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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo
Thanks for the pointer. Will watch it tomorrow. I wonder if it contains info on new data about exoplanets, one of the factors in the equation.
I guess it is limited to the UK? Good I can use a proxy with servers in London.
What happens when launching over land instead of over the sea.
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Sky is falling! Farmers wake up to piece of space rocket that fell to earth narrowly missing their homes in southeastern China | South China Morning PostQuote:
Villagers in southeastern China awoke this weekend to find a metal chunk from a space rocket had narrowly missed their homes as it fell to earth, slamming instead into a nearby hillside, state media reported.
The piece, measuring about 10.3 metres long and 4.5 metres across, had broken off the rocket that launched the APSTAR-9 satellite, launched from Xichang in Sichuan province shortly after midnight on Saturday.
It wasn't clear what happened during the launch that caused the debris to fall. But the report carried on the website of People's Daily called the launch a success.
Residents of Yuanxi village in the southeastern province of Jiangxi might take a slightly different view. They found the gleaming white sheet of metal on a hillside not far from their residences.
The debris had severed the electricity supply in the area but otherwise had not caused any damage.
Some poor reporting here. It is quite obvious what happened. This is one half of the payload fairing that was dropped when the rocket reached an altitude where it is no longer needed. Not a sign of any malfunction. However this is a completely unnecessary endangering of people. China does have the coasts to launch over sea. Unlike Russia, they don't have suitable coast areas and have no choice but launching over land.
No luck. BBC seems to recognize that I go through a proxy and still denies access.Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
Edit: seems the documentary is not new. Found it here. For those who also cannot access it directly.
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvi...uation_pt_1_4/
DSCOVR
The new sun observatory is now in service. Besides observing the sun for eruptions to warn earth of flares it also takes photos of earth daily and relays them back. So every day there is a fresh set of earth showing weather and cloud patterns.
http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Under this link you are supposed to be able to access the latest set of photos. Unfortunately something is still wrong and it loads extremely slowly or sometimes not at all. When you hover the mouse over the latest photo an enlarged window of the area shows. Lets hope the performance of the website improves. You can see the global cloud pattern. Today you should be able to clearly see the typhoon over the Philippines.
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A link to an article about DISCOVR.
DSCOVR: Deep Space Climate Observatory
Quote:
NASA launched a new website Monday so the world can see images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. The images are taken by a NASA camera one million miles away on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force. Once a day NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired from 12 to 36 hours earlier by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Each daily sequence of images will show the Earth as it rotates, thus revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. The new website also features an archive of EPIC images searchable by date and continent.
The primary objective of NOAA’s DSCOVR mission is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA. NASA has two Earth-observing instruments on the spacecraft. EPIC's images of Earth allow scientists to study daily variations over the entire globe in such features as vegetation, ozone, aerosols, and cloud height and reflectivity.
EPIC is a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope. The color Earth images are created by combining three separate single-color images to create a photographic-quality imageequivalent to a 12-megapixel camera. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters -- from ultraviolet to near infrared -- to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used to create the color images. Each image is about 3 megabytes in size.
"The effective resolution of the DSCOVR EPIC camera is somewhere between 6.2 and 9.4 miles (10 and 15 kilometers)," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Since Earth is extremely bright in the darkness of space, EPIC has to take very short exposure images (20-100 milliseconds). The much fainter stars are not visible in the background as a result of the short exposure times.
The DSCOVR spacecraft orbits around the L1 Lagrange point directly between Earth and the sun. This orbit keeps the spacecraft near the L1 point and requires only occasional small maneuvers, but its orbit can vary from 4 to 15 degrees away from the sun-Earth line over several years.
EPIC was built by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center, in Palo Alto, California. Using an 11.8-inch (30-centimeter) telescope and 2048 x 2048 CCD detector, EPIC measures in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared areas of the spectrum. The data from all 10 wavelengths are posted through a website hosted by the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. All images are in the public domain.
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
I hope you don't mind I reply in the Space News thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cujo
There is an official definition of space. Everything above 100km is in space according to that definition. But the definition is arbitrary. The US airforce gives Astronaut wings to pilots who have passed the 80km mark.
