Bye Week OT but very cool: First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System around a Sun-like Star Captured by ESO Telescope
Thought this was cool for those with an interest in astronomy.
The European Southern Observatory has taken the first ever image of a "young" star with 2 planets in orbit. This is the first time this has ever been observed and is about 310 light years away.
For context, what we see now is the image from 310 years ago.
On September 5, 1977 Voyager 1 left Earth and is currently 14 billion miles away traveling at approx. 38,026.77 mph. In "light time" it is 21 HOURS 27 MINUTES away. In 44 years and 1 month. This sun and it's planets are 310 light YEARS away. It takes about 37,200 years to travel one light year, we're looking at 11.5 million years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYC_8998-760-1
October 15th, 2021 at 12:07 PM ^
As an avid SciFi reader I've been exposed to about 1000 different theories on why we haven't stumbled across aliens yet. Everything from "there ain't no one there" to "we're a reservation" to "space is big and Einstein is right" to "most species kill themselves off before they get out of prison" theories.
About 2/3 of those I would still consider perfectly plausible to this day. Just no way of knowing until we leave this solar system (or they come knocking).
October 15th, 2021 at 12:21 PM ^
One of my favorite videos about this is the Fermi Paradox. It basically mentions what you wrote in a very Douglas Adams style
Part 1
Part 2
October 15th, 2021 at 2:29 PM ^
Those are pretty cool - thanks for posing.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:12 PM ^
I don't think bio organisms can do interstellar travel either. However, we can produce an AI that will figure out how to do it. As unsettling as it seems, our real destiny is to produce an intelligence that supercedes our biological limitations.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:20 PM ^
Yeah, it seems very plausible to me that the universe is host to a good amount of intelligent life but that the distances between us and them are simply too great to ever encounter each other.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:17 PM ^
But what are the odds of...life? If we find micro-organisms in our solar system, probably on some moon of Jupiter or Saturn, then yeah, we can start thinking about a good amount of intelligent life in the vastness of the cosmos. Because if we can find two places that life occurred in our solar system then it must be a relatively easy occurrence. But if we don't, who knows what the odds of life occurring are. It could be in the millions or trillions to one, maybe.
That's only step one to intelligent life.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:50 PM ^
I think you underestimate the ingenuity of sapient beings. If there is a way around a limitation, it will be found in time.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
You underestimate the irrationality of said sapient beings. Just looking at the news every day leads me to wonder if we will give ourselves the time to solve these limitations.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:47 PM ^
What you're talking about is a simulation where billions of universes are created inside of a computer and given enough time and civilizations, there will eventually be a virtual scientist who will solve it. Unfortunately that means the odds of us being in base reality is billions-to-one. This little fact has come in handy for me post-OSU games the past decade or so.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:53 PM ^
Unfortunately I think this is the most likely scenario for the future. Biological life will be relatively short lived. Non-organic “life” can survive for such a long duration, especial in the insulation of a vacuum. It can sleep for eons and wake up without physical or psychological destruction.
if there are ever space wars they will be between the AIs of dead organic civilizations
October 15th, 2021 at 11:56 AM ^
what are the 6 other spots around that star?
October 15th, 2021 at 12:48 PM ^
A new kind of asteroid called hemorrhoids.
October 15th, 2021 at 1:07 PM ^
Other stars and galaxies in the background
October 15th, 2021 at 12:04 PM ^
Astronomy is fascinating even if it’s hard to comprehend. I remember learning time is not a universal law rather man made…mind blown
October 15th, 2021 at 12:25 PM ^
Right! Along those lines, I always thought of gravity as sort of a magnet, but a more apt explanation is like an object sinking in water and everything close enough gets pulled down with it. It made sense and completely changed how I thought about gravity and space.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
This reminds me of the time I was stoned in my fraternity in the 80's and tripped thinking about how there could be an alien in a distant galaxy currently staring into a mega-powerful telescope, watching my grandfather playing in his yard as a kid in the 1920's, given the time delay of light.
Groovy.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
Cool.
I love this blog.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:32 PM ^
I saw this yesterday. Very cool.
Love your description of how far it is away, when the grand scheme of things, its quite close.
Lastly, this just shows that we are more or less stuck on earth. There is no way within the (current) laws of physics that we are going to get anywhere outside of our solar system in a timely manner. This also means that any intelligent life in far off places are bound by the same laws of physics and cannot reach us. Warp speed and folding space are still squarely in the science fiction category. So, alien UFO stuff here is likely a farce.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:30 PM ^
But what about the UAPs navy fighters have been seeing? For years! That is real stuff doing stuff that real stuff does not do. The stuff we know of, anyways.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:34 PM ^
Truly fascinating subject.
I never understood how some people could truly believe we are alone in the universe. The sheer number of other systems within our own galaxy, never mind the hundreds of thousands of other galaxies out there with their own billions of systems and billions upon billions of planets, means that statistically speaking there has to be AT LEAST one other planet out there within a habitable zone supporting life.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:39 PM ^
I agree, I'm sure we are not alone in the universe. However, its almost meaningless since there is no practical method to visit, let alone communicate, any life outside our solar system.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:40 PM ^
And the only universe we can perceive is the one that aligns with our biological receptors. There could be whole other levels literally right in front of our noses.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
Speaking of noses, I once heard someone point out that you can't think of a dog as just a simpler version of ourselves. Their sense of smell, for example, is something like 40 times greater than ours. They are perceiving reality far beyond our capabilities in that regard. And that's just on a level of reality that we understand. My entirely amateur guess is that we are perceiving a very small fraction of the totality of existence.
