"My God, its full of stars!"

reply to post by MischeviousElf


ME, I LOVED that video, even it all defined for us, its STILL mind blowing, all these galaxies in our universe..
We are NOT alone by ANY MEANS

Why is it we can see billions of light years away but we can't get a close up of the surface of the planets in our own universe?

I never understood that.

Originally posted by Tsurugi

Originally posted by Foxy1

My question is, if every galaxy contains a black hole(the reason heavenly bodies cluster together) and its sucking in the galaxy slowly over billions of years, is this evidence that no physical life form is immortal?
What if some alien race discovered immortality? Would he just have to hop from galaxy to galaxy to stay alive? or can there be life outside of a galaxy?
I guess my question is where is the best real estate for an immortal lol

Excellent question! There is an awesome short story written by Issac Asimov in 1956, called The Last Question, where the question you just asked is the center of the story's progression. The story isn't very long and it is definitely worth reading to anyone who enjoys speculation into the nature of everything.

Link to web version of "The Last Question"

If you read it, I wanna know what you think!

edit on 1/24/2012 by Tsurugi because: Forgot some stuff.

This sounds like my kind thing, and I'm gonna read it.

Thanks!!!

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Homerinnc,

omg.....I am at a true loss for words.

And I shouldn't be; as much as I watch 'The Universe', and all the Stephen Hawking documentarys on space...

as much as I read about the vastness of space in my spare time...

The Contact intro (I had never watched it before now) has me MIND-BLOWN

thank you SO much for posting!!

BTW, I had seen the other video; in fact, it is the one that got me fascinated and grew my love for the cosmos!!!

Originally posted by GodIsPissed
Why is it we can see billions of light years away but we can't get a close up of the surface of the planets in our own universe?

I never understood that.

Without getting into the physics it's basically this: To get a close up of the planets you would need immense magnification which would only be possible with telescope mirrors so large that they would be impossible to build and operate... In excess of 200 meters diameter just for a close up of the moon!

To view galaxies billions of light years away, magnification isn't such a big deal - it's all about light gathering, so Hubble's 5 meter mirror outside the Earth's atmosphere is very much up to the job.

Originally posted by consciousgod
About the story. Seems to me, the computer would have figured out the "let their be light" much sooner.

Perhaps it did...but it decided to take the "actions speak louder than words" route...and for that, it needed more data.

Originally posted by Foxy1
Cool read im surprised it was published back in 1956. Interesting How the technology in the story survived and became the principle of creation.

Yeah...but note that it was unable to do so before all of Man had joined it. Not enough data.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
This sounds like my kind thing, and I'm gonna read it.

Thanks!!!

I hope you enjoy it!

Originally posted by MentalData
I suggest paying a little closer attention to things that matter, like say, nov. elections

*EPIC Fail*

Dude, you haven't got a clue as to how the world actually works, do you?
Who gives a # about elections? It's all rigged and corrupt.

What really matters is to reach for the stars. Where do we come from? Are we alone? What's the meaning of life? (and no, it's not 42;-)

Why?
Because that is what actually matters, not petty elections/money/wars/religion *insert other useless human squabbles here*

You guys don't mind if I join in on this conversation, do you? I hope not, because this is my favorite thing to talk about--cosmology and astrophysics--I'm a total space geek. You all are having an awesome conversation about space, and there's no way I can just go along on my merry way without first coming over here to butt in and say a whole bunch of stuff that I think is brilliant and interesting but really is random and rambling and most likely gets on everyone's nerves but I never notice because space is my favorite subject, did I mention that?

Well, now that everyone got quiet and is staring over in this direction, I'll just slide out of the way so you can see this first pic:



The Eagle Nebula--M16/NGC 6611, Serpens

Probably most of you are familiar with the Eagle nebula...it is one of the more spectacular structures in the area close by (the Eagle is about 6,500 light years away--practically next door). The plume of gas above is about sixty million miles long, nicknamed the Spire.



This is the image that most people associate with the Eagle nebula...a gas plume formation known as the Pillars of Creation. The entire nebula is an active star formation region...new stars are exploding into light all through these three plumes in particular, the longest of which is seven light years. Note the glow emanating from the tips of the Pillars: those are newly born stars generating that light. Eventually they--and all the other proto-stars being formed in there--will boil away all the gases of the nebulae.
In fact, what we see may be long gone in reality; there is evidence that the nebula, along with its pillars and spires, was completely destroyed by a nearby supernova about 6,000 years ago. Sad.

However, all things come to an end, time is the enemy of us all, and if the nebula was destroyed by a supernova 6,000 years ago, the light from that destructive change won't reach us for another thousand years, which is a long time, and by which time we'll long be dust in the winds, so lets stop wasting time.

Even so, I have to note that the universe seems to be filled with violence. Stuff always seems to be exploding or imploding or burning or freezing or something. It's dangerous out there, there ought to be a law.
But there's not, so in the meantime, let's watch!



