkers and astronomers of the time.
I think you're thinking way too much about it in a worst case scenario and only in a life as we know it with our current understanding route - Which is the wrong way to look at it
Space travel for us takes up too much time and resource now because that's our current state of technology. Another 100 years from now things will be a lot different, a hundred years from then even more so because 100 years back from the present space travel was only a dream through the spotting scopes of big thinkers and astronomers of the time.
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^^ I'd like to believe that... But:-
1) We have been lucky enough to have a huuuuuge energy resource to squander away in the shape of fossil fuels. Without those we would not be where we are today, and indeed be able to have any space missions at all. Some races will certainly not have that gift available to them.
2) Once our fossil fuels are used up, or getting short, we will have to tighten our belts. Space travel will lose out.
3) Many other resources (eg: helium and silver) will soon start becoming scarce. Many of these will impact on technology availability/cost.
4) Food and water shortage - When these begin to get short, space travel will fall to the bottom of the list.
I suspect before we die, we'll begin to see some resource shortages causing problems, and these problem will far out weigh any impetuous to invest in space travel. How long has it been since a man even left orbit?
Just like Easter Island, once we've lost that chance to use our resources to set up trading routes/escape our home etc etc... there will be no choice but to sit tight where we are and do the best we can with what's (still) left available.
If space travel was easy, and life common place, there'd surely be space ships, colonies and transmissions all over the palace... Yet, it seems quiet out there?
ps: And let's not get into the problems of manned space travel/colonisations itself. eg: Solar radiation etc.
1) We have been lucky enough to have a huuuuuge energy resource to squander away in the shape of fossil fuels. Without those we would not be where we are today, and indeed be able to have any space missions at all. Some races will certainly not have that gift available to them.
2) Once our fossil fuels are used up, or getting short, we will have to tighten our belts. Space travel will lose out.
3) Many other resources (eg: helium and silver) will soon start becoming scarce. Many of these will impact on technology availability/cost.
4) Food and water shortage - When these begin to get short, space travel will fall to the bottom of the list.
I suspect before we die, we'll begin to see some resource shortages causing problems, and these problem will far out weigh any impetuous to invest in space travel. How long has it been since a man even left orbit?
Just like Easter Island, once we've lost that chance to use our resources to set up trading routes/escape our home etc etc... there will be no choice but to sit tight where we are and do the best we can with what's (still) left available.
If space travel was easy, and life common place, there'd surely be space ships, colonies and transmissions all over the palace... Yet, it seems quiet out there?
ps: And let's not get into the problems of manned space travel/colonisations itself. eg: Solar radiation etc.
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Info? Just postulating...
We will reach peak oil sometime over the next 10-20 years most likely. If we don't we'll be extremely lucky. Once that occurs fuel usage will become extremely complicated (messy) for tens of years while we make a transition over to alternatives. And all this time, while there's fuel issues, space travel could take a back seat in importance.
Then we have the issue of food and water too. The problem of shortages of these will begin to cause problems too. Again, space travel could take a back seat in importance.
Other natural resources, all the time, and being used up. We will hit numerous problem when other resources reach their peak usage and we fall short on them. eg: Copper, silver etc... It would be very fortunate if all the resource we use happen to have alternatives freely available that also are not in short(ening) supply...
Space travel is towards the peak of our technology stack, and at the moment seen as of little importance... So it will be one of the first things to suffer in times of trouble, and the first to suffer in any underlying technology has trouble (due to a resource shortage).
I know it may seem pessimistic, but I think we take our resource for granted and don't really envisage them as being finite... By the time we realise this, I think it will be too difficult to get into space to get the amount/type we need.
And I suspect this story is common place hence why space appears so empty and quiet.
ps: And we're also taking for granted we can even find resources nearby in space, mine them, and bring them back to earth, without expending more resources than we mine? It may simply be so expensive in cost/resources to bring resources back to Earth it never proves viable/realistic.
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A combined effort to join forces with multiple telescopes around the world creating a "mirror" the size of the planet has been underway and its mission is to photograph the event horizon of our galaxy's black hole.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...to-capture-the-first-image-of-black-hole.html
Looking forward to seeing the image that comes out of this. The logistics are quite impressive, all sites view the sky simultaneously then the data is shipped on hard drives to one location where it is imported in.
Lots of info in the link on the what where and why.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...to-capture-the-first-image-of-black-hole.html
Looking forward to seeing the image that comes out of this. The logistics are quite impressive, all sites view the sky simultaneously then the data is shipped on hard drives to one location where it is imported in.
Lots of info in the link on the what where and why.