For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky.

I'm fortunate enough to know (personally) a current astronaut and he said from ISS, you couldn't see constellations - simply because there were SO MANY stars that you normally couldn't see from Earth, they made it difficult / impossible to see the patterns.

He also said that before launch, he joked to a his crew mate (also on his first launch) - "What if space is no better than all the great photos in the books? That would be such a disappointment". Once they got up into orbit, they both laughed / yelled / screamed / cried in joy at the sight, as it was so much better than they could have ever imagined. There is no comparison between the photos and seeing it with your own eyes, he said.

The same is evident with the Apollo 8 crew (the first humans to see the entire Earth with their own eyes). While they boosted away after the TLI burn, their communications with Houston became interrupted, as they were simply speeechless at the sight before their eyes, as the Earth grew smaller and smaller.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:

This is the new slogan for United Airlines!


Those Hubble pictures are always amazing and very thought provoking. That many galaxies with that many planets, the math says there has to be other life out there. But who says it has to be carbon based, oxygen consuming bi-pedal life like we define it?

Just look at the variety of life here.

quote:

Originally posted by rebut10:
Jimbo,
What really blows me away about this image (which is cropped at the top and bottom BTW) is, according to NASA's caption on their web site, that its perspective is as if you held a nickel at arms length looking at the thin edge out toward space. That is how small a slice of the universe it represents...mind boggling...

And what always gets me is the eggheads who think they have the answer(s) to how all of this came into existence. Give me a break! They need to just enjoy the pics and accept there is little if anything on this scale we can grasp.

Humanity's fastest ever spacecraft - NASA's New Horizon took just over nine years to reach the orbit of Pluto, travelling at 60,000 kph.

A that rate, it would take 78,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Watch -

https://www.universetoday.com/...to-the-nearest-star/

tac

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
I'm sure there are "those" out there that laugh at us!

They would first have to know that we exist. Our humble solar system is far from any other intelligent life that certainly exists.

Interesting philosophical problems:
1. The universe is expanding at such a rate that if we have not contacted any other life yet, the possibility of contacting them in the future is becoming less, not greater.
2. Statistically, it seems like their SHOULD be some life and civilizations that are far more advanced than we are. So they should have been showering the universe with radio communications attempts for a long time. Yet we can detect none.
So all statistics and "common sense" all say that we should not be alone, the scientific evidence is that we really are a lot more alone than we thought possible, and the probability of finding anyone else is dwindling rapidly.

"But we haven't found any life yet!?!?!"

Realistically, we have been looking (sort of), for at most a hundred years, out of the 4.5 billion years of the existence of earth. But realistically its a good deal short amount of time, maybe 50 or 60 years.

Much like humans used to think the Earth was flat, then that the world was the center of everything, then it was the center of the solar system, then it was the center of nothing... our understanding of things will continue to expand in ways we can't yet imagine...

Even 40 years ago there was no proof that there were any other planets in the universe... then we found one in 1992... now there are over 3600 confirmed exoplanets in over 2700 systems...

We have no idea what we don't know, or maybe we (earth) are just a play toy, in a sort of snow globe that some 'entity' plays with for it's amusement?

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:We have no idea what we don't know, or maybe we (earth) are just a play toy, in a sort of snow globe that some 'entity' plays with for it's amusement?

I'm OK with that. Pondering the question is half the fun. I have no doubt we will get closer to the answer as time goes on, but it may be like being 5 steps into a walk across the country instead of 2. Are you really THAT much closer?

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:We have no idea what we don't know, or maybe we (earth) are just a play toy, in a sort of snow globe that some 'entity' plays with for it's amusement?

I'm OK with that. Pondering the question is half the fun. I have no doubt we will get closer to the answer as time goes on, but it may be like being 5 steps into a walk across the country instead of 2. Are you really THAT much closer?

Yes, pondering it all is the fun. Am I that much closer? IDK, but I am personally convinced, due to the millisecond of time that we have been 'looking' (in relation to the age of what we know as the universe), that the current lack of evidence of other intelligent life is not significant - especially considering the distances involved. That doesn't even begin to touch things like dark matter and other topics.

My point is 100 years ago we were barely flying. 40 years ago people didn't think there were other planets outside our solar system. 5 years ago we didn't know that there were many of those planets in 'habitable zones', even ones (relatively) close to our own solar system. Until recently we didn't think there was liquid water in abundance outside of Earth. Not it's very likely that moons of Jupiter AND Saturn have more liquid water than is here on Earth.

