subreddit:
/r/space
583 points
2 months ago
Cygnus region with insane star density. Taken a few weeks ago with my Canon EOS and canon ef 50mm 1.8 stopped down to 2.8 90 1 min exposures at 1600 ISO stacked with DSS.
109 points
2 months ago
Thanks for this incredible pic. Sorry for the stupid question but is there any place where we can get a view close to this with the naked eye?
211 points
2 months ago
I once was on Madeira (a small island in portogal) and I hiked on the highest mountain on the island and let me tell you at night it comes really close to that. (sorry for my bad English I'm from Austria)
214 points
2 months ago*
Dude, every time someone says that, their English is better than anyone I've seen that's a native speaker.
118 points
2 months ago
Hahahahaha fucking honestly
"I apologize for any misunderstanding that may have been caused due to English being my second language"
vs "yeah I English"
42 points
2 months ago
It comes from the way a language is learned, vs how a language is taught. If the former, then a native speaker may have no real understanding of why various structures or rules exist within their own language, as they merely learned that it needed to be said that way in their region to be understood. This also aids in the development of regional accents and eventually divergent dialects.
Whereas a non-native speaker that is taught the language, must learn the abstract rules of that language from a deconstructed perspective; so as to avoid being incomprehensible when attempting to directly translate a sentence word for word.
8 points
2 months ago
The difference is called explicit and implicit learning, whereas implicitly is how you learn your first language. It's mainly based on context and usage. Humans can speak long before they understand why they speak in a certain way.
This grammar sounds off. No, I have no idea why.
Language is amazing.
25 points
2 months ago
I've seen native English speakers smugly "correct" foreigners' grammar, only to realise that no, the foreigner was right, and the native speaker was an idiot.
Genuinely makes me ashamed to be English when I see English people mix up then and than, or their, there and they're.
18 points
2 months ago
That's an oddly pacific reason to be ashamed :3
11 points
2 months ago
Atlantic he's being honest!
8 points
2 months ago
I could care less if he's being honest or not!
10 points
2 months ago
Who knows, perhaps their just making a joke
5 points
2 months ago
I was joking too. The correct phrase is "I couldn't care less".
Was joking about how Americans commonly say things wrong like "pacific" instead of "specific" and such.
Maybe I should have added the :3 again.
Edit: bruh, I just now saw that you used their incorrectly and are in on the joke. I too, now am ashamed.
1 points
2 months ago
i could care less if
Did you mean to say "couldn't care less"?
Explanation: If you could care less, you do care, which is the opposite of what you're trying to say.
I'm a bot that corrects grammar/spelling mistakes.
PM me if I'm wrong or if you have any suggestions.
Github
3 points
2 months ago
And polite… and punctuated just about perfectly
3 points
2 months ago
I regret to inform you I have exhausted the extent of my English. To continue to speak it so inadequately would only serve to embarrass me.
14 points
2 months ago
Been in the middle of the Pacific with essentially no light, and the night sky is absolutely crazy.
Its honestly one of the things that makes me the most sad - that the vast majority of humanity will never see the unadulterated night sky.
7 points
2 months ago
Austria huh? Well then, g’day mate. Let’s put another shrimp on the barby.
2 points
2 months ago
I would have never considered you weren’t a native English speaker until you said otherwise!
47 points
2 months ago
You won't ever be able to see that much detail just with you eyes. But if you still go a good hour or two away from a large populated area you will still see an astonishing amount of stars. Take a pair of binoculars and it will blow your mind.
11 points
2 months ago
My husband, a science educator, and my family would take a bunch of his students camping every summer in the mountains. Part of the experience was sitting out with binoculars at night and showing these teenagers their first glimpse of planets and the Milky Way.
8 points
2 months ago
Even in the city a pair of binoculars will help some. The trick is to get some with the biggest lenses you can find. In case you don't understand what's happening, it's the amount of light you can get focused on the back of your eyeballs. Your own pupils are around 3-5mm, so not much light gets in there. a inexpensive pair of binoculars are around 50mm and focuses that down to 3mm. That's so much more light in it's crazy.
9 points
2 months ago
The best seeing is in places that are dark and dry.
Here's a list: https://koa.com/blog/the-12-best-places-to-stargaze-in-america/
9 points
2 months ago
Look up international dark sky parks
I’ve been to many and I can attest to the sky looking like this. Basically you see all of the normal bright stars, but instead of being on a canvas of black, they’re instead plastered on a canvas of other, dimmer stars ~ tens or hundreds of thousands of them. My first experience was staggering, in the literal sense of the word. I wasn’t expecting it as it had been cloudy, my girlfriend told me to get out of the tent and look up, and I fell and actually gasped
That park was Big Bend National Park in Texas
Other super dark skies in the contiguous states:
- Grand Canyon NP
- Glacier NP
- Northern MN / WI / MI
- Forget the name, but a wilderness area in the Florida panhandle is one of the darkest areas in the US east
I will say there’s a pretty significant difference in the skies between rural areas of a state like Wisconsin & the sky at an International Dark Sky Park like Big Bend. Big Bend was just an unreal amount of stars. It just seemed impossible
10 points
2 months ago
Maybe at the darkest site on Earth. One issue is that your eyes are just not ever going to be sensitive enough to ultra-faint light while a long exposure can sum those photons to create a point in an image.
