D.A.F.C Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Worth mentioning homosapiens only appeared 200,000 years ago. If we sat at one side of Andromeda, and the first ever homosapien lit a fire at the other side, we'd only be seeing it now.Total mindfuck 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priti priti priti Patel Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 16 hours ago, NewBornBairn said: This is what Andromeda would look like in the night sky if it were brighter Cracking photo. Can they see the Milky Way from Andromeda or are we also too dim? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 5 minutes ago, Margaret Thatcher said: Cracking photo. Can they see the Milky Way from Andromeda or are we also too dim? Milky Way's about half the size so probably so, though we're moving towards each other at 200 km/s so we should be able to wave hullo in 2 or 3 billion years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthernLights Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 My wife went to New York for the weekend and returned with an early Valentine's Day gift for me... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbornbairn Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 On 10/02/2020 at 20:47, keptie said: 2.5 million light years from Earth. Will humans ever visit our nearest neighbouring Galaxy, it would be amazing to be there and indeed anywhere in outer space if we could we just find a way of travelling insane distances in a reasonable time for us humans. Space is awesome. I think we should just accept that the distances between stars are just so vast that we will never see humans going there - or aliens coming here. There are no FTL drives, in fact achieving only a few percent of light speed is probably it. Let's say 50% of light speed is achievable. Within 50 light years of earth, there are 133 stars. It's possible that some of those stars have habitable planets and maybe even life at a bacterial level, but unlikely we're going to find advanced civilisations all zipping about in silver suits with jet packs so what's the point of going there? Five generations and somebody comes back to say "Hi, I'm the great, great grandson of the guy who left here and look - we found a new measles bug!" Within 100 light years, there's about 800 stars. Maybe some of these will have life - three-legged kangaroos and tiny purple cows, but again no silver suits. Within 1000 light years though and there's 3 million stars. Now we're talking. Got to be somebody home there surely? But if we see somewhere likely and send off an intrepid team to investigate, it's going to be 4000 years until they get back. What's the point? Even communicating with aliens over that distance has its problems. What's the point of saying "Hello" if it's 2000 years before we get a reply saying "Pardon? Speak up there's a loud pulsar party going on". Travelling to the stars is sci fi, interesting but just fantasy. What we should be doing is looking to live within our means and look at exploring Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. That's do-able and has a point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keptie Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 23 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said: I think we should just accept that the distances between stars are just so vast that we will never see humans going there - or aliens coming here. There are no FTL drives, in fact achieving only a few percent of light speed is probably it. Let's say 50% of light speed is achievable. Within 50 light years of earth, there are 133 stars. It's possible that some of those stars have habitable planets and maybe even life at a bacterial level, but unlikely we're going to find advanced civilisations all zipping about in silver suits with jet packs so what's the point of going there? Five generations and somebody comes back to say "Hi, I'm the great, great grandson of the guy who left here and look - we found a new measles bug!" Within 100 light years, there's about 800 stars. Maybe some of these will have life - three-legged kangaroos and tiny purple cows, but again no silver suits. Within 1000 light years though and there's 3 million stars. Now we're talking. Got to be somebody home there surely? But if we see somewhere likely and send off an intrepid team to investigate, it's going to be 4000 years until they get back. What's the point? Even communicating with aliens over that distance has its problems. What's the point of saying "Hello" if it's 2000 years before we get a reply saying "Pardon? Speak up there's a loud pulsar party going on". Travelling to the stars is sci fi, interesting but just fantasy. What we should be doing is looking to live within our means and look at exploring Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. That's do-able and has a point. Who knows what the future holds, if you said to a human 100 years ago that we would have landed on the moon and were on our way to Mars within the next 100 or so years they would have said that was a fantasy. We know only a tiny amount about what's in the universe and a humungous amount of stuff we don't understand or know about,so there would be loads to learn about if we got out there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 (edited) Any civilisation seriously interested in finding intelligent life in the universe will have sent billions of self replicating robots out in all directions, programmed to mine asteroids and planets to convert to more of their kind