Actually the ISS is still very much in the grip of earths gravitational pull. It is almost as strong at 400km altitude as on the surface. It is just that it moves as fast as gravity can pull it so it does not fall back to earth. The complete explanation is somewhat more complicated.
How Satellites Stay in Orbit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1_UVSCm-wc
Where does it end?
That is the question!
If there is an end then what is beyond the end?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chittychangchang
Not a legitimate question.:)
It has no end so there is no beyond. Look at the surface of a sphere. It does not have an end and you cannot leave as long as you stay within its two dimensions and is still limited. Our universe has 3 dimensions and as long as you stay in those 3 dimensions you cannot leave.
Not a legitimate question? You cannot flat-out say that:Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeoversQuote:
Originally Posted by Chittychangchang
Not a legitimate question.:)
It has no end so there is no beyond. Look at the surface of a sphere. It does not have an end and you cannot leave as long as you stay within its two dimensions and is still limited. Our universe has 3 dimensions and as long as you stay in those 3 dimensions you cannot leave.
Note: "without considering time"Quote:
Three-dimensional space (also: tri-dimensional space) is a geometric three-parameter model of the physical universe (without considering time) in which all known matter exists. These three dimensions can be labeled by a combination of three chosen from the terms length, width, height, depth, and breadth.
What if time ends?Quote:
In physics, spacetime (also space–time, space time or space–time continuum) is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single interwoven continuum.
Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists PredictQuote:
Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists Predict. The universe will cease to exist around the same time our sun is slated to die, according to new predictions based on the multiverse theory. Oct 29, 2010
The universe will cease to exist around the same time our sun is slated to die, according to new predictions based on the multiverse theory.
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The Cat's Eye nebula, seen in a Hubble picture, is an example of what our sun may look like when it dies.
Our universe has existed for nearly 14 billion years, and as far as most people are concerned, the universe should continue to exist for billions of years more.
But according to a new paper, there's one theory for the origins of the universe that predicts time itself will end in just five billion years—coincidentally, right around the time our sun is slated to die.
The prediction comes from the theory of eternal inflation, which says our universe is part of the multiverse. This vast structure is made up of an infinite number of universes, each of which can spawn an infinite number of daughter universes. (Related: "New Proof Unknown 'Structures' Tug at Our Universe.")
The problem with a multiverse is that anything that can happen will happen an infinite number of times, and that makes calculating probabilities—such as the odds that Earth-size planets are common—seemingly impossible.
"Normal notions of probability—where you say, Event A happens twice and Event B happens four times, so Event B is twice as likely—don't work, because instead of two and four, you have infinity," said Ken Olum of Tufts University in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study.
And calculating probabilities in a multiverse wouldn't just be a problem for cosmologists.
"If infinitely many observers throughout the universe win the lottery, on what grounds can one still claim that winning the lottery is unlikely?" theoretical physicist Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues write in the new study.
Physicists have been circumventing this problem using a mathematical approach called geometric cutoffs, which involves taking a finite swath of the multiverse and calculating probabilities based on that limited sample.
But in the new paper, published online last month at the Cornell University website arXiv.org, Bousso's team notes that this technique has an unintended and, until now, overlooked consequence.
"You cannot use [cutoffs] as mere mathematical tools that leave no imprint," Bousso said. "The same cutoff that gave you these nice and possibly correct predictions also predicts the end of time.
"In other words, if you use a cutoff to compute probabilities in eternal inflation, the cutoff itself"—and therefore the end of time—"becomes an event that can happen."....
Time Coming to an Abrupt End?
But eternal inflation still isn't perfect, as the problem with probabilities in the multiverse illustrates.
If probabilities are to work in a multiverse, there must be actual cutoffs that bring various universes to their ends, study leader Bousso says. According to the formulas used to calculate cutoffs, a universe that is 13.7 billion years old will reach its cutoff in about 5 billion years, his team concludes.
For most people, the idea that a mathematical tool could be elevated to a real-world event might seem strange, but there are precedents for it in physics.
For example, Tufts University's Olum said, there was a time when many physicists resisted the idea that protons—subatomic particles with positive charges—are themselves made up of smaller particles called quarks. (Related: "Proton Smaller Than Thought—May Rewrite Laws of Physics.")
