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[Ventrue]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/UpdatedPlanets2006.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...is.svg/800px-Sun_and_VY_Canis_Majoris.svg.png

I hate seeing size comparisons to that thing. The Sun is big enough already. Mind boggling.

 

[smurfx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgg2tpUVbXQ

http://atinyglimpse.ytmnd.com/

this is also one of my fav ytmnd's. lol since you guys are comparing size's i think you might like this as well if you are into scifi stuff.

http://scifiuniverse.ytmnd.com/

 

[Lost Fragment]

I hate seeing size comparisons to that thing. The Sun is big enough already. Mind boggling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNEV9EW06g

that one's worse

 

[Aegus]

I hate seeing size comparisons to that thing. The Sun is big enough already. Mind boggling.

Feels a bit like being shown a glimpse into the Total Perspective Vortex

 

[Ventrue]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNEV9EW06g

that one's worse

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER.

 

[thetrin]

Man, this thread is so awesome.

High res photos of the universe. What more could I ask for?!

 

[Alfarif]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/UpdatedPlanets2006.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...is.svg/800px-Sun_and_VY_Canis_Majoris.svg.png

Say VY Canis Majoris exploded... how long would it take until we felt the affects and Earth was destroyed? or would Earth ever be destroyed by something exploding that far away?

 

[FilosopherStoner]

Great thread, it is so naive to think we are the only ones out there. Stare at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field for 10 minutes, let that sink in, and tell me there isn't life out there.

The thing I don't really get is, are all the photographs of other galaxies/nebulae actually that psychedelic looking? Or are the photos taken and exposed weird due to radiation, or ultra violet light?

Taking color pictures with the Hubble Space Telescope is much more complex than taking color pictures with a traditional camera. For one thing, Hubble doesn't use color film — in fact, it doesn't use film at all. Rather, its cameras record light from the universe with special electronic detectors. These detectors produce images of the cosmos not in color, but in shades of black and white.

Finished color images are actually combinations of two or more black-and-white exposures to which color has been added during image processing.

The colors in Hubble images, which are assigned for various reasons, aren't always what we'd see if we were able to visit the imaged objects in a spacecraft. We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance an object's detail or to visualize what ordinarily could never be seen by the human eye.

Ah, so I answered my own question, really it's just scientist eating paper making shit look cool.

It boggles my mind to think that stuff is really out there, fascinating. If you really wanna get your mind blown, check out The Elegant Universe, true, pictures of billions of galaxies are great, but add the possibility of other universes on top of that, then really what the fuck?

 

[Alfarif]

If I could find it, I would... but... yeah, I think that it's a combination of the two.

The Earth is just as fascinating, though, and just as weird and wonderful. I'm not talking about the sun rising over a forest while you stare from the mountains, though that's breath-taking. We haven't even explored our own oceans and we have no idea what we have and haven't seen in our own rainforests and deserts and underground caverns.

But good god do I love looking up into the sky.

 

[Dolphin]

Say VY Canis Majoris exploded... how long would it take until we felt the affects and Earth was destroyed? or would Earth ever be destroyed by something exploding that far away?

It would take about 5,000 years, and it wouldn't do much to us at all except look a lot brighter in the sky.

 

[Fuzzery]

Wow I love this thread , all pictures awesome! (Can you really go wrong?)

Just probabilistically, WE ARE NOT ALONE. I can't wait to see what other forms 'life' can take.

Spoiler

this makes me want to play EVE

 

[MrPing1000]

The universe absolutely fascinates me. Anytime I'm outside and it's dark I stare up (weather permitting) I could just stare at the sky for hours.

Then I get pissed at how little the majority of the planet cares. WE SHOULD BE ON MARS BY NOW ARGHHH.

 

[MMaRsu]

Please keep going with the pics! I love this kind of stuff

 

[FilosopherStoner]

The universe absolutely fascinates me. Anytime I'm outside and it's dark I stare up (weather permitting) I could just stare at the sky for hours.