and continue searching. We just have to hope that we match the minimum intelligence level set by their long extinct creators when they arrive, and are not merely harvested. Edited February 12, 2020 by welshbairn 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Ferrino Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 54 minutes ago, welshbairn said: Any civilisation seriously interested in finding intelligent life in the universe will have sent billions of self replicating robots out in all directions, programmed to mine asteroids and planets to convert to more of their kind and continue searching. We just have to hope that we match the minimum intelligence level set by their long extinct creators when they arrive, and are not merely harvested. So fucking the earth up might be our best defence? These brief glimpses we see might just be them thinking “f**k that”. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thane of Cawdor Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 2 hours ago, MixuFixit said: In the past, humans have been happy to build things they would never see finished in their lifetimes. I was reading about Silbury Hill today, built 4000 years ago, probably took 100 years to do it. Many medieval cathedrals took longer to finish. It's not fashionable now, but it's within our ken to do this. I can see space travel going this way. Long after I'm worm food though. Still dicking about with the Sagrada Familia. Orwell thought the anarchists should have blown it up. Must say I agree. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbornbairn Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 11 hours ago, welshbairn said: Any civilisation seriously interested in finding intelligent life in the universe will have sent billions of self replicating robots out in all directions, programmed to mine asteroids and planets to convert to more of their kind and continue searching. We just have to hope that we match the minimum intelligence level set by their long extinct creators when they arrive, and are not merely harvested. Hope they're not Ruums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 SpaceX Dragon 2 manned mission to the ISS is all but go. They are working out the exact details with the astronauts now in training for a potentially longer mission. They have a pencilled in date of 7 May but its moveable depending on stations needs. Boeing are in a bit more bother. After their timer problems on the test flight their engineering teams ran emergency simulations and realised it may have collided with its own service module after jettisoning for re-entry. https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-2nd-software-glitch-potential-collision.html Boeing are trying to sell this as how awesome their team are to spot something in flight. How about .... try catch these software exceptions before launch. Testing. NASA's latest budget proposal has it ditching more science missions to keep the James Webb Telescope going. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-r-cfc Posted February 24, 2020 Share Posted February 24, 2020 This seems like the most appropriate place for this.Katherine Johnson, former NASA mathematician, died today at the age of 101. Only really became known for her massive contribution to space travel after the release of the 'Hidden Figures' book and film, which is a favourite of mine for showing to my S3 classes during their civil rights topic.Quite a woman and quite a life. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Rocket launch seen from ISS. https://gfycat.com/fakeheartygermanshepherd-launch-rocket-space-iss 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 On 10/08/2019 at 09:14, dorlomin said: Cubsat launchers RocketLabs now plan to catch their first stage by helicopter. Trying out the technique. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbornbairn Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 Want to know what that satellite you can see is? https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herman Hessian Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 On 13/02/2020 at 09:05, NewBornBairn said: Hope they're not Ruums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum Quote Irwin attempts to evade and destroy the Ruum. First he hides above his trail and drops a boulder on it, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 On 12/02/2020 at 17:52, NorthernLights said: My wife went to New York for the weekend and returned with an early Valentine's Day gift for me... Is this built yet? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 (edited) Here's something to take your mind off Covid19 during lockdown, follow Apollo 13 in real time, including 7200 hours of audio. https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/ Edited April 11, 2020 by welshbairn 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 Sky at Night back on, 9.30 BBC4. About that spaceship they're worried might get a bit toasty when it gets 4 million miles from the Sun. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Just finished the penultimate episode of the Apollo 13 story on BBC World Service, well worth a listen if you're into this stuff, brilliantly done. Available as a podcast as 13 Minutes to the Moon. I just listened to it on iplayer/bbc sounds. Some good videos too, and another series on Apollo 11 I'll start on soon. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p083wp70 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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