Astronomy & Space Exploration

Their retraction was firmly tongue-in-cheek, I think.

correction-apollo-525.jpg
 
RamblingRebel said:
Its surprising theres still so many flat earthers about. I read the other day that even the New York Times said it was impossible for the moon landings to happen as a rocket couldnt fly through a vacuum. They only retracted the statement the day after Neil and Buzz set off to the Moon. :nono:
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Well now that we have the facts on this, seems the NYT was not quite as bad as portrayed since the original editorial piece was written in 1920, they retracted it 50 years later when the Astronauts were on their way to the moon. HAve to agree with Ubik their retraction was more tongue in cheek than anything.
 
Hernandez - BFA said:
Beautiful and frightening. It's crazy to think how insignificant we could be. If there really is life out there, I desperately want it to be found during my life time.
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While that would be absolutely momentous and would affect every aspect of life on Earth, I am much too worried that it could end up like an episode of Doctor Who, just without the Doctor lol
 
Carolina Red said:
On the flip side, I've got a buddy at work that would tell you that's all invented by NASA and that it's impossible to go to space.
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My best friends wife is religious, and reckons that Dinosaurs are fake, and planted by scientists to debunk religion...she proves this, by saying that science is checked by scientists, and that carbon dating is made up...

She also reckons the earth is about 5,000 years old...
 
Big Andy said:
My best friends wife is religious, and reckons that Dinosaurs are fake, and planted by scientists to debunk religion...she proves this, by saying that science is checked by scientists, and that carbon dating is made up...

She also reckons the earth is about 5,000 years old...
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Your friend's wife and my work buddy would have ALOT to talk about if they were to meet.
 
Big Andy said:
My best friends wife is religious, and reckons that Dinosaurs are fake, and planted by scientists to debunk religion...she proves this, by saying that science is checked by scientists, and that carbon dating is made up...

She also reckons the earth is about 5,000 years old...
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:lol:
 
Anyone looking for a dose of a feeling of insignificance/marvel at the scale of the universe?




 
Every time I see this thread bumped I open it hopeful of us finally making contact with aliens, only to be disappointed time and time again.

Do anyone else think that the advances in autonome and artificial intelligence is our biggest chance of exploring exoplanets and places far away in space? I reckon that with all the bottlenecks like speed, time, radiation, physiology etc. we won't be able to send actual humans far out in space for hundreds of years yet. Could sending AI be our only realistic chance of exploring for example the Kepler planets?
 
SwansonsTache said:
Every time I see this thread bumped I open it hopeful of us finally making contact with aliens, only to be disappointed time and time again.

Do anyone else think that the advances in autonome and artificial intelligence is our biggest chance of exploring exoplanets and places far away in space? I reckon that with all the bottlenecks like speed, time, radiation, physiology etc. we won't be able to send actual humans far out in space for hundreds of years yet. Could sending AI be our only realistic chance of exploring for example the Kepler planets?
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And then the machines colonise planet after planet, eventually forming the first Galactic Roboempire and enslaving the galaxy.
 
ArmandTamzarian said:
Anyone looking for a dose of a feeling of insignificance/marvel at the scale of the universe?




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Good to watch and is no question about life in other planets the question is about the distance, if another civilization sends a radio signal into space like we do all the time and reaches us that could mean they sent the signal ages ago, I always wanted to be an astronomer and I end up to be on fecking IT.
 
SwansonsTache said:
Every time I see this thread bumped I open it hopeful of us finally making contact with aliens, only to be disappointed time and time again.

Do anyone else think that the advances in autonome and artificial intelligence is our biggest chance of exploring exoplanets and places far away in space? I reckon that with all the bottlenecks like speed, time, radiation, physiology etc. we won't be able to send actual humans far out in space for hundreds of years yet. Could sending AI be our only realistic chance of exploring for example the Kepler planets?
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One day we will be able to travel in space at science fiction speeds but takes time and the fact the government keeps cutting the funds to NASA is not helping but at least I do hope to be alive and watch us humans to walk on Mars.
 
SwansonsTache said:
Every time I see this thread bumped I open it hopeful of us finally making contact with aliens, only to be disappointed time and time again.

Do anyone else think that the advances in autonome and artificial intelligence is our biggest chance of exploring exoplanets and places far away in space? I reckon that with all the bottlenecks like speed, time, radiation, physiology etc. we won't be able to send actual humans far out in space for hundreds of years yet. Could sending AI be our only realistic chance of exploring for example the Kepler planets?
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One would think that workable AI would lead to some kind of Van Neumann machine. After all it can be done - we ourselves are organic Van Neumann machines. So an intelligent machine should be capable of doing what we do - building copies of itself. Which raises the old question. Why hasn't another galactic civilization already done this? If advanced machine intelligence is possible.
 