Then I get pissed at how little the majority of the planet cares. WE SHOULD BE ON MARS BY NOW ARGHHH.

As do I man. Not to turn this into a political debate, but if they spent the money they do on the various wars America is funding, who knows what technology and knowledge we as a planet could obtain. It sucks that every nation on earth can't just make one space program, have it completely separate from politics, and just learn as much as we can. Oh well, one can dream...

Maybe I am the only one, but I am a little disappointed in the fact that all these images are just taken into photoshop and the color is added. I guess I never really gave it though, you can't really comprehend actually seeing these images with your own eyes. But to think these aren't as amazing as they look, and are just black and white (light and dark) in actuality sorta takes from the experience. It is amazing art though.

 

[Stridone]

Best thread ever, space is hypnotizing.

 

[chase]

The Great Attractor is a gravity anomaly in intergalactic space within the range of the Centaurus Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass equivalent to tens of thousands of Milky Ways



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor

 

[James Power]

The sun is truly the only god. Or at least the closest to the concept.

 

[Tauntaun]

Icy Europa:

Majestic Sombrero Galaxy:

:O HALO AM REAL! Call the Master Chief!

 

[Scopebob Sniperpants]

I hope this thread has a long lifespan. Thankyou for this.

 

[dark_chris]

I've never looked through a telescope before in my life.

One of my dreams is to go somewhere desolate and look through the scope for the first time there.

 

[Wanace]

I've never looked through a telescope before in my life.

One of my dreams is to go somewhere desolate and look through the scope for the first time there.

A memory I have from childhood is being at camp, and getting woke up at 2 am to go to the telescope they had there. We looked through it and saw Saturn, it was faint but there it was, the rings, the planet.

It was amazing. I still remember that night clearly, even though it was like 20 years ago.

 

[solarplexus]

Vast Star-Forming Region 30 Doradus

Ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material, unleashed by the hot, massive, blue star cluster left of center, plow into clouds of gas and dust. The impact causes the gas and dust to glow, and triggers star formation.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I was reading in some Science mag (about some of the most important finds of 07) how Dark Matter is thought to act as some sort of grid for how the various galaxies came together (or even come together as we speak). Astronomers have already theoretically mapped the flow of dark matter for like a small slice of the sky or something.

 

[Albino_Samurai]

http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/gallery.html

There ya go.

My fav..

Space is our next destination.

 

[Vennt]

Great thread, one of my purchases later in the year is going to be a nice big Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (Celestron 9.25XLT), semi-Apo ED80mm telescope and EQ6 Pro Equatorial mount to replace my old ETX-90.

Got to share some pics from one of my favorite amateur astroimagers, the results that can be done with amateur gear from the ground is truly astonishing:

Damian Peach:

My favorite Messier object is M51 "The Whirlpool" galaxy:

 

[Alien Bob]

The sun is truly the only god. Or at least the closest to the concept.

The sun is still a speck of dust compared to the universe

 

[ConfusingJazz]

I'm taking Astronomy this semester

If you get an old guy with long hair, be forewarned! BE CAREFUL!



He clucks like a chicken.




I wish I was kidding, he has Tourette's, and about every minute or so, he "buc"s. I had no idea what the fuck he was doing for the first week and it threw me for a loop.

 

[Hootie]

Gah...so beautiful. Definitely the best thread on GAF in awhile. I always get goosebumps looking at the thousands of other galaxies out there. If only there were such things as ghosts and spirits, because if there was, I'd be flying around space as soon as I die! :lol

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I'm going to major in some sort of space-related field, whether it be Astronomy, Astrophysics, etc. I just want to learn more about space and the endless secrets it holds.

I'll be lurking through this thread for awhile.

 

[Danj]

All this space stuff and no mention of the Drake equation?

 

[DarthWaiter]

nice thread!!

