A revelation
 

I just had a revelation! I was watching Jack Horkheimer (who is an awesome astronomer and is seen on PBS) and I suddenly realized how small and insignificant us as individuals are and us as a planet, solar system and galaxy are.

Take a look at the clip from a recent show:
http://www.miamisci.org:8080/ramgen/sta ... sehostname

I recommend watching the whole thing, becasue I think it's interesting, however some of you may not. But the part i'm talking about is at about 3 minutes and 15 seconds in when Jack talks about Antares and how large that one star is. You may say, yeah, well who cares...600 million miles wide. The kicker is this star is in our own galaxy. And its only one of 20 bright red stars like itself! That means there;s probably hundreds of stars just as large as it all around us. In addition to that, it is probably true that there are hundreds of other solar systems in this galaxy alone just like ours! We can't even see other planets outside of our galaxy because they have to reflect the light from stars to see them, and thats very difficult, but you can bet they are out there. And that is just in this galaxy. Think of how many galaxies there are. billions. trillions. Probably too many for a computer to count, and we can't even see past our own solar system.

It's incredible to me. I love going outise to look at stars and planets, and read about them. It truely puts things into perspective.

If you don't care, thats cool. Try not to dump on the thread. I'm open for a civil discussion.



http://www.jackstargazer.com/ has tons of videos if you want to go out and look for yourself one night. This week venus is going to pass over the sun. That hasn't happened in 122 years. You'll beable to see a black spot on the sun if you use the proper eye wear as venus passes between us and the sun. Very cool.

Another cool site that has a lot of answers. And a lot of answers that make you scratch your head. Kind of humbling:
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=166

99,

It is amazing isn't it. I have two telescopes at the house and I have spent hours behind them.

The existance of exterterestrial life is not a question for me....and as soon as we, as a race of human beings stop bitching about god, borders, and oil we are sure to find the most defining discoveries mankind has ever seen.

I hope I live to see it.

Absolutley.

I have one telescope that I love to take out on nice nights.

I agree 100%.

*waits for duke of ray or pvt pinhead to come in and tell us about god*

Star Trek

[img]http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.27.96/gifs/star-trek-9648.jpg[/img]

I i love astronemy stuff because it seems like the one thing humans will never fully grasp. We can only prove things through theory and such because we can't see things close to us. Also outerspace is so infinite to us that we will never in our lifetime find certain things. You said its humbling and agree. Things like:

-Our solar system was created through a big bang, but how was the universe created?
-Does space end?
-Is space very small and we are actually inside a molecule like object? And if so, think about whats outside space.
-Eternity is eternity, so did things ever start?

Stuff like this makes me anxious for answers. I'm not perplexed about things we've already seen, i want to know more about the uknown.

yeah man, i always think about that stuff. agreed 100%

gg double post....

http://www.nasa.gov , read

I was star gazing the whole weekend. fri, sat, and tonight. I learned a shit load of contalations. And I swear I saw 3 space craft, either that or highly syncronized satillites traveling the same speed, staying the same dstane apart, and moving together in a very sharp orbit.

[quote="Unknown_Sniper":54233]I was star gazing the whole weekend. fri, sat, and tonight. I learned a shit load of contalations. And I swear I saw 3 space craft, either that or highly syncronized satillites traveling the same speed, staying the same dstane apart, and moving together in a very sharp orbit.[/quote:54233]

Well the ISS is clearly visible pretty much every night more than once. I have never seen three objects travel in the same orbit because you can't really see standard small satellites.

[quote:54233]-Our solar system was created through a big bang, but how was the universe created?
[/quote:54233]
Isn't the theory that the entire universe was created in a big bang? I suppose that galaxies and stars would also be created in big bangs as well, just on a smaller level.

Video on expansion of universe:
[url="http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/videos/metafiles/ksc_052004_chandra.ram"]http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/vide ... handra.ram[/url]


[quote:54233]Does space end?
[/quote:54233]
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=166

But yeah, ktog all of your questions we probably will never know the answer to. The only thing we can do is have theories.


