Astronomy & Space Exploration

There an unknowns that are not knowable. So even if we do somehow get through the great filter and become a type 2 or 3 civilisation, we can't expect to know everything.
 
Will the human race ever last another 1000 years though? Seems unlikely to me with all things considered.

I've been wondering lately if the reason behind the fermi paradox is actually because civilisations just can't last long enough to become advanced enough to make contact with other civilisations....

The drake equation is all well and good but if natural disasters, civil wars, diseases, astronomical events etc are all present throughout the universe then maybe life is just to fragile to succeed in the long run.

Who knows. There could be someone in the Andromeda reading this thread now laughing at how stupid we are.
 
This is an awesome video by NASA of the pace (and position) of discovery of exoplanets:

 
The Event Horizon Telescope team are going to make a big announcement in may 12. Its probably an image of Sag-A, the black hole in the center of our galaxy. I'll put a link to the European Southern Observatory youtube channel that is going to show everything live:


Also, here is a link of a space page where you can find other otptions to watch the stream in may 12:
https://www.space.com/event-horizon-telescope-milky-way-discovery-webcasts
 
And here it is, a 'photo' (technically not really, but anyway) of Sagittarius A*:
2b2de531-02a4-7301-0068-1356fd84a7b7.jpg

Of course, the Sagittarius A* is actually the bit of nothing in the middle; the colour stuff is matter swirling around the event horizon just before it is gobbled up by the black hole. There is a fairly detailed explanation of how this works and how they created this image here: Black hole at the centre of our Galaxy imaged for the first time (nature.com).

This is also a neat infographic:
144e0fc6-a419-ae35-0c1d-363da89ab522.jpg
 
Here's a first proper example of the power of the James Webb: a comparison of the same image taken previously by NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (at 8.0 microns), and now again by Webb's coldest instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI (at 7.7 microns) . The image shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way with a dense star field. The difference is just incredible.
spitzer_vs_webb_LMC-1200x916.png

There is more information here: MIRI’s Sharper View Hints at New Possibilities for Science – James Webb Space Telescope (nasa.gov)
 
Cheimoon said:
Here's a first proper example of the power of the James Webb: a comparison of the same image taken previously by NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (at 8.0 microns), and now again by Webb's coldest instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI (at 7.7 microns) . The image shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way with a dense star field. The difference is just incredible.
spitzer_vs_webb_LMC-1200x916.png

There is more information here: MIRI’s Sharper View Hints at New Possibilities for Science – James Webb Space Telescope (nasa.gov)
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My distinctly unscientific appraisal - wow.
 
jojojo said:
My distinctly unscientific appraisal - wow.
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I can't talk to the science of it either (I was obviously copying from the NASA article for my post), but yeah, 'wow' is what I thought as well! And my kids also. Even on the most basic level, this is just endlessly fascinating and impressive.
 
nimic said:
If you want to be wowed some more, and if you haven't seen it yet:





Now, that's "just" Hubble. Eventually they're going to do that with JWST. I can't fecking wait. Every spot of light is a galaxy, by the way.
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Reminds me of my favourite YouTube video:

 
This is absolutely amazing new footage of the sun, released a few days ago based on Solar Orbitor observations:


Not quite what it looks like from over here! Also nice that they add the size of the Earth at some point (like in the screen capture). It feels a bit like you're looking at a somewhat weird lava pool/stream - until you realize that virtually every individual shape you see is larger than our entire planet. Mind-boggling.
 
Cheimoon said:
... Also nice that they add the size of the Earth at some point (like in the screen capture). It feels a bit like you're looking at a somewhat weird lava pool/stream - until you realize that virtually every individual shape you see is larger than our entire planet. Mind-boggling.
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And yet our sun is nothing compared to the largest known star in the universe, UY Scuti ... the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside it.
 
GlastonSpur said:
And yet our sun is nothing compared to the largest known star in the universe, UY Scuti ... the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside it.
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Yeah - the size of lots of the universe and much in it is really beyond proper human comprehension . (If it's not just me. :D )

It's like pictures where every dot in the background is a galaxy... There is just So Gigantically. Much. of it.
 