Mathematically, quarks help explain the so-called strong force in the nucleus of an atom—and in the real world they now help account for the "zoo" of strange particles that's been discovered in accelerators.
"People said this idea that there are particles inside of a proton that can never get out and that we can't ever see in isolation is crazy," Olum said. "There was a long time when people thought quarks were just a useful calculation tool, but they didn't really believe in them. Nowadays, though, everybody believes quarks are real fundamental particles."
Along the same vein, if theorists believe in eternal inflation, they either need to believe that cutoffs are not valid techniques for computing probabilities—or that cutoffs are real events that predict the end of time, Bousso and colleagues say.
What a real-world cutoff would look like and what form the end of time would take are unclear, the team says. If it happens, it would probably be sudden and unexpected.
And even if humans could see a cutoff coming, we almost certainly wouldn't be viewing it from Earth.
Scientists think our sun—now a middle-age star at about 4.57 billion years old—will be reaching the end of its life in about five billion years. At that point in time, the sun will run out of fuel in its core and will start to shed its outer layers of gas, inflating to become a red giant and ultimately a planetary nebula.
Earth's exact fate during this event is unclear, but few scientists would argue that life on the planet could survive the sun's death.
End of Time Not Inevitable
Although Australian National University's Lineweaver agrees that calculating probabilities in an eternal multiverse is problematic, he doesn't think predicting a real-world cutoff is the solution.
"I never rule out anything completely, but I don't take this very seriously," Lineweaver said. "I'm going to take questioning the assumptions [behind eternal inflation] more seriously."
Tufts University's Olum also doesn't think physicists should accept the end of time as inevitable.
"Nobody knows why [eternal inflation] should be wrong, but nobody knows exactly why time should come to an end either. To me, these things are on equal footing," he said.
full story: Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists Predict
Russia and Europe to launch joint mission to dark side of Moon, then build base there
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The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to join Russia’s ambitious plan to colonize the Moon, with an announcement that it will provide key tech for a planned exploration mission in 2020, and possibly help construct a permanent outpost.
Announced by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos last November, Luna 27 is a robotic lander that will land in the South Pole–Aitken basin, a giant crater on the dark side of the Moon, and prospect it for resources that could be utilized by future moon-dwellers.
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An earlier blueprint for Luna 27 © Roscosmos
"The south pole of the Moon is unlike anywhere we have been before," James Carpenter, ESA’s lead scientist on the project told the BBC earlier this week. "The environment is completely different, and due to the extreme cold there you could find large amounts of water-ice and other chemistry which is on the surface, and which we could access and use as rocket fuel or in life-support systems to support future human missions we think will go to these locations."
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An ESA sketch of a lunar lander. © ESA
For the mission, ESA is expected to supply Pilot, a landing system that uses laser guidance and a set of sophisticated cameras to pick the best spot for exploration, and a revolutionary drill that will burrow 2 meters under the surface. The Europeans will also construct an on-board lab that can immediately analyze the samples.
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full story: https://www.rt.com/news/319015-luna-moon-russia-esa/
I realise that, which is known as the Karman line, (which is the theoretical boundary between an atmosphere thick enough to sustain plane flight and that atmosphere that is not) but looking at the curvature of the Earth, compared to the distance from the moon, for instance, it very much appears to be just above the surface.Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
I was more expressing wonderment than confusion.
Not really. The atmosphere goes much higher, there is no clear line, it just gets thinner and thinner. As Takeovers mentioned above, one international definition is 100km. But you need to go to about 160km to find permanent black skies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cujo
Another definition uses the definition about the lowest perigee attainable by an orbiting space vehicle and apparently that's at 150km. (lowest an object could be to circle the earth without forward propulsion)
also wrong. as mentioned above by Takeovers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
Even the ISS at over 400km altitude needs regular reboosts so it will not deorbit. At 1000km it will take a very long time to deorbit. Geostationary sats at 36,000km will basically stay there forever.
For you night owls, it's the Orionids meteor shower tonight.