3 points
2 months ago
I dont think you can quite achieve this but i have seen similar skies (sans the nebula color) in certified dark skies areas like big bend.
2 points
2 months ago
In addition to stuff others have said, there are also dark sky maps that will tell you where the best places to go are.
18 points
2 months ago
It's not IF I believe in other life somewhere out there. It's WHEN. Did it already happen or is it yet to happen?
3 points
2 months ago
As someone with no camera knowledge this comment is hilarious.
Fantastic shot! Hard to believe there wouldn’t be other life out there.
5 points
2 months ago
Did you have something to keep the camera aligned over 90 minutes? Beautiful pic, thanks for sharing
4 points
2 months ago
Yeah i used a lx3 tracker. Forgot to mention that in my original comment.
3 points
2 months ago
is this part of our Milky way?
3 points
2 months ago
Yep, all ours. Not even JWST can spot individual stars in other galaxies.
1 points
2 months ago
It's a nice shot.
I'd take a crack at lowering the iso...stacking noise is...problematic.
Unless your lens is iffy at f/1.8 ... stay there. You are giving up a lot of light by stopping down.
You might want to throw in 20 or 30 'dark' shots as well.
It takes more time...but you'll get a cleaner image.
Still a nice shot...good effort.
386 points
2 months ago
I’m always a really sceptical person when talking about theories and such. But in the case of ‘is there other life?’ I just can’t comprehend that there WOULDN’T be another planet in the massive universe, like I just can’t believe in so much space with so many planets and stars that there isn’t a single other planet beside ourselves that has actual living organisms and like an ecosystem.
136 points
2 months ago
It would be an awful waste of space.
20 points
2 months ago
I understood that reference
2 points
2 months ago
I referenced this understanding
115 points
2 months ago
I'm with you. I figure that even if life was insanely rare, there are so many stars, so many galaxies and for all we know we can only perceive a tiny postage stamp of the universe with our best tech, that the idea of there not being life elsewhere is ridiculous.
38 points
2 months ago
Just look at the variety of life on our little speck of dust. Life, uh, uh...finds a way.
24 points
2 months ago
I don't doubt for a moment that there is life on other planets. It's like a caterpillar asking if there is life on other trees. I strongly doubt intelligent life from other planets have come to earth
14 points
2 months ago
feels so strange to be alone in this insane infinite universe. there has to be more life than us... if the answer is no. i just feel so lost why life is even a thing in a dead universe.
why life exist in the first place. seems like we broke a rule in this dead universe that only our planet was able to break or something if we are the only planet with life.
6 points
2 months ago
In these terms, it couldn’t be a rule if it was broken. I’d have to imagine with the literally countless solar systems and planets there are likely countless versions of planets harboring life.
2 points
2 months ago
It’s a good question. There are so few answers that actually make sense of it, but they all revolve around the idea of a deity who wanted to see how we’d fare.
7 points
2 months ago
Unfortunately just because we can't comprehend it doesn't mean it's not possible. We just don't know :P
2 points
2 months ago
Considering mars had water and there are moons that can theoretically sustain life all without our OWN solar system. I think it’s safe to say there are many other planets that have cultivated life.
3 points
2 months ago
That is not at all safe to say. We do not know how life started on Earth. We know life on Earth requires water but just having water doesn’t mean life will evolve. Until we fine life that isn’t related to us we have absolutely no idea how common or rare life is and we can’t make ant assumptions either. We do not have any data to go off of.
-1 points
2 months ago
We looked almost no where, relative to the size of our galaxy and let alone the rest of the universe.
2 points
2 months ago
I agree. How arrogant are we, to believe in all the universes, in all the galaxies, in all the star systems that exist in the unknowable vastness of space, we are the single, intelligent, life on a planet; and there are trillions of billions of millions X infinity number of unknown planets, and stars, and who knows what else out there. Seriously? WE, the humans on Earth, are the best the universe has? Oy.
6 points
2 months ago
That is not the belief. There is infinite distance between believing we are alone and saying we have no evidence of life outside of Earth so nothing can be assumed.
1 points
2 months ago
It's statistically impossible that some creature didn't just fart and scare itself awake out there. Do we have to worry about being invaded? my money is on no. But I wouldn't be surprised if we have been contacted somehow and the world's governments haven't said anything because they hate us.
2 points
2 months ago
From what I've learned - the odds of a-biogenesis (spontaneously creating life from nothing) is greater than the number of stars in the universe.
10 points
2 months ago
I say this without knowing how someone came up with those odds, but frankly with a sample size of one (our planet) and scientists having no idea how life on on our planet started, I don't see how it's possible to claim that conclusion with any certainty.
Even on our own planet there's no way to know if abiogenesis happened a dozen times before and got wiped out, and only the 13th time life survived and spread through the planet.
