No, further north in the arctic circle you can see it with the naked eye. But for me when I saw it in Iceland it mostly looked greenish/grey
Astronomy & Space Exploration
- Thread starter MrMarcello
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No, further north in the arctic circle you can see it with the naked eye. But for me when I saw it in Iceland it mostly looked greenish/grey
Typical. Strongest aurora in years and I'm South England. feck off.
Yeah it's a bit of a let down as you see pictures online yet what you see with your eyes isn't the same. Apparently it can look spectacular but I've not seen them look overly impressive with the naked eye. I saw them last night and also in Iceland and both times, it's cool but to the visible eye, not all that special a sight.
The most interesting thing I've seen was in Bali, on their day of silence. Long story short, it's a day whereby you have to stay indoors all day and at night, no one on the island is allowed to put their lights on. No cars or bikes on the streets and no flights either.
It's the opposite whereby pictures sell it short, the most amazing view of the stars I've ever had.
The night sky was my takeaway when I saw the aurora in Iceland. It was amazing seeing a properly dark sky with all the starts and being able to see the Milky Way. The lights were a bit of a bonus compared to that, glad I ticked it off the bucket list but the night sky is what stuck with me more
They are spectacular, but you have to be in a place where you can really see them. They can absolutely be as vivid as what you see in photos and videos. Sometimes they move around a lot as well (probably much more than you're imagining I mean when I say a lot), which is amazing.
I don't doubt that, I hope to one day see them in it's full glory!
Jealous, congrats
The images now coming out of Euclid are stunning. New image of the Dorado group of galaxies below.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora...tes_first_science_with_sparkling_cosmic_views
https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora...tes_first_science_with_sparkling_cosmic_views
Breathtaking.
It's so unfair we'll never be able to see up close let alone visit these celestial bodies and spaces.
It's all relative. Previous generations probably thought not being able to see closeup images of the planets or galaxies beyond our own was unfair too.
Hopefully one day we will be close up visiting one of those celestial bodies on our way past it.
The distances are just too great. Even with faster than light travel it would take too long to get anywhere other than maybe the next solar system.
What do you mean?
Nobody knows. It's even not clear if it's possible. But in theory you can construct stuff like a warp drive - just that nobody knows if the kind of material needed for it actually exists. And because of that it makes no sense to speculate how fast faster than light travel could actually be and what would be in reach.
The Alcubierre Warp Drive would be the leading contender at this point. It is apparently compatible with general relativity and would theoretically allow humans to travel vast distances by bending space and time. The spaceship/caspule itself wouldn't be traveling faster than light, but rather exist in a separate spacetime inside which the warp drive was contracting and expanding space. ie.,, the speed of light would remain the cosmic speed limit, but that wouldn't apply to the expansion of space itself.
No I understand, I know of it, but what do you mean by it would still take to long?
Even if we could travel nearly as fast as the speed of light now, it would still take years to get anywhere. The nearest exoplanet is 4.2 light years away, which would make it highly improbable humans would reach it given that we can't even put people on our nearest planet, or even our own moon, these days.
Ah I see, humans as a failed species etc. Yeah ok that makes more sense.
In the sense of building some kind of galactic empire, yes. That is never happening. If we're ever colonizing the galaxy, it'll be in the sense of individual societies.
But if we really could get close to the speed if light, length contraction/time dilation could still theoretically let any individual travel across the galaxy. It's just that for any stationary (relatively speaking) observer that trip would take a long, long time.
Sorry if that was covered or implied already, I just sort of jumped into it when I saw the last post.
Thank you for explaining this.
https://news.sky.com/story/new-plan...ered-close-to-earth-by-uk-scientists-13141999
This is a planet about the same size as Earth with a temperature of 42C.
And it is relatively close at 40 light years away.
This is a planet about the same size as Earth with a temperature of 42C.
And it is relatively close at 40 light years away.
It would take 4.2 years for us on earth. But no time would pass for the guys on the spaceship.
(Nimic already explained)
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I was sat in a Concorde less than 2 weeks ago! The guide was sure that they wouldn't have been able to continue even without the crash because of the enormous costs and other issues. Transatlantic flights inflation-adjusted would be around 22k nowadays according to him. And they couldn't lease them to other carriers, eg for domestic flights in the US, because of the noise.
It would actually be just as economical to fly on a private chartered jet these days than on a Concorde. They're obviously slower but have a much more personalized experience for roughly the same price.
More mind-blowing stuff...
Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o
Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o
Another successful launch for Starship, this time with a "soft" landing in the Indian Ocean.
More mind-blowing stuff...
Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o
"... the collection of stars was spied as it was a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang. "
It's remarkable we are seeing things now as they were at, basically, the beginning of time. I just can't wrap my head around that.
I find it hard enough to wrap my head around 290 millions years later being "basically the beginning of time", even if I know what you mean relatively speaking!
I agree. This line in the article put it into perspective:
" Put another way - if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we're observing the galaxy when the cosmos was only 2% of its current age. "
Mind boggling.
It really is.
I am fascinated with Cosmology in general.
It is those minute fractions of a second after our universe burst into life (out of seemingly nothing) that is really mind boggling.
Like where did all that energy come from. Although I am aware of the Perpetual Cosmological Inflation theory, whereby minute Bubble Universes come into being.
Some fail to become 'viable' and give back their energy, while others like ours do develop.
Who knows eh?
With next to zero technical knowledge to back it up, my working theory is that the Simulation Hypothesis is correct and that moment of the Big Bang is akin to an old monitor flashing on and the light expanding from a point in the centre of the screen. Then to wrap my head around this idea that the universe is always expanding, I chalk it down to the ever expanding memory needed to run such an ever program over time.
It's bollocks obviously, but it helps me stay sane to rationalise things with "The Universe According to Diarm".
Here's a fun fact, if we're talking about the age of the Universe. Assuming we're living in a flat Universe where dark energy will increase but never outmuscle gravity at the level of galaxies (or clusters), we're currently living in the very, very early days of the Universe. There will be star formation for trillions of years, and even after that it's theoretically possible for civilizations to survive around white dwarfs (maybe) or even black holes (super maybe). On the other hand, the Milky Way is largely done with star formation already, though Andromeda is probably going to shake things up a bit.
In conclusion: I dunno
In conclusion: I dunno
Apparently star formation is slowing down. Dark energy outmuscled dark matter 7b years ago and in a googol years all that will be left will be a sea of photons tending towards absolute zero.
If we look at that galaxy in that point in space as we now observe it, currently in our time right now it will be 13 billion years older, willve matured, merged with other galaxies perhaps and moved to a different location in space due to the general movement of galaxies and the expansion of the universe.
And as we speak now people from that galaxy, now a big mature galaxy could be detecting our galaxy as it was 13b years ago, but currently observing it in a different point in space to where we reside as of right now.