 

[ConfusingJazz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

This pic never gets enough play. People love the blue marble because its pretty, or the earth rise because its gorgeous, but I kinda think this one is more impressive, namely because its not pretty. Its bleak and lonely, and gives you a glimpse of how small you really are. Its wrong that such a small blue pixel should make me depressed, but it does.

Then again, Carl Sagan really helps me feel a bit worse:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Those comparison vids are awesome. Another one for the lazy.

 

[DrEvil]

I absoloutely love this stuff, Brenden I'm not surprised to see you here, haha


Anyways, it really puts a perspective on life, seeing as how meaningless we really are, seeing all those galaxies and endless ocean of stars, it just makes you sad that we'll never EVER see all of that, it's impossible, there's so much out there that mankind will never experience, things that I'll never experience, or anyone, and it's just how inconsequential everything we do really is.

Its breath taking, but it gives you a sudden sense of Mortality.


I love this.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/photos/sts71/mir-imax/hmg0018.jpg



The one thing on my 'to do' list in life, and it literally is the only thing that I want to achieve, is to see Earth from orbit, in person.

When the Virgin Galactic or whatever flights (Spaceship one) become more cost effective, I will be there in a heart beat, its one of the reasons I love flying... now I just want to see it all.

 

[Like the hat?]

Great thread, one of my purchases later in the year is going to be a nice big Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (Celestron 9.25XLT), semi-Apo ED80mm telescope and EQ6 Pro Equatorial mount to replace my old ETX-90.

Got to share some pics from one of my favorite amateur astroimagers, the results that can be done with amateur gear from the ground is truly astonishing:

Damian Peach:

Those are awesome!

 

[Verdre]

Two galaxies colliding

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061024.html

 

[Spainkiller]

Thank you... I have no words for how that picture makes me feel. That's... character changing right there. It really is.

Read the book 'pale blue dot'

And yes, that picture is beyond words. There's no point in even trying. Shakepspeare would fuck it up.

 

[Hootie]

Quick heads up: A new episode of "The Universe" is going to be on tomorrow at 9pm EST on the History Channel. Apparently it's about dark matter; Can't wait! I already have the complete first season on my iPod, great bathroom TV.

 

[fallout]

I'll try to keep this short! ... I LOVE THIS THREAD

Venus:

Russian Venera 13 surface images of Venus.

Cool fact: The camera lenses had to be covered in quartz and the probe only lasted a short while (127 minutes ... planned for 30) because of the raining sulphuric acid.

Io:

And last but not least, the despicable surface of Io. How revolting!

Cool fact: Io has volcanoes, caused by the intense gravitational pull of Jupiter.

I've never looked through a telescope before in my life.

One of my dreams is to go somewhere desolate and look through the scope for the first time there.

Whereabouts do you live? I'm sure there are amateur star parties going on. Basically, a bunch of amateur astronomers get together at a park somewhere, bust out their telescopes and look at the sky. It's an amazing experience, especially because I've yet to find an astronomer that didn't absolutely love showing other people things through their telescope. I spent one night this summer peering at things through a 20-inch dob. Got to see Stephan's Quintet, The Veil Nebula, Neptune's moon Triton (a first for me), and a whole bunch of other "typical" stuff.

All this space stuff and no mention of the Drake equation?

The Drake Equation is cool, but there's quite a lot of it that's left open to speculation. This probably isn't the best place to debate that, though. And regardless, the intent of the equation is still sound.