Quote:
What are the prospects for this year’s Orionid shower? In 2015, the prospects for the Orionids are pretty good. The best time to watch is before dawn, after the moon sets. It’s a bright moon for much of the night at this year’s peak, but the predawn hours – best time to watch anyway – are moon-free. This custom sunrise-sunset/moonrise-moonset calendar can help you find the time of moonset in your location.
^ where do we look?
edit: Just done a google, basically easterly direction from 2300 onwards. Probably best from 0100 - 0300.
Look up...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
Clouds.
:grumpy:
I looked up, at around 2.30 am, saw a few stars but no meteors. Went back to bed.
A small Australian factory-built robotic telescope in the Arizona desert has detected a dense, white dwarf star in the process of ripping several planets to smithereens.
The findings from the zombie star are the first observation of a solar system in its last legs and have been published in the journal Nature.
Harvard University astrophysicist and lead author Andrew Vanderburg said the phenomenon would change everything we know about the universe.
“This is something no human has seen before,” he told The Australian. “We’re watching a solar system get destroyed.”
The white dwarf, known as WD 1145+017, is located about 750 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
When readings obtained from NASA’s Kepler space telescope showed the white dwarf suffered a dip in brightness every four and half hours, astronomers hypothesised an object was orbiting it at a distance of about 840,000 kilometres.
In order to find out more information, they turned to Earth-based telescopes and discovered at least six planet-sized chunks of material orbiting the star at different distances.
As each of these moon-sized planetary relics orbit the white dwarf, they disintegrate and pollute its atmosphere with comet-like tails of heavy elements including silicon, calcium, iron and aluminium.
University of NSW physicist and co-author Rob Wittenmyer said planets being destroyed and dumping material on the white dwarf was the best explanation for the detection of these heavy elements.
“We knew this sort of thing was happening, but capturing it validates our theories,” he said.
“A planet breaking up close to a white dwarf is a pretty rare event. It might last a few tens of thousands of years. In our world that’s a blink of an eye.”
While the occurrence showcases the events leading up to the demise of a solar system, Mr Wittenmyer said it was not something that would happen to ours in the near future.
“We’re talking about five billion years,” he said.
Death of a solar system captured on video for the first time | UNSW telescope
How the fook do they know this?...Especially since they are often wrong about a lot of their previous suppositions...Quote:
Originally Posted by kingwilly
This is a very common supposition. For another example, see: Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists PredictQuote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
^ But isn't the universe fourteen billion years old and still expanding? Doesn't it have to stop expanding and then take the same amount of time to collapse back to a single point?
I reckon we're safe for another fifteen billion years at least.
If I'm wrong you can sue me.
How the universe will end: We could collapse, be ripped apart or decay into nothing - and the process may have startedQuote:
Originally Posted by palexxxx
- Munich group, Kurzgesagt, has created a video of the leading scenarios
- In the 'big crunch', gravity would be most powerful force in the universe
- Rate that universe expands would decrease and it would start to collapse
- In the 'big freeze' scenario, matter would decay as the universe expands
- During the 'big rip' galaxies would tear apart as dark energy warps matter
Many theoretical physicists believe the universe could end someday – and the process is likely to have already begun.
While no one knows for certain how it will happen, there are three leading theories dubbed the big crunch, the big rip and the big freeze, that could lead to our demise.
Now a Munich-based group, called Kurzgesagt, has put together a video explaining how exactly these theories will bring to end the world as we know it.
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The 'big rip' his would start once the pull of the universe's expansion gets stronger than gravity. Galaxies would tear apart, followed by black holes, planets and stars
They claim all humanity will either slowly decay into radiation, completely vanish after collapsing in on itself or be ripped apart as the universe’s expansion speeds up.
In the ‘big rip’ scenario, dark energy could be warping the universe’s scaffolding causing galaxies to tear apart first, followed by smaller black holes, planets and stars.
This, according to Business Insider, would take place once the ever-increasing pull of the universe's expansion gets stronger than the gravity holding galaxies together.
The universe could eventually expand at the speed of light, and when this happens, the forces holding substances together would break down.
As a result, the universe will be empty, holding only single particles that are unconnected to anything else in existence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_aOIA-vyBo
Several years ago, researchers said the universe is expanding at a rate comparable to a rollercoaster, after they mapped the galaxies for the first time as they were 11 billion years ago.