More on the Venus Transit like I was saying in my original post:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/wat ... ansit.html

Video of the transit of Venus from 1882. A combination of 147 surviving photos from John Philip Sousa (1854-1932):
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/ob ... odd640.mov

Another cool vid:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/vide ... plaque.ram

Here's an article on Gravity Probe B that I posted on a while back and everyone thought I was crazy:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/sol ... etism.html

[img]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/58397main_gyroscope1_med.jpg[/img]
GP-B's gyroscopes are the roundest objects ever made. Engineers at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center polished them to within 0.01 microns (less than 40 atom-widths) of perfect sphericity. Irregularities must be eliminated; otherwise the gyroscopes could wobble on their own without help from gravitomagnetism.

For some reason I find that extremly cool. ^^^^

[img]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/56532main_MM_image_feature_142_jw4.jpg[/img]
Each one of those is a galaxy. Amazing since we don't even know whats on the other side of our own galaxy. How the hell are we ever going to explore this entire place?

Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years.

The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.

In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.

The Ultra Deep Field represents a narrow, deep view of the cosmos, like looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw.
ed: ed: ed: If we're looking through a straw here, we're missing about 99.9999999999999% of the entire picture. Amazing.

To learn about the big bang, we have to look really friggin far away for the galaxies that existed when it happened. There we might beable to find some answers.

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/ ... .0539.mpeg

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/ ... rdisk.html

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/new ... stars.html

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/new ... Stars.html

=================
so much to learn...so little we know.


http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegal ... e_142.html

Has anyone ever attempted to think what it was ike before anything was created?
Its mind blowing.

[quote="Infection_Smith@":aecd0]Has anyone ever attempted to think what it was ike before anything was created?
Its mind blowing.[/quote:aecd0]

Thus my question on when did the universe start. I believe the only way we can answer these questions is to forget almost everything we know about human life, religion, society, and time. Time, first of all is made up. Its just a measurement humans made up like centimeters, liters ... yatta yatta yatta. You can have infinite negative and positive distance, so why can't we have always existed? Its just something the human man can't contrive because we were brought up on the thoughts of creationism. We alway believe that things always have a beginning and an end. Like when we die we don't know where we go, but we also don't know where we were before we were born. Oh wait, we were unconcious ... without a functioning body. We also don't have a functioning body when we are dead therefor when we die we won't know because are brain and memory won't function. Thoughts like this make the realization of time never beginning nor ending because its made up. Also the thought on the "The End of The Universe" it is possible that the universe is infinite and if you keep going straight, you could end up where you started. Just like how people the believe the earth was flat and you can fall off the edge. Who says we are going straight in space? We could be going in long arcing circles .... mind boggling.

the word sphericity gave me a boner.

Welcome, Ninty9, and glad you could finally make it to the "We're
meaningless specks of dust" club. Grab a chair and get cozy. :)

[quote="Infection_Smith@":18920]Has anyone ever attempted to think what it was ike before anything was created?
Its mind blowing.[/quote:18920]

I was 10 or 11 years old when I first contemplated the question of existence
and creational forces in a serious way: I came to the conclusion that whether
or not the universe had a purposeful creation, existence was required before
any such existent or force (call it God if it makes you more comfortable) could
design and bring the universe into existence, if any such entity is required.

Then I tried to fathom "God" and the development required for it to even begin
the undertaking of such a task. At some point, I tried to regress further and
further back, hoping to discover how it could be that an initially empty set
could successfully develop an awareness/consciousness of itself and begin the
daunting task of mastering intellect and existence to the point required to make
a universe and the complex rules associated with a consistent/stable physical
world.

After a very serious brain "SNAP" (I felt a real sharp, physical "snap" in my
head), I was rewarded with a headache to show for my effort: I concluded that
a creational force such as God was NOT required for our existence and that we
only had to discover the workings of this "set", as we had discovered physics
and its laws. Our being requires no purpose or meaning. Anyway, after that day,
I hadn't given it too much thought...