I absoloutely love this stuff, Brenden I'm not surprised to see you here, haha

Well, I did work at an observatory for 3 years! Speaking of:

That's me giving a presentation to a bunch of Consular Generals (diplomat people). The dude in the blue was my supervisor. The telescope you're looking at is a 40cm schmidt-cassegrain Meade LX100 (... I think ... the model number is labeled on the side, so I never bothered memorizing it). It's somewhat automated by polar alignment and is located at York University's Astronomical Observatory in Toronto, Ontario. Students get to use a smaller telescope mounted on top to study sunspots (it has a filter) and in 2nd year, they get to image galaxies as a project. It's also open FREE to the public on wednesday nights and for pre-booked tours. </end plug>

"Funny" story (quite relevant to the topic at-hand):

So, as a group of these diplomats are coming up, one of them, a small lady says to me that she doesn't like "these places". Now, having worked there for years, the most common thing that people are apprehensive about is that you have to climb up a few stairs to get to the platform. Understandably, for people with an intense fear of heights, it makes sense that they would be nervous. So, I reply that it's perfectly safe and that there's nothing to worry about. She politely says "No, no. It's not that. It's just that these astronomy places always make me feel so insignificant! I don't like it."

I told her that was one of the main reasons why I loved the job, but she didn't seem to get it.

 

[Alfarif]

Wow I love this thread , all pictures awesome! (Can you really go wrong?)

Just probabilistically, WE ARE NOT ALONE. I can't wait to see what other forms 'life' can take.

Spoiler

this makes me want to play EVE

... ugh... fuck... I've been on a space kick lately. Played the 14 day trial of Eve (again... 3rd time), played Freespace, and have been watching Firefly over and over again. WHY AM I NOT ON A STARSHIP YET?!

 

[C.Dark.DN]

While beautiful, these pictures are depressing to me.

How do you feel about not being able to visit/live in space before you die?

 

[surazal]

Here is my fav. Helix Nebula

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NGC7293_(2004).jpg

Or the Infrared version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:169141main_piaa09178.jpg

Full res version of both pics available at the wiki for Helix Nebula

 

[Askia47]

While beautiful, these pictures are depressing to me.

How do you feel about not being able to visit/live in space before you die.

Hopefully By the time 2050 comes Ghost In the Shell stuff will be possible, enabling us to to be cyborgs and live longer. Id would also love to see space. You never know, i think before 2050 people will be able to go into space with greater ease hopefully (it wont be far tho). in 40years alot could happen.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Hopefully By the time 2050 comes Ghost In the Shell stuff will be possible, enabling us to to be cyborgs and live longer. Id would also love to see space. You never know, i think before 2050 people will be able to go into space with greater ease hopefully (it wont be far tho). in 40years alot could happen.

Right now they are 30 million :/
I doubt i'd have even 1million to spare then.

 

[fallout]

How do you feel about dying so soon in our technological development?

The way I've always looked at is that right now, we're in the middle of a physics revolution. It's seemingly kind of stale right now, but over the past 100 years since Einstein's Annus Mirabilis Papers, we've come to understand our universe in amazing detail and there's still more to come. Furthermore, space exploration has taken off and despite the manned stuff being kind of stagnant, unmanned spacecraft are out there right now collecting plenty of data on everything from comet dust to the origins of the universe.

Sure, you probably won't get to even set foot on Mars in your lifetime, but we're the ones in the pioneering age. We're the ones taking the chances, making the bold steps and doing whatever it takes to move forward. Think now to how you feel about the people that made the trek over to America. Now, do you think it's all that exciting living in The New World? It'll probably be the same for people living on Mars 100 years from now. Anyway, that's sort of what life's all about ... achieving various goals for whatever reason. As has been said by multiple people in various lights (I think I'm quoting Star Trek: Voyager here ...), it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

The way I've always looked at is that right now, we're in the middle of a physics revolution. It's seemingly kind of stale right now, but over the past 100 years since Einstein's Annus Mirabilis Papers, we've come to understand our universe in amazing detail and there's still more to come. Furthermore, space exploration has taken off and despite the manned stuff being kind of stagnant, unmanned spacecraft are out there right now collecting plenty of data on everything from comet dust to the origins of the universe.

