Astronomy anyone?

I love it.. Here are some pics from the archives of this site.. I set my homepage here. There's a new one everyday.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

The pics didn't seem to work.. crap.. Oh well.. anyone interested can follow the link and check out the archives. Here's a few samples.

APOD: 2005 November 30 - Reflections on the Horsehead Nebula

APOD: 2006 May 20 - Elliptical Galaxy M87

APOD: 2006 May 19 - The Gum Nebula

The vastness of space is just staggering. If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 4-5 years to arrive at the next star- is it Alpha Centauri ?

Just imagine if a world was found that was similar to Earth and it was 20 light years away. Would you volunteer to go ?

Pro's:- A new world filled with new creatures and continents. Seas teeming with fish unknown to science. No wars for generations. More land than you could use. Limitless resources.

Cons: You get to loose 20 years of your life in space travel.

I love these pics, you could never hope to create such beautiful images using the human mind.

They are. So many beautiful ones at that site. The archives go back almost 10 years I think.. One of my favorites is one of a cresent Jupiter.. here's the link for it.. APOD: 2003 March 9 - Farewell Jupiter I used to use it as my background.. looks great on the screen.

The vastness of space is just staggering. If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 4-5 years to arrive at the next star- is it Alpha Centauri ?

 

Just imagine if a world was found that was similar to Earth and it was 20 light years away. Would you volunteer to go ?

 

Pro's:- A new world filled with new creatures and continents. Seas teeming with fish unknown to science. No wars for generations. More land than you could use. Limitless resources.

 

Cons: You get to loose 20 years of your life in space travel.

Actually Sheik, the fastest we've ever got anything going is about 100,000 km per hour with the Galileo probe by using the gravity of Jupiter as a slingshot.. At this speed, it would still take 44,500 Earth years to get to the nearest star, which is indeed Alpha Centauri.. 20 light years, about 200,000 years at that speed.. The dust of my bones would arrive in style.

Einstien therorized that time would slow the closer one got to the speed of light, which is like 186,000 miles per second. (299,274 km per second).. Hence.. "light year".. The amount of time it takes light to reach us at that speed.. 5 years for the nearest star. Mind boggling. Who knows? Seems cryogenic preservation would be the only way to attempt such a feat.. As for your question, I'd go in a heartbeat if my chances were good.. What an experience to wake up in 500,000 years in a new solar system.. prolly wanna wait til I'm on my death bed to go though.. Hahahaha

I see, you did say, "if we could travel the speed of light".. Someday hopefully.. If we could, I'd leave tommorrow..

Actually Sheik, the fastest we've ever got anything going is about 100,000 km per hour with the Galileo probe by using the gravity of Jupiter as a slingshot.. At this speed, it would still take 44,500 Earth years to get to the nearest star, which is indeed Alpha Centauri.. 20 light years, about 200,000 years at that speed.. The dust of my bones would arrive in style.

 

 

 

Einstien therorized that time would slow the closer one got to the speed of light, which is like 186,000 miles per second. (299,274 km per second).. Hence.. "light year".. The amount of time it takes light to reach us at that speed.. 5 years for the nearest star. Mind boggling. Who knows? Seems cryogenic preservation would be the only way to attempt such a feat.. As for your question, I'd go in a heartbeat if my chances were good.. What an experience to wake up in 500,000 years in a new solar system.. prolly wanna wait til I'm on my death bed to go though.. Hahahaha

 

 

I see, you did say, "if we could travel the speed of light".. Someday hopefully.. If we could, I'd leave tommorrow..

I was just allowing for future advancement. They may of course discover how to travel at lightspeed one day soon. After all, just look at the huge advances made in science in the 20th century.

I wonder if a human could endure and survive 20 years in space travel.

W could keep in physical shape with a spring based exercise regimen, but what about our mental health.

Imagine 20 years without a walk in the woods/forests. No animals to see and pet. No rivers and seas to walk beside.

I'm thinking cabin fever

I wonder if ova and sperm could survive such a long wait. Maybe we could take that along and make the people once we got there.

Of course some people would need to endure the voyage so that we could have adults there to do the jobs that needed to be done.

The whole thing wold be a lot easier if someone just invented those teleporters, like in the "fly" film. lol

Einstien therorized that time would slow the closer one got to the speed of light..

OK Wez, you seem to know stuff about physics. Can you explain this ?

Does it mean that a 20 year old, who undertook the 20 year space journey would be less than 40 upon arrival ? Assuming of course that the journey was made at the speed of light (SOL)

Also, if time slows incrementally as we approach the speed of light, then it follows, if the above is true, that the speed of light is the optimum speed for long distance space travel. This must be true for the humans in question, as getting them there, while still usefully young would also be an objective

OK Wez, you seem to know stuff about physics. Can you explain this ?

 

Does it mean that a 20 year old, who undertook the 20 year space journey would be less than 40 upon arrival ? Assuming of course that the journey was made at the speed of light (SOL)

 

Also, if time slows incrementally as we approach the speed of light, then it follows, if the above is true, that the speed of light is the optimum speed for long distance space travel. This must be true for the humans in question, as getting them there, while still usefully young would also be an objective

Better question:

If you are driving the Speed of Light (SOL) and you turn your headlights on, do they work?

OK Wez, you seem to know stuff about physics. Can you explain this ?