Hernandez - BFA said:
Beautiful and frightening. It's crazy to think how insignificant we could be. If there really is life out there, I desperately want it to be found during my life time.
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Same here. It tortures me to know that I will never know what is out there. There are limitless possibilities.
 
How does this work? Hard to imagine life existing so close to Alpha Centauri A, B and Proxima Centauri - especially when it's likely to be tidally locked to the latter (the habitable strip might even be angled towards the other two). On the on other hand, the sky would be really cool. Tatooine, but with 3 stars in close proximity, instead of 2. :drool:

SW_binary_sunset.png
 
Raoul said:
Are Earth Humans The 'Aliens' Early To The Universe's Life Party?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/curtiss...the-aliens-early-to-the-universes-life-party/
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Doesn't make much sense to me to be honest. Why would our galaxy out of the 100-200 BILLION others in the universe (current estimate/guess) be the first? And if it was the first, why would Earth out of the 100 billion or so planets in the Milky Way (current estimate/guess, also we suck at naming our own galaxy) be the first to produce intelligent life?

I think its much more plausible that there's plenty of life out there but that our still incredibly primitive forms of looking for it just aren't up to the job yet. Feels like we're a medieval Irish lord looking out to the western sea with a crap telescope for 5 minutes and declaring that there can't be anything out there because we haven't seen it yet.
 
Kentonio said:
Doesn't make much sense to me to be honest. Why would our galaxy out of the 100-200 BILLION others in the universe (current estimate/guess) be the first? And if it was the first, why would Earth out of the 100 billion or so planets in the Milky Way (current estimate/guess, also we suck at naming our own galaxy) be the first to produce intelligent life?

I think its much more plausible that there's plenty of life out there but that our still incredibly primitive forms of looking for it just aren't up to the job yet. Feels like we're a medieval Irish lord looking out to the western sea with a crap telescope for 5 minutes and declaring that there can't be anything out there because we haven't seen it yet.
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I suppose the article is asking - "How do we know that we aren't the first?". In truth we don't, we are merely playing probabilistic games based on our interpretation of what should happen based on how many galaxies, stars, potential planets there are , and what the age of the Universe is.
 
Raoul said:
I suppose the article is asking - "How do we know that we aren't the first?". In truth we don't, we are merely playing probabilistic games based on our interpretation of what should happen based on how many galaxies, stars, potential planets there are , and what the age of the Universe is.
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Absolutely, and in fairness to them pretty much everything at the moment is 'best guess' territory. I think it bugs me a bit though because of that tendency we have as a species to consider ourselves special. Some estimates of not just number of planets, but more specifically number of potentially habitable planets in the universe puts the number at something like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In other words, first life being on earth is roughly comparable to the odds of Moreno winning the Ballon d'Or this year.
 
Kentonio said:
Absolutely, and in fairness to them pretty much everything at the moment is 'best guess' territory. I think it bugs me a bit though because of that tendency we have as a species to consider ourselves special. Some estimates of not just number of planets, but more specifically number of potentially habitable planets in the universe puts the number at something like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In other words, first life being on earth is roughly comparable to the odds of Moreno winning the Ballon d'Or this year.
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Lisa Randall recently said she believes the Universe is probably full of life but we may never encounter it, which imo is a pretty reasonable position. I do agree that we are probably far too anthropocentric in our view of what life should be - we think we are alive and therefore we may not be alone based on a construct of knowledge that is unique to how our brains have evolved to interpret information.
 
Raoul said:
Lisa Randall recently said she believes the Universe is probably full of life but we may never encounter it, which imo is a pretty reasonable position. I do agree that we are probably far too anthropocentric in our view of what life should be - we think we are alive and therefore we may not be alone based on a construct of knowledge that is unique to how our brains have evolved to interpret information.
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Agree with that fully. When we look for "life" we automatically think of organisms similar to those on earth (specifically carbon based). If you think beyond that, there could be sentient beings so drastically different to what we know, we'd never be able to spot let alone understand what they are.
 
I spent 2 and a half hours listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson yesterday on this and he made some good points, firstly that life elsewhere is virtually guaranteed on odds alone, but that by looking specifically for things that we think are required to sustain life, we may be missing places where life is abundant. Consider that we currently believe that water is required in order to sustain life, what if it isn't? We're basing that on our knowledge of human life and what is required on Earth. We used to think that sunlight is required for life, yet life is abundant at the bottom of the deepest oceans where sunlight cannot reach. Thinking about it from only a 'this is what is required for life on planet Earth' viewpoint may actually be hindering us when looking for life elsewhere in the universe, it's a fun thing to consider.

EDIT: Along the same lines as what Pexbo said.
 
