The Official Space and Astronomy Thread v. Well, this is weird.

[Xanthul]

Absolutely loved this article....and relevant to this discussion.

https://qz.com/452452/where-are-all-the-aliens/

Lovely read. I've always been partial to the simulation theory myself - I can see us easily simulating entire civilizations with artificial intelligence in a few hundred (or thousand) years, so I find it hard to believe that we would be the first species to achieve that. I find it more plausible that it has already happened some time ago and we're just one of those simulations.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

"There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation."

[Calvin6s]

"There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation."

I think therefore I  ........ (&^*&%*&^% 

A problem has been detected and your world has been shut down to prevent damage

[jasc15]

Absolutely loved this article....and relevant to this discussion.

https://qz.com/452452/where-are-all-the-aliens/

Lovely read. I've always been partial to the simulation theory myself - I can see us easily simulating entire civilizations with artificial intelligence in a few hundred (or thousand) years, so I find it hard to believe that we would be the first species to achieve that. I find it more plausible that it has already happened some time ago and we're just one of those simulations.

I suppose this is what The Matrix is all about, but are there any other good pieces of fiction that explore this idea well?  I was never into science fiction so I never came across anything like this before, but I'm sure it's been done.  I read Isaac Asimov's The Final Question about the progression from Type I to Type III and beyond and really enjoyed it.

[jammindude]

I'm tempted to repost the article in P/R just because I find it fascinating that some people (not all) are so open to these ideas (some of which even you will admit are just WAAAY off the chart) and yet almost seem agitated at the very thought of an intelligent designer in the personage of God. 

I must ponder.  But let's not turn *this* thread into P/R territory.    Everyone, as you were....

[BlobVanDam]

"There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation."

I'd like to think someone went to the trouble of building an advanced computer simulation of an entire universe full of potential just so I could sit in front of a simulated computer and do nothing.

[Xanthul]

Absolutely loved this article....and relevant to this discussion.

https://qz.com/452452/where-are-all-the-aliens/

Lovely read. I've always been partial to the simulation theory myself - I can see us easily simulating entire civilizations with artificial intelligence in a few hundred (or thousand) years, so I find it hard to believe that we would be the first species to achieve that. I find it more plausible that it has already happened some time ago and we're just one of those simulations.

I suppose this is what The Matrix is all about, but are there any other good pieces of fiction that explore this idea well?  I was never into science fiction so I never came across anything like this before, but I'm sure it's been done.  I read Isaac Asimov's The Final Question about the progression from Type I to Type III and beyond and really enjoyed it.

You can read more in this page on Wikipedia, there is also a section for fiction works there.

I'm tempted to repost the article in P/R just because I find it fascinating that some people (not all) are so open to these ideas (some of which even you will admit are just WAAAY off the chart) and yet almost seem agitated at the very thought of an intelligent designer in the personage of God. 

I must ponder.  But let's not turn *this* thread into P/R territory.    Everyone, as you were....

Yeah, anything goes in this theory really... designers/engineers could interfere with or manipulate the simulation in different ways:

- Entering the world somehow (Thirteenth Floor style).
- Taking the form of different deities and religions
- Creating paranormal phenomena (which could also be errors in the program)

I don't know, as far fetched as it seems I always found it somehow plausible, and it doesn't really bother me that much. Even if this is a simulation, in my frame of reference this is all I know so for me this is reality. I'm not going to behave differently just because this might not be "real" to some other beings who knows where.

[Xanthul]

"There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation."

I'd like to think someone went to the trouble of building an advanced computer simulation of an entire universe full of potential just so I could sit in front of a simulated computer and do nothing.

Just be thankful they cared enough to include porn in the simulation 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

"There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation."

I'd like to think someone went to the trouble of building an advanced computer simulation of an entire universe full of potential just so I could sit in front of a simulated computer and do nothing.

Just be thankful they cared enough to include porn in the simulation 

[Chino]

3 minutes!! 

[BlobVanDam]

3 minutes till 70s porno music!

[Implode]

What happened 5 minutes ago?

[BlobVanDam]

What happened 5 minutes ago?

They started their announcement, which is the finding of an Earth-like planet, I think the most similar they've found yet. I was only listening in the background.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone -- the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0."

Love this rendition of Kepler-452b:

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.

Pretty cool stuff.

[Kotowboy]

What happened 5 minutes ago?

They started their announcement, which is the finding of an Earth-like planet, I think the most similar they've found yet.

Each more similar than the last !

[jammindude]

This is really cool....but, are people getting the wrong idea?   (and just for the record...this skepticism does not come from my faith.  In fact, my faith allows for the possibility that God may someday *want* us to continue to colonize the universe....I'm not a science denier....just a realist)

What I mean is this.   The Kepler is taking readings based on shadow patterns from suns that are a very long way away.   Based on that, we have, in fact, discovered that there are planets which orbit similar suns at a similar distance.   We can judge their size, the distance from the sun, and the length of orbit.   And that's FANTASTIC.   But beyond that, aren't we jumping the gun a bit?    The photos that are being circulated with this article are not even real, but I'm not sure everyone who reads these articles knows that.   They just see an artist's rendition of what it may look like and conclude that we have pictures from space of "another earth"...   I mean, we don't even know if there's water on the thing. 

I love the science, but I get frustrated when a lot of hype and hope turns into a lot of false "facts"...