Dr Mat Pier from the University of Portmouth explained that the universe's growth when it was young was slowed by the effects of gravity.
But in the past five billion years it has begun to rapidly expand because of a mysterious force which scientists have called dark energy.
Another potential end to the universe could be through something nicknamed the ‘big crunch’.
This could happen if, instead of expanding, matter in the universe decreases over time, causing gravity to become the dominant force.
Gravity would cause the universe to shrink. The result would be colliding stars, galaxies and planets as the universe collapses in on itself.
And the process could already be taking place somewhere in our cosmos and is eating away at the rest of the universe, according to theoretical physicists.
The mind-bending concept has been around for a while, but last year researchers in Denmark claimed they have proven it is possible with mathematical equations.
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Another potential end to the universe could be through something nicknamed the ‘big crunch’. This could happen if matter in the universe decreases over time, causing gravity to become the dominant force
This violent process is called a ‘phase transition’ and is similar to what happens when, for example, water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its power.
According to something known as the Higgs theory, a phase transition such as this took place one tenth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, causing a shift in the fabric of space-time.
During this transition, empty space became filled with an invisible substance that we now call the Higgs field.
Some elementary particles interact with this field, gaining energy in the process, and this intrinsic energy is known as the mass of a particle.
By using mathematical equations, researchers at the University of Southern Denmark have discovered that the Higgs field could exist in two states, just like matter can exist as a liquid or a solid.
In the second state, the Higgs field is billions of times denser than what scientists have already observed.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2015/10/1272.jpg
In the 'big crunch', gravity would cause the universe to shrink. The result would be colliding stars, galaxies and planets as the universe collapses in on itself
If this ultra-dense Higgs field exists, then a 'bubble' of this state could suddenly appear in a certain place of the universe at any time, similar to when you boil water.
The bubble would then expand at the speed of light, entering all space, and turning the Higgs field from the state it is in now into a new one.
The final scenario – and the most likely to take place according to current physics knowledge - humanity could either see a ‘big freeze’ or ‘heat death’.
In this scenario, matter would slowly decay into radiation as the universe expands.
After trillions of years, even the atoms making up the remaining matter would start to degrade and disintegrate.
Stars would dissolve, black holes would evaporate and eventually even light particles would vanish.
Ultimately, further advances in fundamental physics are required before it will be possible to know the ultimate fate of the universe with any level of certainty.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2015/10/1273.jpg
The final scenario – and the most likely to take place according to current physics knowledge - humanity could either see a ‘big freeze’ or ‘heat death’. In this event, matter would slowly decay into radiation as it expands
source: How the universe will end and the process may have already started | Daily Mail Online
Quote:
Originally Posted by wjblaneyThis is a very common supposition. For another example, see: Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists PredictQuote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
It's not a prediction. It is one of a huge number of possibilities that comes out of one of the more exotic possible models of the universe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wjblaneyThis is a very common supposition. For another example, see: Time Will End in Five Billion Years, Physicists PredictQuote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
I guess we'll just have to wait and see :chitown:Quote:
Originally Posted by wjblaney
In other speculative space news, a possible alien megastructure has been discovered orbiting a distant sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4bqStT2kpI
Oh good. I am not the first one reporting this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo
Here another article about it with a few more details.
Search For Intelligent Aliens Near Bizarre Dimming Star Has Begun
This signal is really weird. It was tried to come up with explanations. Some can be ruled out by the data, like a dust cloud. A dust cloud could cause the dimming but it would send out its own infrared signature which is not present. Planets can also be ruled out. A planet cannot be that big. At that size it would become a sun itself. There is no such sun. Kepler would have detected it. It also cannot be a very large number of Jupiter sized planets because they could not coexist so near to their sun.
It could be a huge, a really really huge number of comets. But comets could exist that near to a sun only for a very short time before they dissipate. So something would have happened to get them there right while we are looking that direction.