Zarlak said:
I spent 2 and a half hours listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson yesterday on this and he made some good points, firstly that life elsewhere is virtually guaranteed on odds alone, but that by looking specifically for things that we think are required to sustain life, we may be missing places where life is abundant. Consider that we currently believe that water is required in order to sustain life, what if it isn't? We're basing that on our knowledge of human life and what is required on Earth. We used to think that sunlight is required for life, yet life is abundant at the bottom of the deepest oceans where sunlight cannot reach. Thinking about it from only a 'this is what is required for life on planet Earth' viewpoint may actually be hindering us when looking for life elsewhere in the universe, it's a fun thing to consider.

EDIT: Along the same lines as what Pexbo said.
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For me, the trouble with this is he is applying human logic and knowledge to constructs that may not be reducible to anthropocentric reasoning. We presume that the "odds" are that life must exist elsewhere based on our own comprehension of numbers and probabilities. We have to also take into consideration that what we perceive as life may not exist at all.
 
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Zarlak said:
I spent 2 and a half hours listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson yesterday on this and he made some good points, firstly that life elsewhere is virtually guaranteed on odds alone, but that by looking specifically for things that we think are required to sustain life, we may be missing places where life is abundant. Consider that we currently believe that water is required in order to sustain life, what if it isn't? We're basing that on our knowledge of human life and what is required on Earth. We used to think that sunlight is required for life, yet life is abundant at the bottom of the deepest oceans where sunlight cannot reach. Thinking about it from only a 'this is what is required for life on planet Earth' viewpoint may actually be hindering us when looking for life elsewhere in the universe, it's a fun thing to consider.

EDIT: Along the same lines as what Pexbo said.
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When they say sunlight is required for life, do they not mean that the creature at the bottom of the sea relies on the sun indirectly. Like they feed on dead things that fall to the seabed, the oceans would be frozen if there was no sun ect?
 
RamblingRebel said:
When they say sunlight is required for life, do they not mean that the creature at the bottom of the sea relies on the sun indirectly. Like they feed on dead things that fall to the seabed, the oceans would be frozen if there was no sun ect?
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The overall point was as Raoul just pointed out, that the issue is we are applying our knowledge of life on Earth to life somewhere else which may not even be true. The sunlight example was simply we thought something that turned out to be wrong, so we can't really comprehend things elsewhere if we judge them by what we currently know of Earth.



Here's the full video where he discusses the moon landing conspiracies, life elsewhere and the dangers of farts. It's too easy to listen to him talk for a prolonged time.
 
RamblingRebel said:
When they say sunlight is required for life, do they not mean that the creature at the bottom of the sea relies on the sun indirectly. Like they feed on dead things that fall to the seabed, the oceans would be frozen if there was no sun ect?
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You're thinking of scavengers, there's other types of organisms that feed on chemicals and nutrients expelled by super hot vents at the bottom of the ocean so if there was an exoplanet with a hot core that provided heat as well as a source of nutrients then a Star may not be needed.
 
They've found hot springs on Enceladus who is circling Saturn. They also think there are hot springs on Europa.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...-nasa-probe-finds-hot-springs-on-saturns-moon

Probably something microbial going on there. But things like these are not interesting, I want ET.

Such a shame that Europa around Jupiter is so cold with minus 200 something, that one would be a prime candidate.

http://www.space.com/15716-alien-life-search-solar-system.html

http://www.space.com/28978-enceladus-europa-ganymede-alien-life.html
 
RedTiger said:
You're thinking of scavengers, there's other types of organisms that feed on chemicals and nutrients expelled by super hot vents at the bottom of the ocean so if there was an exoplanet with a hot core that provided heat as well as a source of nutrients then a Star may not be needed.
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I'm not a chemist, but photosynthesis itself is a tortuous process with many stages. Routine exothermic chemical reactions release energy, so you wouldn't think sunlight would be a deal-breaker.

You surely require a liquid solvent for any complicated chemistry to take place though. Molecules need a medium in which they can move, meet up, and get together. It doesn't necessarily have to be water I suppose.

The colder it gets though, the less energy molecules have, and the slower they move, so reactions get more and more sluggish. There's liquid methane on Titan at minus 180C; but if there's life there, it can't bear much resemblance to life on earth. It must take Titanians a thousand years to say hello.
 
It's not that it's thought water is required for life to exist per se, it's that it's basically the perfect working fluid for sustaining it, and is highly likely to be abundant throughout the universe.
 
What we should be looking for is magnetospheres. If Mars had one there likely would be life there today. Without a magnetosphere water will turn to vapor and evaporate, also possible life on the planet will be bombarded with radiation.

Anyways, the interesting thing about the Centauri proxima and Centauri Alpha planets is that these are actually reachable by drones and unmanned missions in our lifetime. There is already a project underway for sending an unmanned mission to the Centauri planets with an estimated flight time of 20-30 years. Data travel will take 4 years though.
 
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