• Space
    65 replies, posted
While it is amazing, The Pale Blue Dot has already been posted.
Whoops, didn't notice. [editline]09:50AM[/editline] For those interested, APOD is awesome. It gives you a different image of the universe every day and some information about said picture. [URL="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/"]The site itself[/URL] [URL="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html"]Archive of past pictures[/URL]
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Comparing the sizes of smaller objects (like a human) to larger ones (like Everest) and then so on and so forth to gain some 'perspective' doesn't really give you an understanding of the true, mind-boggling size and scale of things such as planets, stars, or the entire damn universe. You ('you' being anyone and EVERYONE) can quote me the numbers all you want, and I know them off the top of my head myself, but... don't tell me for a second that that means that you TRULY understand how vast the solar system is, let alone the galaxy or the universe. It's almost completely (if not completely) beyond the scope of human understanding. It's just much too vast. You don't gain that understanding just by KNOWING the numbers. You really have to think about it for a LONG, LONG time, just trying to picture it all to even gain the faintest bit of true understanding of it all. I remember fairly recently I was just sitting here thinking about stuff. The Earth. The moon. Our entire solar system. And even though I KNOW the Earth is huge, even though I know the size of it, the volume of it, how fast it spins, how fast it orbits the sun. The time it takes for light to reach us from the sun, and the total area encompassed by it's orbit... something about the Earth hit me in a way it hadn't done before: it's 6000 (actually more like 6400) kilometres from the surface of the Earth to the centre of it... 6000 KILOMETRES. To us, to people, that's an IMMENSE distance (if you disagree try walking that far!). But then, in the scope of things, that's a TINY distance. Watch videos of things like rockets taking off (with the cameras on the bottom) or a weather balloon or something ascending up into the upper atmosphere if you want to get a REAL sense of scale. Watch as everything you know and can see shrinks away into nothingness, all of the details disappear and it all just merges into the surrounding environment before even THAT itself finally recedes into a single point amongst the vast expanse of land and water below.
Space is really big.
Well worth the investment. [img]http://www.buzzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/the_universe_collectors_20090223.jpg[/img]
The space is in your mind man like totally. [IMG]http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/neuron-galaxy.jpg[/IMG]
yes, were all so small.
[QUOTE=Hunterbrute;23228817]The space is in your mind man like totally. [IMG]http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/neuron-galaxy.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] it makes you think, doesn't it [editline]10:47AM[/editline] i love space
[QUOTE=slinkman;23228652]Well worth the investment. [IMG]http://www.buzzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/the_universe_collectors_20090223.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] I love that series
Here's a comparison picture of VY Canis Majoris and the Sun. [IMG]http://imperialearth.com/img/vy-canis-majoris-crop680.jpg[/IMG] Space has always fascinated me, and I always wonder if there is an intelligent (or more-so) lifeform like us.
I'll give you a mindfuck. This my friends, is the largest known star in existence; Vy Canis Majoris: [img]http://asymptote.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/sunvycomp.jpg[/img] ( That Yellow speck is OUR sun ) [editline]04:19PM[/editline] :ninja: Sorry AmericanInfantry, but uh... [I]Mines Bigger than yours[/I] :smug:
Oh my god! That star's diameter must be atleast a light year!
[img]http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Hubble/HubbleBeauty/HourglassNebulaEyeOfHeaven.jpg[/img] How the fuck does that happen? (the eye)
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]At between 1800 and 2100 [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radii"]solar radii[/URL] (approx 2,500,000,000 to 2,900,000,000 km across or 1,550,000,000 to 1,800,000,000 miles), it is [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_known_stars"]the largest known star[/URL] and also [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_luminous_stars"]one of the most luminous[/URL] known.[/QUOTE] The diameter of VY CMa is 3,100,000,000 miles to 3,600,000,000 miles (5,000,000,000 km to 5,800,000,000 km) across. A lightyear is equal to 10 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) km across. The average of the two numbers is 5,400,000,000 km. Take that ratio and you get 0.0054. So VY CMa is 54 thousandths of a light-year, meaning, if I remember fourth grade math, that you need 54,000,000 VY CMa's in order to get one light-year.
What is the meaning of all this! It makes my mind go crazy, what is the meaning of life!!