Explanations are that elusive that serious scientists actually consider the possibility it could be an artificial structure built by a super civilization. But really it is still much more likely it is something else. If it is comets they should mostly disappear within years or decades so we would see that. Not with Kepler, it does not live long enough. But this is interesting enough to build something similar in a few decades to repeat the observation. The article I linked mentions that a large array of radiotelescopes is now trained on that star just for the faint chance radio signals from a super civilization can be found. It is very unlikely IMO even if there would be a super civilization that they use that kind of detectable radio signals.
Interesting stuff...Really no end to it...And only limited by the imagination...
And technology, goddammit. Imagination is an everyday thing. Having the fucking technology to closely observe or visit even close extra-solar planets is beyond are limited lifetimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
Unless we start concentrating out technology efforts more heavily on extending human lifetimes...
Wormholes mate. The answer is wormholes.Quote:
Originally Posted by wjblaney
Imagine we send a ship out there to investigate and it doesn't come back, then we send another ship to find it and it plays out like the script from Event Horizon...
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wha.... :eek5: we don't need eyeballs where we're going..!? :aargh4:
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Behold VFTS 352, the hottest and most massive “overcontact binary” star system ever discovered. The two stars, which are so close that they’re touching, feature a combined mass 57 times that of our Sun. Astronomers say it’s a unique stellar relationship that will culminate in a rather dramatic finish.
Most Earth-Like Worlds Haven't Been Born Yet
By Maddie Stone on 22 Oct 2015 at 6:45PM
With NASA’s Kepler mission still turning up cosmic wonders, and a slew of exoplanet-hunting scopes on deck, the chance of finding a second Earth has never seemed higher. And yet, time may be against us when it comes to meeting our squishy galactic brethren: according to a new theoretical study, 92 per cent of Earth-like worlds haven’t been born yet.
Using data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Kepler mission, a team of astronomers at NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute has, for the first time, estimated when Earth-like worlds (small, rocky planets in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold habitable zone of their star) are likely to appear on the scene throughout the lifespan of the Universe.
Apparently, this Blue Marble is early to the party.
When our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago, only eight per cent of Earth-like planets existed. When our Sun winks out a couple eons down the road, many future Earths will have yet to coalesce.
How did the astronomers arrive at these conclusions? Basically, by staring off into really faraway space. Looking at distant galaxies is like peering back in time, and by collecting snapshots of the early Universe, we can reconstruct all sorts of interesting things, including rates of star formation.
Turns out, while galaxies were churning out stars very rapidly in the aftermath of the Big Bang, this early burst of productivity only used up a small fraction of the Universe’s hydrogen and helium, the elements needed to create more complex forms of matter. The cosmic fuel tank is still nearly full, so to speak. That means new stars — and new rocky plants — will continue to form far into the future. In fact, the researchers estimate that most of the remaining 92% of planets will emerge between 100 billion years and 1 trillion years from now. We are the cosmic forerunner.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we should all stick ourselves in a cryobank and time travel to a less lonely future. Thanks to the Kepler mission, astronomers now estimate that today, there are a billion Earth-like worlds in our galaxy alone. If we’re lucky, one of them contains some slimy alien microbes, or at least an atmosphere we can terraform. Who knows, maybe there’s even a giant alien megastructure or two somewhere winking at us from across the light years.
Still, I can’t help but image that billions of years from now, archaeologists will convene to discuss the strange fragments of space junk found in the vicinity of the Sol system, and wonder who those ancient people were.
[Read a pre-print of the scientific paper at arXiv h/t NASA]
'Space News Thread' Blaney boy.
Please keep it for that.
May I suggest that you start a thread titled 'Space stuff, such as photoshopped pics and educational videos for high-schoolers'.
Then any Space News you come across can be posted in here.
Thanks for understanding.
I'm gonna frame that saying and hang it next to my first Yankee Dollar...Quote:
Originally Posted by wjblaney
...But a real good imagination would copy that dollar...
My point exactly...Technology comes second, "goddammit"...
No, no, no. Without Xerox I'd never have imagined copying that dollar.
So start a new thread and I'll hand you your ass there...
I'm threadbare.
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By Ria Misra on 24 Oct 2015 at 10:00PM
This is the most complete photo of the Milky Way ever taken. How big is this photo?
So big that just by taking it, astronomers found over 50,000 new stars and other bright space objects. Read More >>