DJ Jeff said:
any word on the JWST first images? I can't wait for that stuff
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Its looking at things in the Solar System now apparently. Guessing it will go fully LIVE within the next month or so given that its been 5 months since launch and they originally said it would take about 6 months.

In the mean time, this pic from Hubble just came out today

 
DJ Jeff said:
any word on the JWST first images? I can't wait for that stuff
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This is a bit like one (from the James Webb thread):
Cheimoon said:
Here's a first proper example of the power of the James Webb: a comparison of the same image taken previously by NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (at 8.0 microns), and now again by Webb's coldest instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI (at 7.7 microns) . The image shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way with a dense star field. The difference is just incredible.
spitzer_vs_webb_LMC-1200x916.png

There is more information here: MIRI’s Sharper View Hints at New Possibilities for Science – James Webb Space Telescope (nasa.gov)
Click to expand...
But it's still a kind of test shot.
 
GlastonSpur said:
And yet our sun is nothing compared to the largest known star in the universe, UY Scuti ... the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside it.
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And then you have the supermassive black hole TON 618, which is 66 billion times more massive than the Sun, and is 144 trillion times brighter. Its event horizon has a radius of ~1300 AU, which means it would stretch more than 40 times further out than Neptune's orbit if it were in the same spot as the Sun.

It's so big that if it weren't for the stupendous amounts of radiation coming off the accretion disk around it, you could probably get well inside the event horizon before you suffered any spaghettification.
 
nimic said:
And then you have the supermassive black hole TON 618, which is 66 billion times more massive than the Sun, and is 144 trillion times brighter. Its event horizon has a radius of ~1300 AU, which means it would stretch more than 40 times further out than Neptune's orbit if it were in the same spot as the Sun.

It's so big that if it weren't for the stupendous amounts of radiation coming off the accretion disk around it, you could probably get well inside the event horizon before you suffered any spaghettification.
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That happened to me once, in a black hole of a town in Sicily.
 
nimic said:
And then you have the supermassive black hole TON 618, which is 66 billion times more massive than the Sun, and is 144 trillion times brighter. Its event horizon has a radius of ~1300 AU, which means it would stretch more than 40 times further out than Neptune's orbit if it were in the same spot as the Sun.

It's so big that if it weren't for the stupendous amounts of radiation coming off the accretion disk around it, you could probably get well inside the event horizon before you suffered any spaghettification.
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I read somewhere that you can be in orbit 2 light-years away from TON 618 and still experience massive time dilation.
 
GlastonSpur said:
And yet our sun is nothing compared to the largest known star in the universe, UY Scuti ... the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside it.
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While I struggle to get my head around the fact that 99.8% of the mass of our solar system is the sun itself, they reckon that around 10 billion suns could fit inside Stephenson 2-18. Mind boggling stuff.
 
nimic said:
And then you have the supermassive black hole TON 618, which is 66 billion times more massive than the Sun, and is 144 trillion times brighter. Its event horizon has a radius of ~1300 AU, which means it would stretch more than 40 times further out than Neptune's orbit if it were in the same spot as the Sun.

It's so big that if it weren't for the stupendous amounts of radiation coming off the accretion disk around it, you could probably get well inside the event horizon before you suffered any spaghettification.
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I struggle with the last point as surely at the EH the escape velocity is C.
 
giggs-beckham said:
I struggle with the last point as surely at the EH the escape velocity is C.
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It is, but that just means you're never getting out. Most black holes are so small that as you approach the event horizon, the gravity difference between the top and bottom of your body is big enough that it starts stretching you out. Very big ones have a much more gradual gravity increase, so you could theoretically make it in alive.
 
nimic said:
It is, but that just means you're never getting out. Most black holes are so small that as you approach the event horizon, the gravity difference between the top and bottom of your body is big enough that it starts stretching you out. Very big ones have a much more gradual gravity increase, so you could theoretically make it in alive.
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Yea I was visualising the shallower g curve near a SMBH EH, thus that the shear forces would be weaker..
 
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