October 15th, 2021 at 1:44 PM ^
Yep! Olfaction is the sense most connected with memory in just about all mammals, including humans.
Dogs can recognize their owners by site, but your smell is the ultimate determining factor for recognition.
October 15th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
The odds definitely favor life elsewhere; the question for me is whether or not there's intelligent life.
Yes, the odds probably favor that too, but humans are intellectually so unique from every other species on the planet that I sometimes do wonder. I mean, think about what constitutes intelligence in the animal world. Chimpanzees using sticks to catch ants. Dogs and dolphins learning commands. Beavers and bees building elaborate dams and hives. And here we are, communicating from miles away on an internet message board made of controlled electricity, debating issues of science and philosophy.
The way we've used our intelligence to understand and (consciously) shape our world in a way that quite possibly outstrips all other creatures on the planet combined does sometimes make me wonder if there's something special about humans that's not easily replicated by random chance...
October 15th, 2021 at 3:32 PM ^
Great points to ponder, but I personally have to believe there is intelligent life out there simply because of going back to the concept of statistics and it being a numbers game.
Out of the countless galaxies out there in the known universe, and the billions of systems just in our galaxy alone, I'm willing to take the bet that somewhere, similar habitable zones arose for at least one planet that gave way to life, and eventually arose to intelligent life. If those galaxies / systems formed millions of years before our own, think how much more technologically advanced they could be.
I have no scientific basis for my reasoning. Its just that there's too many opportunities out there for at least one other planet not to host intelligent life.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:36 PM ^
Harbaugh's never won there. Fire him.
October 15th, 2021 at 12:43 PM ^
He can't even recruit a solar system with more than 2 planets. Bama would have gotten one with 5
October 15th, 2021 at 12:48 PM ^
That ish looks like the eye of Sauron... someone call Gandalf or we're all doomed
October 15th, 2021 at 1:04 PM ^
It is crazy how even the speed of light isn't that far within the scope of the known universe.
October 15th, 2021 at 1:15 PM ^
On September 5, 1977 Voyager 1 left Earth and is currently 14 billion miles away traveling at approx. 38,026.77 mph.
Talk about #speedinspace
October 15th, 2021 at 1:22 PM ^
Maybe we shouldn’t visit that one...?
October 15th, 2021 at 1:31 PM ^
so what you are saying is that my great-great-great-great (insert appropriate number of greats) grandchildren may one day colonize these planets? cool.
October 15th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
Now I can see why we need hyperspace.
October 15th, 2021 at 1:59 PM ^
Me always trying to comprehend astronomy. Is there anything more mind-blowing?
October 15th, 2021 at 2:07 PM ^
Very cool, indeed.
If anyone is into boardgames, I own two pretty good games on near future space exploration/voyaging. The simpler one is SpaceCorp (https://www.gmtgames.com/p-904-spacecorp-2nd-printing.aspx) by GMT Games.
The more complex is Stellar Horizons (https://www.compassgames.com/product/stellar-horizons/) by Compass Games. The designer of SH describes it as "build your own space program"; the starting point is 2030 with tech that is close to what now exists.
As Johnny Carson used to say in his Christmas show, you may want this (or you may not).
October 15th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
Don't play board games much--they suffer from the same problems I found with card games like MTG, in that it can be incredibly hard to find a consistent base of players--but there are some cool video games in this respect.
One genre that's becoming popular is what I would call the "survival exploration" game, for example Subnautica, which I got unexpectedly drawn into. At any rate, at least with video games you don't have the issue of trying to find players...
October 15th, 2021 at 3:22 PM ^
Is that Uranus?
October 15th, 2021 at 5:48 PM ^
Dude, if there ever was a worthy OT segment, this is it. Great post, cool stuff.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:12 PM ^
https://m.imgur.com/a/3Y6dB
Hubble Super Deep Field…mind blowing.
October 15th, 2021 at 6:42 PM ^
How do they determine that there are only two planets? What are the other celestial bodies? Just a bunch of disenfranchised plutos?
October 15th, 2021 at 10:23 PM ^
Just so long as they don't name the planet we visit LV-426.
October 16th, 2021 at 2:37 AM ^
Very cool!
October 16th, 2021 at 6:37 AM ^
I’ve recently become very interested in viewing our solar system and other solar systems in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Been researching buying a dobsonian telescope (named after a professor that designed them,Dobson). Amazing how affordable telescopes have become(unfortunately made in China) Not a big difference between a 8” and 12” dob as far as observing. The trick is removing light pollution from our atmosphere and capturing light from deep space. Capturing more light with a telescope is done with using a camera, as our eyes can only capture so much. A guy on you tube posted pictures taken with a $100 telescope and a camera(you can actually see saturns rings with a camera). Astro photographers spend days capturing pictures with camera’s that can even rival photos from the Hubble deep space telescope. I’m probably going to go with a 10” dob from Orion or Celestron. A work associate built a 21” telescope that cost him around $20k. Again he spends a lot time capturing pics of deep space nebulai with using a camera. Some scopes come with up to 40k observable preloaded objects to view.
Any suggestions on telescopes would be appreciated.
October 16th, 2021 at 7:04 PM ^
This hurts my scrotum.