With the tools we have and continue to develop, our knowledge base continues to expand further and at a much faster rate. The Webb space telescope will be one of those tools when they finally loft it into space in the next year or two.

Throughout history, religion has resisted scientific understanding and acceptance - I don't think that will change anytime soon either.

^^^^^

Absolutely! Although, I think as our knowledge expands, the list of questions will grow even faster. That doesn't mean that gaining understanding of what we can is in any way a negative. It's not.

I'm ignorant on the subject, but I don't know if it's only a matter of us looking, but rather them looking at us. And how do we know that we'd know they're looking at us? "They" could be in such a different form that we might have no idea. Maybe the've been here already. Maybe they are here?

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:"They" could be in such a different form that we might have no idea.

Exactly. I think Carl Sagan talked about that in the original Cosmos series. When we think of "aliens" (space, not the South of the border type), even the Sci-Fi-fi representations are quite similar to humans or humans blended with other Earthly creatures. Most likely, they would look like nothing we imagine as a living being. On the subject of detection, we are also assuming they would use electromagnetic radiation within the band we are aware of as a means of communication. It's all we've got to go on, but might be way off the mark.

quote:

Originally posted by Muddflap:
Makes you feel a little insignificant.

?

I don't see spacecraft built on the ice rings, coming by Earth to beam photos back there....

I can see the global warming from here.

All the 'reliance' on good old-fashioned radio and TV transmissions over the last sixty year as beacons to attract attention is coming to naught. In the old days we used long wave radio and pumped it out all over the globe [well, mostly - you can ignore most of the Arab nations, Antarctica and much of Africa], without really thinking about the consequences of the 'Yoohoo here we are!!' aspect of it all.

However, there is a finite limit to all this stuff escaping into space, and right now, that is about 60 light years or so. Folks, there but ONE 'earth-like planet within sixty light years of our solar system - see later comment.

And now with our ever-increasing reliance om microwave transmission, the chances of escaping EMR are getting less and less with every passing day; simply the physical restraints of microwave energy are working agin us. The more of it we use for comms, the less likely it is that we'll ever be heard.

Returning to the old-fashioned stuff, we are stuck with the inverse square law of electromagnetic propagation. Sure, we can DETECT events in space using our radio telescopes and such, but let's compare the amount of EM energy with that of a detectable cosmic event.

Well, let's not, actually.

It's seriously nowhere in cosmic terms. Just how big must an event have been for us to detect its radio burst at a distance of, let's say, 10 Million light years?

Are you familiar with the term unimaginable?

If so, please apply it.

My take is simplistic in the extreme.

They have all been and gone - or - they have not yet been. With the cosmos being what it is, even if we SEE them futzting around their planet with some unimaginable telescope of a kind that has yet to be invented, they are likely to be long-gone history. The nearest earth-like planet, albeit four times the size of Earth, like Earth is the third planet from the star in the Gliese 581 system. It's 'relatively close' to Earth, at 20.37 light-years (192 trillion km or 119 trillion miles).

Remember, please that as I write this, our technology can take us to the nearest star outside the solar system in a little over 70,000 years...

Food for thought, folks.

Alien visitors?

Don't wait up.

tac

Basically it comes down to either 1. We haven't detected any other advanced civilization because there aren't any out there or 2. We haven't had any contact for some other reason.

The Fermi Paradox:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Just the thought of all this gives me a headache!!

quote:

Originally posted by Warhorse:
Just the thought of all this gives me a headache!!

A great book is "The Unknown Universe" by Stuart Clark. It goes into great detail but keeps it understandable to the layman.

Even so, I read 5-15 pages and they you have to put it down to think about what you read and ensure you actually understand it. From the solar systems formation, the mechanics of the Sun (and how long it has taken the energy we feel today to escape the gravity at its core), it goes on and on.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Basically it comes down to either 1. We haven't detected any other advanced civilization because there aren't any out there or 2. We haven't had any contact for some other reason.

The Fermi Paradox:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

That's a long but very interesting read! Thanks for posting, Bama.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
I'm OK with that. Pondering the question is half the fun. I have no doubt we will get closer to the answer as time goes on, but it may be like being 5 steps into a walk across the country instead of 2. Are you really THAT much closer?

'Or', maybe think about it this way. At the rate that species become extinct on this rock, we'll (humans) likely be long gone before we even reach an answer to the most basic of cosmic questions. After all, our concept of time doesn't really match up very well with that of the universe as a whole.

As for me, I simply prefer to marvel in the order and design of our own little world, and try my best to enjoy each and every day I'm blessed to be here.