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Science and Technology MEGA THREAD

Max Jenius

By Max Jenius
in Anime or Science Fiction

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  • 2 weeks later...
skullmilitia SMS Squadron Leader

skullmilitia

Posted
Posted

This is why we should start constructing space colonies.

I hate to be that "guy". However I've got a family friend in Climatology for over 25 years.

The data for human made climate change is so infantile no true fact can be pulled from the Data.

It's also really true that the Green movement has completely ignored solar cycling, and the fact the entire

Solar system is in a state of warming.

We're actually late for a short ice age, by about 5k years or so.

It's likely the Suns cycle may have delayed it.

Also, even though they seemed to be ignored. I have yet to meet a Meteorologist who

Believes in man made climate change. There's a assload of money involved in the green movement.

It reminds me of the old R12 debate, you know the one that said freeon was causing a hole in the Ozone?

Then Congress suddenly approved R134a refrigerant?

Just so happens it was at the exact same time DuPont lost it's patent on R12, and had its

New patent for R134a. Also turns out that hole, got a lot smaller, and a lot faster than the "scientist"

Predicted.

Corporations + movements = BS.

  • 2 weeks later...
renegadeleader1 Alaska Base Survivor

renegadeleader1

Posted
Posted

I have a space question for anybody that might know the answer. You know the hubble space telescope and how it can zoom in on things in space billions of light years away? Why can't they use it to zoom in on a planetary system scientists think might have life and see if the planets have cities or anything?

anime52k8 Super Dimension Member

anime52k8

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have a space question for anybody that might know the answer. You know the hubble space telescope and how it can zoom in on things in space billions of light years away? Why can't they use it to zoom in on a planetary system scientists think might have life and see if the planets have cities or anything?

Because the Hubble space telescope doesn't have anywhere close to the resolution to do that. the hubble telescope has a resolution of .05 arc-seconds. Now the closest system with potentially habitable planets is Gliese 581 which is about 22 light-years away. At that distance, .05 arc-seconds equals an object with a diameter of about 30 million miles. which is slightly less than the distance between mercury and the sun.

The highest resolution telescope in the world is the CHARA interferometer Array which has a resolution of .0005 arc-seconds. but at 22 ly away, it can only resolve an object 300,000 miles in diameter at that distance.

Edited by anime52k8
renegadeleader1 Alaska Base Survivor

renegadeleader1

Posted
Posted

Does that mean the CHARA can view some planets like I asked? How difficult would it be to make a telescope that could get the job done? I know the Hubble has done some break through work on things like the origins of the universe etc, but to me one of the biggest questions out there is "Are we alone?" and being able to simply look at a planet would go a long way to answering that than making guesses based on things like wobbles.

mechaninac SMS Squadron Leader

mechaninac

Posted
Posted

To achieve the kind of resolution necessary for viewing an exoplanet within, say, 100 LYs from us, and be able to distinguish geographic features smaller than large continents, let alone things as small as cities, in the visual spectrum would require a telescope with the effective light gathering capability of a mirror larger than the size of Earth's orbit. That doesn't even take into account the fact that the glow of the parent star just about completely obscures the reflected light given off by its planets; all exoplanets discovered thus far have been indirectly detected by either the wobble they cause the primary due to gravitational influence or by the very minute dimming of the primary's light when the planet passes in front of the star, if the orbital plane happens to be aligned with our line of sight; to my knowledge, there has been no direct observation of a exoplanet in the visual spectrum, but I seem to recall that some hot Jupiters have been "imaged" through infra-red astronomy... enough to visualize hot and really hot hemispheres. Ultimately, any determination of an exoplanet's viability for harboring life, of the terrestrial variety anyway, not it's actual existence, will need to be made by inference of it's distance from its sun, its mass and density, and spectrographical analysis once interferometers with enough power can directly image a world to see what gasses are present.

