two amazing astronomical facts

oceancaldera207

1, our solar system rotates around the galaxy once every 250 million years
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year

2. The milky way galaxy will collide with our neighbor the andromeda galaxy in 4 billion years!
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision

Cinorjer

I check in on the NASA astronomy picture of the day every week, and it's a spiritual experience. For instance, most of the stars we have examined with our new generation of telescopes have planets. We now know it's rare for a star not to have planets, even strange stars like binary white dwarfs. And, we find superearth planets in the "liquid water zone" quite often. The only reason we're not finding earth sized planets is because our telescopes aren't quite sensitive enough.

So given the billions of billions of stars and the common elements that life is made of, life itself seems almost certain out there. Intelligent life now, that remains a mystery.

lobster

Intelligent life now, that remains a mystery.

Have they found intelligent life on earth yet?

Nirvana

There's certainly little electronic transmission of anything but silliness and obstinacy that our satellites convey, should anybody out there be listening.

oceancaldera207

A note that for the galaxy collision, our sun will still be alive then, but in late stages. The collision is unlikely to affect the solar system much except that will send us futher out from the galactic center. In the meantime, we'd be able to see andromeda galaxy from our back porch....if you're able to stay alive for 3 1/2 billion years.

karasti

My teenager loves all things to do with space. He hates being stuck in high school with other kids who only talk about whether Chevy or Ford is the best truck, and can't understand why no one cares what's going on in the universe, lol. He's always finding really awesome pictures and facts to share. I enjoy learning about it, too. I enjoying being made to realize how small and truly unimportant I am in the grand scheme of things.

Nirvana

C'mon you guys! You're giving out too many stars!

It's Karasti's teenager who deserves the awesomes! It must be great to have a kid who's not so worldly as a lot of kids.

Silouan

Here are a few more interesting facts.

According to the consensus among scientists our universe began about 13.77 billion years ago and our earth is about 4.54 billion years old.

Previously it had been largely believed that the dispersion of the universe since the time of the big bang was slowing and the universe would eventually collapse again upon itself resulting in another bang as part of seemingly continuous cycle.

However, a recent Nobel Prize was awarded to physicists for their theory on an accelerating universe in that it is not slowing down but rather speeding up with infinite expansion.

federica

rather like the mess on my daughter's floor....

oceancaldera207

Here's one more...

Neutron stars are so dense, that a soup can full of neutron star material would have more mass than the Moon.

I'm a stargazer at heart. Does anyone else get a warm deep feeling when looking at the stars? Like you're not alone. It doesn't happen for me all the time, but still often.

blu3ree

i went to a star gazing party this summer and some of the people who went had awesome 18-23 inch telescopes for anyone interested id recommend trying out a star party near you as they do them in most of the states if not all. they may have a raffle and you may be lucky enough to win an ordinary chondrite (l4) that was formed in our sun at the time of its birth!

Cinorjer said:

I check in on the NASA astronomy picture of the day every week, and it's a spiritual experience. For instance, most of the stars we have examined with our new generation of telescopes have planets. We now know it's rare for a star not to have planets, even strange stars like binary white dwarfs. And, we find superearth planets in the "liquid water zone" quite often. The only reason we're not finding earth sized planets is because our telescopes aren't quite sensitive enough.

So given the billions of billions of stars and the common elements that life is made of, life itself seems almost certain out there. Intelligent life now, that remains a mystery.

any star could potentially harbor a planet with life, a moon, or artificial planet as long as the conditions for life are met.

Cinorjer

oceancaldera207 said:

Here's one more...

Neutron stars are so dense, that a soup can full of neutron star material would have more mass than the Moon.

I'm a stargazer at heart. Does anyone else get a warm deep feeling when looking at the stars? Like you're not alone. It doesn't happen for me all the time, but still often.

I would love to see the stars as viewed by our ancestors without the light clutter washing out most of them pretty much anywhere in the world now. Or perhaps the space station. Would they get the whole effect if that bubble view port was turned toward the heavens instead of earth?

riverflow

Cinorjer said:

I would love to see the stars as viewed by our ancestors without the light clutter washing out most of them pretty much anywhere in the world now. Or perhaps the space station. Would they get the whole effect if that bubble view port was turned toward the heavens instead of earth?

Go to Roden Crater-- James Turrell's big project in Arizona:

http://rodencrater.com/about

I must go one day.

This thread is giving me warm fuzzies. I grew up on Carl Sagan.

TheEccentric

Nirvana said:

C'mon you guys! You're giving out too many stars!

It's Karasti's teenager who deserves the awesomes! It must be great to have a kid who's not so worldly as a lot of kids.

Why does every one care about those silly reactions and how they are distributed?

Beej

oceancaldera207 said:

Here's one more...

Neutron stars are so dense, that a soup can full of neutron star material would have more mass than the Moon.

I'm a stargazer at heart. Does anyone else get a warm deep feeling when looking at the stars? Like you're not alone. It doesn't happen for me all the time, but still often.

I too love star gazing. I live in a densely populated area, so its more of a challenge to see much with the light polution and constant air traffic, but i still try. i wait until nightfall to take my dog on her romp, but i try to find the best open field so that she can smell all the many splendored things on the ground, and i can breathe in the many splendored things in the sky. it's a wonderful mirror.

Nirvana

Why does anyone care about how stars are given out on Newbuddhist?

Dunno if they do, dunno if they don't. But Karasti's kid is still pretty awesome and deserves to see lots of stars!

Cinorjer

On a related note, I had to laugh at the photo on the science page http://www.nbcnews.com/science/frog-pops-nasa-photo-ladee-rocket-launch-did-it-croak-8C11134276

Considering the height this poor frog reached, I'd say he (or she) was relaxing in the pool next to launch pad when the shock wave bounced through the water and launched our surprised webbed astronaut into its own trajectory.