 

Does it mean that a 20 year old, who undertook the 20 year space journey would be less than 40 upon arrival ? Assuming of course that the journey was made at the speed of light (SOL)

 

Also, if time slows incrementally as we approach the speed of light, then it follows, if the above is true, that the speed of light is the optimum speed for long distance space travel. This must be true for the humans in question, as getting them there, while still usefully young would also be an objective

Yes and no. Yes, IF Einstein is right, if you were going the speed of light for 20 years, real time, was 20 years old at the time your journey began, you would be less then 40 when you arrived.

Now, here's the BUT, according to Einstein, we could never go the speed of light because not only does time slow but mass increases, the closer to the speed of light we get. Any object with mass moving near the speed of light would experience an increase in its mass. That mass would approach infinity as it reached light speed and would, therefore, require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it to light speed.

Better question:

 

If you are driving the Speed of Light (SOL) and you turn your headlights on, do they work?

Even I know that one Eddo. No they dont !

Yes and no. Yes, IF Einstein is right, if you were going the speed of light for 20 years, real time, was 20 years old at the time your journey began, you would be less then 40 when you arrived.

 

Now, here's the BUT, according to Einstein, we could never go the speed of light because not only does time slow but mass increases, the closer to the speed of light we get. Any object with mass moving near the speed of light would experience an increase in its mass. That mass would approach infinity as it reached light speed and would, therefore, require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it to light speed.

Thanks for that IWS. Its mind boggling stuff.

Better question:

 

If you are driving the Speed of Light (SOL) and you turn your headlights on, do they work?

Well, the element will glow but it won't shine.

Well, the element will glow but it won't shine.

Sure they can see it behind you.

Well, the element will glow but it won't shine.

If we see the elements glow, then light must have reached our eyes, meaning that in addition to the standing SOL of the vehicle, the light from the headlamps are upon the second SOL

Now I;m not sure, I think I was wrong earlier. Maybe the light from the headlamps would shine.

But then again nothing we know of travels faster than the SOL. Given that the elements are already doing that speed , could the bulbs shine ?

Beer time I think !

I think IWS got the just of Einstiens theory Sheik.. The relation between space and time.. it is a mystery.

I'm thinking cryogenics for long space travel will be the key to begin with.. If we can ever perfect that, sky's the limit..

Plus, being in deep freeze would prevent cabin fever and any other phychological/physical barriers as well.

Wasn't it Enstien who also talked about time warp? Folding the universe for travel?

I'm not sure.. but I have heard of that too.. I wanna be alive in 100,000 years dammit!!

We're on the cusp, as far as universal time anyways.. 100,000 years aint crap in the grand scheme..

Wasn't it Enstien who also talked about time warp? Folding the universe for travel?

Thats a new one to me, I've never heard about the possibilities of folding up the universe for space travel before.

But I have heard of worm holes, but I think they are for time travel.

Thats a new one to me, I've never heard about the possibilities of folding up the universe for space travel before.

 

But I have heard of worm holes, but I think they are for time travel.

Wormholes are created when space is folded like a sheet of paper and when they become close to one another, using negative energy, the two points of space is bent toward each other, and you can jump through a hole created from one point to another with a much shorter distance travelled. At least that's the theory.

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Although quantum mechanics tells us that negative energy exists, we don't know if there is enough to make a stable wormhole possible.

Einstein didn't really talk directly about wormholes, but they first seemed possible based on Einstein's theory on gravity.

Wormholes are created when space is folded like a sheet of paper and when they become close to one another, using negative energy, the two points of space is bent toward each other, and you can jump through a hole created from one point to another with a much shorter distance travelled. At least that's the theory.

 

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Although quantum mechanics tells us that negative energy exists, we don't know if there is enough to make a stable wormhole possible.

 

Einstein didn't really talk directly about wormholes, but they first seemed possible based on Einstein's theory on gravity.

Great stuff IWS

Have you ever wondered what may lie within and beyond a black hole ?

I'm thinking- another universe, yet one radically different.

As a boffin once said. Science is not just weirder than we imagine, it's weirder than we can imagine.

Great stuff IWS

 

Have you ever wondered what may lie within and beyond a black hole ?

I'm thinking- another universe, yet one radically different.

 

As a boffin once said. Science is not just weirder than we imagine, it's weirder than we can imagine.

Actually one theory is that the center of a black hole may be a place with enough negative energy to open a wormhole. So who knows, another universe or maybe the other end of ours?

No I think a black hole is just a star that is just perpetually imploding.

Black holes strongly attract matter to them. Once swallowed/consumed, the matter never re-appears. Not even light can escape a black hole.

Its a kind of sink then. But where does the matter go I wonder ? Is the hole a portal to another universe ?

Black holes strongly attract matter to them. Once swallowed/consumed, the matter never re-appears. Not even light can escape a black hole.

 

Its a kind of sink then. But where does the matter go I wonder ? Is the hole a portal to another universe ?

I don't know but I wish I did. Freeze my ass and send me in.. I'm game.

Excellent pic today.. Astronomy Picture of the Day

Star explodes halfway across universe

 

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

Fri Mar 21, 3:01 PM ET

 

WASHINGTON - The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye.

 

The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday.

 

The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.

Star explodes halfway across universe - Yahoo! News

The article estimates that the star exploded when the universe was about half it's current age, and the light just now reached the Earth. That's a long way to go.

Star explodes halfway across universe - Yahoo! News

 

The article estimates that the star exploded when the universe was about half it's current age, and the light just now reached the Earth. That's a long way to go.

That is awsome.. Til our Sun explodes and vaporizes a nearby planet.

Go look at the pic today bud.. beautiful.. Astronomy Picture of the Day