[BlobVanDam]

This is really cool....but, are people getting the wrong idea?   (and just for the record...this skepticism does not come from my faith.  In fact, my faith allows for the possibility that God may someday *want* us to continue to colonize the universe....I'm not a science denier....just a realist)

What I mean is this.   The Kepler is taking readings based on shadow patterns from suns that are a very long way away.   Based on that, we have, in fact, discovered that there are planets which orbit similar suns at a similar distance.   We can judge their size, the distance from the sun, and the length of orbit.   And that's FANTASTIC.   But beyond that, aren't we jumping the gun a bit?    The photos that are being circulated with this article are not even real, but I'm not sure everyone who reads these articles knows that.   They just see an artist's rendition of what it may look like and conclude that we have pictures from space of "another earth"...   I mean, we don't even know if there's water on the thing. 

I love the science, but I get frustrated when a lot of hype and hope turns into a lot of false "facts"...

I don't see that they're making any claims beyond the evidence here or creating false facts.
It's fits that it could support an atmosphere and liquid water, and the parameters are right to have created a similar planet to Earth, but I don't think they're claiming anything beyond that, or passing off the artist's rendition as a real thing. The artist's rendition is just there to show how this theoretical planet would compare to Earth, to make the discovery more accessible to people. The point is that it's the planet most likely to resemble Earth based on the ones discovered so far.

I think that's why they've kept their search parameters so incredibly narrow in terms of distance, size and temperature, because we only know of life existing as it is on Earth, and therefore are only searching for criteria that fits with what little proof we have of life, minimizing assumptions as much as possible for now.

I don't see anyone jumping the gun, but if they are, that's their fault, not NASA's.

[Kotowboy]

This new planet is 5% larger than Earth ?

Imagine if we somehow all moved there - that would take care of over population for a while

[cramx3]

If we were able to get a telescope to see this planet in detail, how old would that view be? 

My point is, theoretically, if we had a telescope that allowed us to see in enough detail what was on the planet and for the sake of discussion, say we could see there was civilization on this planet, that we view from Earth.  Given the time it takes that light to travel the distance to Earth, how far back in time are we actually looking at? 

[BlobVanDam]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

[cramx3]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

Thanks, yea thats what I was thinking and just didn't know the number.  Kind of makes the discovery not that important for my lifetime, although I'm not saying the discovery is not important.

[BlobVanDam]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

Thanks, yea thats what I was thinking and just didn't know the number.  Kind of makes the discovery not that important for my lifetime, although I'm not saying the discovery is not important.

I know how you feel. It's a very cool discovery, but it's probably fairly trivial as far as our lifetimes are concerned.

[chknptpie]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

But isn't the planet older than the Earth? That could offset some of the light years?

[BlobVanDam]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

But isn't the planet older than the Earth? That could offset some of the light years?

This is all assuming that any intelligent species on the planet is currently still around, which is already assuming there was any to begin with. For all we know they came and went a billion years ago, or maybe they're still a bunch of tadpoles in a pond.

[chknptpie]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

But isn't the planet older than the Earth? That could offset some of the light years?

This is all assuming that any intelligent species on the planet is currently still around, which is already assuming there was any to begin with. For all we know they came and went a billion years ago, or maybe they're still a bunch of tadpoles in a pond.

Yes, of course this is with humongous assumptions lol all pure speculation that life on that planet would evolve within the same timelines as life on earth.

[Azyiu]

At the speed of New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft yet, we only need 25.8 million years to reach Kepler 452b, yay!

[Kotowboy]

Plot Twist : Kepler is so far away - that it looks like a new Earth to us.


But it's so far in the past that all life on it has already left and the planet is now a barren rock.

[Azyiu]

Plot Twist : Kepler is so far away - that it looks like a new Earth to us.


But it's so far in the past that all life on it has already left and the planet is now a barren rock.

What we are seeing / knowing now is from only 1,400 years ago, so whatever civilization (if any) on that planet should still be around as we speak.

[Dublagent66]

It's about 1400 light years away. If we could see it clearly from Earth, that's not a long time in terms of evolution, but potentially a long time in terms of cultural and technological development. And it's still a lot further than we could imagine visiting.

But isn't the planet older than the Earth? That could offset some of the light years?

Not sure what you mean by this.  A planet's age has nothing to do with how far away it is from us.  Compared to the age difference of 1.5B years, 1,400 years is only a blink of an eye.  Hardly even worth measuring.

[chknptpie]

[jasc15]

Every full moon, I try to get a decent picture and have failed every time.  I am using my Nikon D3100 and an old 70-210mm zoom from my Nikon film camera.  The problem is the autofocus on that lens is not compatible with the D3100, so i have to focus manually.  Thus, I can never tell if its a resolution problem or a focus problem.

Last month I was able to get this shot, which is my best so far.  There are visible crater details at the terminator on the lower left of the image.  I think the focus is as good as it can be.

Full image:


Cropped:


f/5.6
1/250
ISO 200
210mm

[Orbert]

Very nice!

[TioJorge]

 

[faizoff]

Every full moon, I try to get a decent picture and have failed every time.  I am using my Nikon D3100 and an old 70-210mm zoom from my Nikon film camera.  The problem is the autofocus on that lens is not compatible with the D3100, so i have to focus manually.  Thus, I can never tell if its a resolution problem or a focus problem.

Last month I was able to get this shot, which is my best so far.  There are visible crater details at the terminator on the lower left of the image.  I think the focus is as good as it can be.



f/5.6
1/250
ISO 200
210mm

Very nice, I think that's about the resolution that comes from that lens. I too have to do a manual focus when taking a picture of the moon. This is one I took last year in May around the time of blood moon. I had just got a refurb Nikon lens 55-200mm for my D5200.

Cropped


My settings

f/11
1/250
ISO 250
200 mm