EXO Super Dimension Member

EXO

Posted
Posted

Scottish scientists awarded grant to build alien-detecting laser device

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scottish-scientists-awarded-grant-to-build-alien-detect-1504704580

Currently telescopes can detect Jupiter-sized planets in other solar systems by detecting the "wobble" in light waves as they orbit their stars. However, the astronomical equipment is not sensitive enough to find some smaller Earth-like planets which may support life. The laser developed by the Heriot-Watt team, which uses the infrared spectrum, helps astronomers to detect even minor wobbles that indicate the presence of a smaller planet. The EELT will be able to observe objects that are 100 times fainter than those that can be found by most telescopes.
David Hingtgen Super Dimension Member

David Hingtgen

Posted
Posted

I have a space question for anybody that might know the answer. You know the hubble space telescope and how it can zoom in on things in space billions of light years away? Why can't they use it to zoom in on a planetary system scientists think might have life and see if the planets have cities or anything?

One of the biggest issues is raw time/distance. Say there was a ginormous highly-advanced city-planet, and aliens were living there 500 years ago. But it's 1000 light-years away. It'll be another 500 years before any telescope, even one with near-infinite resolution, could get any light to see it. Someone could have built the Death Star last week, but you still have to wait many years for the light to travel here to Earth.

And if you wanted to see something literally billions of light-years away----then you've got several billion years to wait. (or conversely, you could look at it now, and see how it was billions of years ago---but there's unlikely to be any sort of advanced life from back then)

sketchley Galactic Diva

sketchley

Posted
Posted

One of the biggest issues is raw time/distance.

Space is vast.

I remember hearing a line on one of the Discovery shows that amounts to: galaxies collide all the time. The chance that any of the stars in the galaxies actually hitting each other in the collision is extremely rare.

skullmilitia SMS Squadron Leader

skullmilitia

Posted
Posted

Just think like this, when your looking at the Milky Way Galaxy, even local star clusters are as much apart as our Sun to the closest star.

To understand that distance.. You're on a football field. The Sun is the touchdown line of your team.

The Earts distance is literally a blade of grass from the line.

The closest start would be at the oppositions touch down line.

Also, if we were able to see Alien Worlds millions of light years away, they

Could already be extinct or wiped out has the snap shot we would see would be the time distance away.

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Vespaeda Destroid Armour Waxer

Vespaeda

Posted
Posted

[in my best Weyland voice and posturing...]

"Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you we were about on the cusp of ALL your cybermechanical, robotic and power-assisted wet-dreams come true? Unfortunately, not quite including 'Tony Stark'-esque flight, mind you--[trust me, we ARE all working so very, very hard on that one...keep the faith...yes..]

However, domestic humanoid and biomimetic robots, brashly leaping the 'Uncanny Valley' to tackle realistic, facial muscle modulation and...perhaps, heat-sensitive, supple touch, localized pelvic thrusting, gryration & undulation--with accompanying fluid warmth...Hmmm...got your juices & attention now, eh?!?

Seriously now: powered-assist suits, armour and mechs scalable as desired?"

...Behold--the simple, cheap & innocuous NYLON FISHING LINE!!

http://io9.com/scientists-just-created-some-of-the-most-powerful-muscl-1526957560

  • 1 month later...
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  • 5 weeks later...
Retracting Head Ter Ter Bridge Bunny

Retracting Head Ter Ter

Posted
Posted

On that subject of raw/time distance mentioned by David above. One of my sci-fi random thoughts was that :

1.) If science gets advanced enough for FTL travel

2.) If imaging technology gets advanced enough

3.) We could theoretically send a starship 3000 light years away from earth in the 31st century and actually look back on historical events at the 1st century. Want to see what Jesus really looked liked? With enough science you theoretically could! Heck we could see the Jurassic age with enough tech. Probably need s telescope with Zero point googlegoogle arc-seconds and magical software but you theoretically could.

JB0 Super Dimension Member

JB0

Posted
Posted

Theoretically possible is the best kind of possible.

...

Hmmm, I wonder how difficult building such a telescope would actually be.

You'd need a helluva large reflector, that's for sure.

Maybe spread the lens system out over several light-years, since you have FTL travel. Each lens is a drone ship equipped with it's own hyperdrive unit, and it jumps to the new focal point on command. That'd help restrict your field of view. Controlling light leakage would be a royal pain, though...

Big dadgum telescope though.

Blah. They should call it Planet Bob.

I applaud the reference, good sir.

That said, I rather like the name New Eden myself.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

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