Looking at distant stars is like... Peering through a time machine. It's really humbling.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9tDO3HK20Q[/media]
[QUOTE=Michaeldf;23230168]What is the meaning of all this! It makes my mind go crazy, what is the meaning of life!![/QUOTE] Spread your seed, that is your purpose.
I'm too busy comparing your huge images to the size of my monitor
[QUOTE=Adius Shadow;23224887]Space is simply an illusion, what we see when we look at the night sky is simply an image of the past. It's really quite mind boggling.[/QUOTE] Everything is. When you watch a baseball game and you're at the ballpark, when someone hits the ball, you only see it after they do it, because the light needs to reach you. Of course it's near instantly, but it's not technically instant. Mindfucking stuff.
[QUOTE=Nyaos;23230529]Everything is. When you watch a baseball game and you're at the ballpark, when someone hits the ball, you only see it after they do it, because the light needs to reach you. Of course it's near instantly, but it's not technically instant. Mindfucking stuff.[/QUOTE] it's like worms armageddon online. you only notice the fail after they scream in the mic
OP said something which was fairly close to my own views in a nutshell, albeit a coconut shell. :v: My differences: A: We don't want to wreck this world. It's likely the only world which will ever be natively friendly to human life. And we'll need the vast number of biological innovations that are slewing around just waiting to be found in the natural world to build terraforming organisms, not mentioning the pontential value of such to industry as a whole. B: We need people in space. Why? As long as we are confined to one world, we are vulnerable to anything that bodgers things up down here. Asteroids or our own stupidity, it doesn't matter. We need self-supporting enclaves off planet and preferably out of system. C: Add religion to distractions. And threats. This thread reminds me of a forum which I frequented in my youth. Combination Hard SF-Furry forum (don't ask. It's complicated). We had discussions like this all the time, though more about the strategy and equipment of such an expansion toward the stars. I contributed a fair bit. I remember one thread where I basically figured out how you'd build a mechanical counter-pressure suit* for a furry (or anything else that doesn't sweat**):science: Good times. Only left when the comic it was built around started going down-hill (and when I figured out that most of the userbase was butthurt theist libertardians:argh:) That open source areospace project reminded me of those years. I'm a bit rusty at this though. I've always been more good with spacesuits and crew accomodations than propulsion. *[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit[/url] [url]http://www.marssociety.org.au/marsskin.php[/url] **A network of beading pipes to replace sweat glands for cooling, if you must know.
[url]http://sparkwire.thanez.net/SOTU/[/url] sup.
I think we need to stablize population and solve the magnitude of problems we have down here first before doing anything. No point going somewhere else when we can't even control our own planet.
[QUOTE=Ace of Snails;23225187]Who knows we might start a war with them because they are different or have differing opinions (sounds dumb but look at modern wars between countries)[/QUOTE] what the hell? it doesn't sound dumb at all, look at every other war in the past.
[QUOTE=goon165;23225477]<Big stars>[/QUOTE] VY Canis Majoris [editline]05:14PM[/editline] [QUOTE=AmericanInfantry;23229867]The diameter of VY CMa is 3,100,000,000 miles to 3,600,000,000 miles (5,000,000,000 km to 5,800,000,000 km) across. A lightyear is equal to 10 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) km across. The average of the two numbers is 5,400,000,000 km. Take that ratio and you get 0.0054. So VY CMa is 54 thousandths of a light-year, meaning, if I remember fourth grade math, that you need 54,000,000 VY CMa's in order to get one light-year.[/QUOTE] Fuck. Light is really, fucking, fast.
[QUOTE=Dolton;23231692]Fuck. Light is really, fucking, fast.[/QUOTE] Hahaha, no bro, I meant size. Kilometers and miles equate to size in this matter, not speed.
Wow. Here's a shining example of how stupid our space program is. The only probe ever sent to Neptune was the Voyager 2...which gathered data in [i]1986[/i]. Even worse, it was just a flyby, not even an orbital probe.
[url]http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347[/url] The Scale of the Universe
[QUOTE=Ace of Snails;23236676]Wow. Here's a shining example of how stupid our space program is. The only probe ever sent to Neptune was the Voyager 2.[/QUOTE] um ok but there's a badass one orbiting saturn [img]http://www.scibuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/saturn_cas.jpg[/img] [editline]05:46PM[/editline] [url]http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/~astrolab/mirrors/apod_e/image/0901/newrings_cassini_big.jpg[/url] here's a bigger version of that image if you want it ^^^
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