December 2010
73 posts
Global Eruption Rocks the Sun →
science.nasa.gov
On August 1, 2010, an entire hemisphere of the sun erupted. Filaments of magnetism snapped and exploded, shock waves raced across the stellar surface, billion-ton clouds of hot gas billowed into space. Astronomers knew they had witnessed something big.
this might sound totally amateur, but im studying "basic" physics as part of my maths course at university. recently covering orbits we proved that a planet's orbit lies on one plane within space (if you get what i mean).... and obviously this applies to all planets. and often when you see a picture representation of our solar system, it depicts all the planets and their orbits as if they are all on the same plane. is this the case? for example we can see that Saturn's rings are all on the same plane around saturn. but does this apply to the Sun and the planetary orbits? hopefully you can shed some light on the situation, assuming my question wasnt too nonsensical. thanks. x
The planets in our solar system are basically all on the same plane, all except for Pluto (dwarf planet) who’s plane is wacky. Here’s a good representation of the planet’s planetary orbits. As for Saturn’s rings, those are on the equator of Saturn, which I’m not sure is the same thing as a plane..
Here’s a helpful link explaining why most of the planets orbit on basically the same plane.
I hope this has helped! And don’t apologize for sounding ‘amateur’ (which you don’t), it’s good to ask questions :)
It seems your last speculation seems to come from a viewpoint in which the 'alien' race that has found its way to Earth is (surprisingly) human-like. A disregard for searching for the potential in sustainable energy, a disregard for things that differ greatly from us.
There's probably a good chance that if 'intelligent' life exists out there, among the cosmos, that there may be some alien life forms who have developed a much more serene way of adapting and dealing with the cosmos around them.
To heavily speculate and form a belief off of it is naive; we don't know what's out there yet, and when we experience it for ourselves is when we shall know. Really no use in getting worked up over it right now
I don’t assume aliens are going to be human like, that’s why I said it’s coming from a human perspective. I’m not being ‘naive’ I just enjoy talking about these sort of things with my followers. It’s hard to do so, however, because I have so many followers which means a lot of opinions on the matter. These are simply discussions, nobody is worked up over anything?
I’ll be ending the alien discussion now. Sorry I can’t reply to everyone who left me things.
Scale of the Universe. →
primaxstudio.com
A scale of the universe, which goes from 0.0000000001 yoctometers to 930 Yottameters, the universe’s estimated size.
Thanks seaofennui!
I've seen that you've been asked a lot about alien life. I want to explain why it's important that we never should try to make contact with other beings, despite every fantasy aspect of the cosmos I wish I could believe. Alien beings who can reach our planet would be nomads; they would be a group of beings whose sole purpose is to move, gather, and leave barren. If such a race were to come, they would probably disregard us, consume all they needed and move on to the next planet. This is not only terrifying but, according to Stephen Hawking, logical truth. Secondly, when Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas, do you think he asked questions to or tried to communicate with the lizards and insects and small animals that were running around? This may sound funny and perhaps dumb but it's exactly the mode of thinking these aliens would have. We would be the insignificant creatures. They probably wouldn't bother asking us any questions--we'd be like the strange, never before seen lizards that Columbus simply stepped on, despite crossing the "threshold" of the imaginary "flat world" and landing in a "whole new world". As far as he was concerned, Columbus was on another planet, in another world. Of course alien life exists, but we probably should never meet it.
I mean, if we ever find a way to reach other intelligent life and go to their planet, what do you think humans are going to do over there?
Disregard their needs, consume resources, ‘check ya later’.
Of course, this is all coming from a human perspective. There can be intelligent life out there that isn’t selfish to their own needs. Perhaps they are just truly curious about other life. Human beings have a tendency to act like a parasite..is this a human being characteristic or an intelligent life characteristic?
I’m not sure if meeting aliens would be beneficial or destructive, there’s a lot of pros and cons to that situation..
To follow up on your previous answer that you think there is definitely other intelligent life out there, do you think there is an actual galactic community - a la Star Trek or Star Wars - where several planets/races/civilizations are in contact with each other, form alliances, and even wage war against each other? Or maybe a vast empire encompassing dozens of planets and cultures?
Personally, I think there is. I'd hope it's more like the United Federation of Planets than anything else, but I don't know. I just think it's very likely that these civilizations are much older than we are, and as such, have found each other.
Again, anythings possible.
Have you head of the Kardashev scale? Humans on Earth are almost a ‘Type I’ on the scale. I hope you find that interesting, I do :)
Do you believe that there's another planet out in the universe somewhere that's exactly like ours; and the people there think about other planets like ours, etc, or are we all alone in this universe?
I definitely don’t think we’re alone in the universe but I also think that the universe is a big enough place, everything is bound to happen in one form or another. The universe is so big that there probably could be other ‘human’ like beings out there. I feel like their society would be radically different than ours though.
But if there are other intelligent life forms out there, I’m sure they think about other intelligent life out in space like we do. It’s only naturally to question our place and existence in this universe.
You are my favorite page <3
Thank you :)
Sick Sad World.: NASA Finds New Life
Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn’t share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.
At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.
But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don’t have to be like planet Earth.
No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn’t been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don’t know about you but I’ve not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. And that’s without counting yesterday’s announcement on the discovery of a massive number of red dwarf stars, which may harbor trillion of Earths.
Why is this so surprising? I feel like the universe is a big enough place, anything and everything is bound to happen one way or another. You can’t stick basic rules to that..
Zoomable Sagittarius →
bmgoau.cwahi.net
Wow. Just wow.