Sure, you probably won't get to even set foot on Mars in your lifetime, but we're the ones in the pioneering age. We're the ones taking the chances, making the bold steps and doing whatever it takes to move forward. Think now to how you feel about the people that made the trek over to America. Now, do you think it's all that exciting living in The New World? It'll probably be the same for people living on Mars 100 years from now. Anyway, that's sort of what life's all about ... achieving various goals for whatever reason. As has been said by multiple people in various lights (I think I'm quoting Star Trek: Voyager here ...), it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey.

Well, I'm sure as hell not going to get to make any contribution for future people to live in space. :[

 

[skybaby]

Gotta contribute. Here's one of my favorites, though many are already listed: Extended Groth Strip a mosaic taken by Hubble's deep space cameras.

Sounds uninteresting right? Then why not download the full resolution JPEG or the full resolution TIFF file, both weighting 240 and 666mb respectively, filled with sweet 5600 x 40000 pixels!

 

[fallout]

Here's the news release on the Hubble Groth Strip image (I can't believe the turmoil Hubble has gone through with stuff like this being released):

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/06/full/

Well, I'm sure as hell not going to get to make any contribution for future people to live in space. :[

Hey, you just have to do what you can! Keeping people interested in space through amateur astronomy is a great way (rewarding, too!). Supporting sci-fi is a way to do it. Posting in this thread is a way to do it. Hell, people who promote unity amongst the world are doing it!

To add to what I was saying before, seeing the HUDF when it was first released was one of the defining moments of my late teenage years. Sure, I was already into astronomy at the time, but seeing that image was just so surreal. So many galaxies from so long ago and it's just an insignificant snapshot. That to me is pretty much as cool as seeing some guy set foot on Mars, or even doing it myself. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say that because I've seen the distant universe that I don't want to do land on Mars, but there are things along humanity's journey that are pretty fucking cool and I'm glad to have witnessed them.

 

[Timedog]

Astronomy Picture of the Day usually has cool stuff. Also, here's my favourite image of all time (click for a 3100x3100 version, or just go searching for "Hubble Ultra Deep Field"):



Aside from the few stars you see in the foreground, just about everything in that image is a galaxy, down to the tiniest point. This makes up some 10'000 galaxies and the image is roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The light that you are looking at is 13 billion years old. For those not keeping score, that places the universe at approximately 800 million years old in this snapshot. That's pretty much the nanosecond after the sperm hit the egg in human terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_ultra_deep_field -- full story and further links

The age of the universe would be different for each point in that picture, unless each one of those galaxies is the exact same distance from earth, and 2 dimensional.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Hey, you just have to do what you can! Keeping people interested in space through amateur astronomy is a great way (rewarding, too!). Supporting sci-fi is a way to do it. Posting in this thread is a way to do it. Hell, people who promote unity amongst the world are doing it!

Oh shit.. wait... here's some hope...

More affordable suborbital space tourism is viewed as a money-making proposition by several other companies, including Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Rocketplane Limited, the European "Project Enterprise", and others.[citation needed] Most are proposing vehicles that make suborbital flights peaking at an altitude of 100-160 kilometres. Passengers would experience three to six minutes of weightlessness, a view of a twinkle-free starfield, and a vista of the curved Earth below. Projected costs are expected to be about $200,000 per passenger. The total duration of a trip is expected to be about an hour. Companies competing in the field have formed in Russia, Europe and the United States.

..In comparison to 20-30million for 10 days at the ISS.

Maybe we can at least orbit the world at an affordable price before we die.

 

[Dolphin]

Oh shit.. wait... here's some hope...

More affordable suborbital space tourism is viewed as a money-making proposition by several other companies, including Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Rocketplane Limited, the European "Project Enterprise", and others.[citation needed] Most are proposing vehicles that make suborbital flights peaking at an altitude of 100-160 kilometres. Passengers would experience three to six minutes of weightlessness, a view of a twinkle-free starfield, and a vista of the curved Earth below. Projected costs are expected to be about $200,000 per passenger. The total duration of a trip is expected to be about an hour. Companies competing in the field have formed in Russia, Europe and the United States.

ENIAC weighed 27 tons.