Cad
scientia potentia est
- 24,498
- 45,439
You realize you'd probably just die when our shitty technology stops working and your closed environment loses nutrients and you'd all starve?
- 1
The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
- Start date
You realize you'd probably just die when our shitty technology stops working and your closed environment loses nutrients and you'd all starve?
The plot of Neal Stephenson's most recent novel 'Seveneves' centers around the practicalities and human drama of having to offload earth's population into an ark and it's a pretty dope read. You should check it out.
- 3
Kiroy
Marine Biologist
- 34,673
- 100,146
Thanks for this I was just thinking the other day there was a scifi book that I had meant to read a while back. This was it.
- 1
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
- 4,972
- 3,639
House of Suns has some good space travel stuff. There's no ftl so they spend hundreds of years traveling from place to place. They can either cold sleep or use a time abeyance capsule that speeds up the flow of time. And of course this is subjective time. On an ordinary planet thousands of years go by.
I love it because the author actually does the math.
I love it because the author actually does the math.
- 2
Void
Experiencer
- 9,460
- 11,150
Sure, but as my fantasy goes, the ship is already built and at least seems like it has a reasonable chance of success, not "a comet is coming and we have to build it right now even if we aren't ready." In reality it is far more likely that a human element fucks it all up and kills everyone first, but either way, who cares? Statistically speaking I'm going to die in the next 10-40 years anyway, why not do it trying for something awesome?
- 1
Aaron
Goonsquad Officer
- 8,148
- 18,097
I'd go for that too! You could probably go a long way alleviating the boredom with computer games and d20 role playing games. Considering those who would most likely both want to go and be of the "stock" to be chosen then there'd be a good chance you'd be on a boat full of nerds so the free time would be good.
- 1
Jive Turkey
Karen
- 6,645
- 8,833
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
- 6,388
- 4,658
So here we are, as a species doing our science thing, seeing how big we think the observable universe is, and we think it has about 200 billion galaxies in it ... and then one day we realize that figure should have another 0 at the end. At least.
Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
Wow.
Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
Wow.
One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the universe contains. The landmark Hubble Deep Field, taken in the mid-1990s, gave the first real insight into the universe's galaxy population. Subsequent sensitive observations such as Hubble's Ultra Deep Field revealed a myriad of faint galaxies. This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies.
The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low.
Conselice and his team reached this conclusion using deep-space images from Hubble and the already published data from other teams. They painstakingly converted the images into 3-D, in order to make accurate measurements of the number of galaxies at different epochs in the universe's history. In addition, they used new mathematical models, which allowed them to infer the existence of galaxies that the current generation of telescopes cannot observe. This led to the surprising conclusion that in order for the numbers of galaxies we now see and their masses to add up, there must be a further 90 percent of galaxies in the observable universe that are too faint and too far away to be seen with present-day telescopes. These myriad small faint galaxies from the early universe merged over time into the larger galaxies we can now observe.
"It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we discover these galaxies with future generations of telescopes? In the near future, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study these ultra-faint galaxies, said Conselice.
The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low.
Conselice and his team reached this conclusion using deep-space images from Hubble and the already published data from other teams. They painstakingly converted the images into 3-D, in order to make accurate measurements of the number of galaxies at different epochs in the universe's history. In addition, they used new mathematical models, which allowed them to infer the existence of galaxies that the current generation of telescopes cannot observe. This led to the surprising conclusion that in order for the numbers of galaxies we now see and their masses to add up, there must be a further 90 percent of galaxies in the observable universe that are too faint and too far away to be seen with present-day telescopes. These myriad small faint galaxies from the early universe merged over time into the larger galaxies we can now observe.
"It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we discover these galaxies with future generations of telescopes? In the near future, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study these ultra-faint galaxies, said Conselice.
- 2
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 44,804
- 93,664
Tripamang
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 5,223
- 31,849
Not much really, just kind of shifts the accounting around and places us at a different point in galactic evolution. Presuming that empty space does produce some kind of static vacuum pressure that we describe as dark energy, having more matter in the equation just pushes the eventual demise a bit further down the road.
- 2
Cad
scientia potentia est
- 24,498
- 45,439
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
- 6,388
- 4,658
I'm not a fan of their approach with this one. Traditional head shield + fairing + parachute entry, followed by powered descent w/ ~9 rockets... then just before it gets to the surface it cuts all the rockets and 'crashes' into the surface, with a part of the spacecraft designed to crumple on impact.
- 1
Cad
scientia potentia est
- 24,498
- 45,439
I'm sure they're doing the best they can with the weight limits, but letting these things just crash into Mars seems crazy. But there's not enough atmosphere to really slow them down and they can't carry enough fuel to adequately retrofire.
- 1
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
- 6,388
- 4,658
Orbiter emerged from behind Mars, that's looking good. Nothing yet from the lander, they've received a more detailed set of data on the descent from Mars Express but it's being processed still.
Edit: Mars Express data inconclusive
Edit: Mars Express data inconclusive
Last edited:
- 1
Sentagur
Low and to the left
- 3,825
- 7,937
If you are talking about the airbags around the lander that only works up to a certain weight. The heavier ones can not be slowed down enough just with the airbags/ parachute because of the thin atmo.
- 1