Crab Nebula--"Taurus A" M1/NGC 1952, Taurus

Another familiar face to us space nerds. The Crab nebula is of a type known as planetary nebula, which means this is the remnants of a star that went supernova. In fact, one of the more interesting bits of trivia about the Crab nebula is that there are surviving records from Indian, Chinese, and Japanese astronomers who witnessed the actual nova event in 1051AD. Apparently, for a time the exploding star was bright enough to be visible during the day.
The blue-ish sort of ghostly glow you can see emanating from within the structure of gases is coming from a neutron star spinning thirty times a second while spitting bursts of powerful EM radiation; otherwise known as a pulsar.


"Ok, great," you say. "All that talk about grandiose explosions of titanic energy, and all you can show us is the old puff of gas left over from one puny little supernova that couldn't even manage to become a black hole? I thought we were gonna see something interesting."

All right, fine...one star exploding and wiping out a bunch of planets and asteroids and the entire Cc'Xrlivan race not enough for you, I see. Let's focus our gaze a little farther from home, then, and feast our eyes upon this...



Arp 147--Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, Cetus

Yes, that's right, it is exactly what it appears to be; a head-on collision of galactic proportions. Look quickly, the InterSpace Cops will show up any minute now and I don't want to get, uh, you know, stuck here forever filling out witness reports.

Anyway, there's another one right around the corner here where they can't see me, take a look...



Arp 148--Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, "Mayall's Object," Ursa Major

Looks like this one's still happening. What's amazing about this whole phenomenon is that all of the 'damage' that is obviously occurring during the 'collisions' is a result of gravity pulling stuff around, rather than actual impacts.. It's possible that a few stars may smash into each other, but not likely.

Ah, crap...I have more to show you but I hear my character count calling. Gotta go for now!

reply to post by Tsurugi


OUTSTANDING post and AWESOME pictures man, I loved staring into those pictures....

Stars are light years apart. Galaxies are hundreds of light years if not thousands of light years across.

So, how can these two photos of two galaxies colliding be real? In order for these photos to be taken in the past 20 years, these galaxies would have to travel faster than the speed of light because they have obviously traveled hundreds if not thousands of light years between photos.

Please explain.

Anyone else gets pissed off that we can't understand, see, find out about these things in our lifetime?

It makes me so frustrated like.. why can't i just know, i don't want anything. i just want to know more about it!!

ill trade my soul!! ill be a human experiment into outer space, even if im going to die within 5 sec of landing on a distant star.

/sigggggghhh!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by consciousgod
Stars are light years apart. Galaxies are hundreds of light years if not thousands of light years across.

So, how can these two photos of two galaxies colliding be real? In order for these photos to be taken in the past 20 years, these galaxies would have to travel faster than the speed of light because they have obviously traveled hundreds if not thousands of light years between photos.

Please explain.

Because it is an artist's rendition.

Originally posted by ButterCookie

Originally posted by consciousgod
Stars are light years apart. Galaxies are hundreds of light years if not thousands of light years across.

So, how can these two photos of two galaxies colliding be real? In order for these photos to be taken in the past 20 years, these galaxies would have to travel faster than the speed of light because they have obviously traveled hundreds if not thousands of light years between photos.

Please explain.

Because it is an artist's rendition.

Then it is not real and does not exist. So why be amazed or in awe?

Originally posted by consciousgod

Originally posted by ButterCookie

Originally posted by consciousgod
Stars are light years apart. Galaxies are hundreds of light years if not thousands of light years across.

So, how can these two photos of two galaxies colliding be real? In order for these photos to be taken in the past 20 years, these galaxies would have to travel faster than the speed of light because they have obviously traveled hundreds if not thousands of light years between photos.

Please explain.

Because it is an artist's rendition.

Then it is not real and does not exist. So why be amazed or in awe?

Wrong, those are Hubble images of 4 different galaxies, 2 different collisions. Links were provided, the first one is about 400 million lys away, the second one is about 500 million lys away.

great post, thank you

S&F!

Originally posted by ButterCookie

Originally posted by randomname
you can't look at these pictures and not believe in God.

Actually, its quite the opposite.

How can a person think that the same thing that created all the stars, galaxies, etc. be the same person that cannot heal the sick, stop wars, and defeat the 'devil'?

edit on 22-1-2012 by ButterCookie because: (no reason given)

Your part of god, god is conciousness. Conciousness creates everything. So the universe you see is crystalized thought. And it has free will to do as it pleases, but gets it's karma accordingly.

reply to post by Illustronic


an arms reach for the Q.

Originally posted by ButterCookie

Originally posted by consciousgod
Stars are light years apart. Galaxies are hundreds of light years if not thousands of light years across.

So, how can these two photos of two galaxies colliding be real? In order for these photos to be taken in the past 20 years, these galaxies would have to travel faster than the speed of light because they have obviously traveled hundreds if not thousands of light years between photos.

Please explain.

Because it is an artist's rendition.

Whaaat?? I would not post....paintings....in this thread! The two images of colliding galaxies are from the Hubble telescope. They are two different pairs of galaxies.