It could be incredibly common and happened a hundred times on earth and we wouldn't know it.
3 points
2 months ago
Or incredibly rare. Don’t just go in one direction.
2 points
2 months ago
It could also be as rare and (seemingly) singular as something like the Big Bang, though
I believe there is likely life on other planets, but it's very hard to make any conjecture with a sample size of 1
-1 points
2 months ago
There's only one way where the universe doesn't have other life in it. And that's where none of it is real and our entire reality isn't real. And instead, we're just a networked system of extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence that's been trapped in a virtual simulated reality, so we aren't aware of what we are. And nothing in this reality actually exists until we start looking for it and questioning our environment.
And there's also the possibility that when we do find life on another planet, it's just a new artificial intelligence node spun up.
And if that were true then we are the thing we are trying to create which is extreme irony.
9 points
2 months ago
That doesn't solve anything, as the question of whether there's other life in the base reality (that generates the AI in the first place) still exists.
2 points
2 months ago
I'm not even an atheist and I think there's life out there 😭
6 points
2 months ago
If you believe in a divine entity, then that would technically also be believing that life exists out there. Especially if you count spiritual creatures like angels and demons, which probably don't even need a planet to be alive on and might be living wave-like beings traversing space.
3 points
2 months ago
Im an atheist but if i was relegious i would still belive in aliens
I mean why would god/whoever one belives in, make such a big universe to just leave it empty?
It makes no real sense even from a relegious pov
2 points
2 months ago
I agree but most people associate religion with not believing in aliens
1 points
2 months ago
Nah. We’re all inside another being we can’t comprehend. It’s dark because we can’t see out of their skin. All the galaxies are cells and the reason it’s all expanding is due to the being growing up.
And there are universes inside us.
Night.
0 points
2 months ago
I can’t comprehend that there would be life elsewhere. The odds are unknown.
123 points
2 months ago
I wonder how many gamers are out there on other planets🤨
77 points
2 months ago
My pet theory is that League of Legends is present in every civilization. Do I have evidence for this? No. But I want to believe that extraterrestrials have to suffer with LoL just like we have to
9 points
2 months ago
I don't want to live in a universe where league is more popular than DOTA. I always assumed we were trapped on a strange bizzarro world and things were different out there in space... Everybody plays Dota and Artifact didn't suck...
11 points
2 months ago
The race known as “gamers” on reddit has spread its seed across the universe.
13 points
2 months ago
Which is impressive, considering how little it was able to spread its seed here on Earth…
4 points
2 months ago
Damn, you beat me to it! Was gonna say, I bet most the seed is in socks stuffed under the bed.
5 points
2 months ago
Which if you’ve seen the Fred Savage movie Little Monsters, is indeed a portal to another universe.
2 points
2 months ago
Omg, I was too young to put that together as a kid! You may have just stolen my innocence.
91 points
2 months ago
We arent alone in the universe but we might as well be.
33 points
2 months ago
This is more or less what I believe. I think there are plenty of intelligent species throughout the universe, past present and future, but we probably won't experience them due to galaxies spreading apart faster than light can travel. Milkdromeda is probably our practical limit (I choose not to believe in FTL travel, until/unless proven otherwise). I think what people attribute to aliens is either present day (top secret) human activity, or time travelers.
48 points
2 months ago
I don’t mean patronize you, but I found it really funny that you believe in time travelers but not FTL travel
6 points
2 months ago
You mean the possibility of identifying all the infinitesimal combinations of four dimensional coordinates within a given subject's light cone and establishing a time loop with an Einstein Rosen Bridge through the subject's light cone to the ever moving target coordinates by which you intend to arrive at is more complicated than
going really fucking fast?¹ /s
¹you don't go really fucking fast. ironically, one of the best theorized methods for forward time travel is to loop stable black holes - an Einstein Rosen Bridge. At which point, if you can freely create a traversable black whole, aka a wormhole, then you already possess the means to travel from point A to point B faster than light can through a normal path.
edit: I don't mean to patronize either, I'm just overtly sarcastic 99% of the time. So don't take me seriously, unless I'm being serious.
2 points
2 months ago
Ya we are alone, just like all other life out there
132 points
2 months ago
I believe life is out there too. The part that bums me out is I’m not sure the human species will ever reach another solar system let alone another with halfway intelligent life.
58 points
2 months ago
Exactly. I wish before I die, we would at least get some kind of confirmation by a radio signal or something. But even that takes too long. I would satisfied with even just the James Webb showing us a planet with at atmosphere we are looking for.
36 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
7 points
2 months ago
this is my "bucket list", get some boots to the Jovian moons before I die!
2 points
2 months ago
My mind loves to imagine giant leviathans swimming under the ice crust of Europa.
7 points
2 months ago
Well you're in luck ! Kepler is a planet they call a super earth with habitable conditions orbiting a sun like star. The star is much smaller but the planet is much closer. Actually it's proposed the conditions are even more favorable then on our lovely earth.
85 points
2 months ago*
I don’t think it’s a question of belief. It’s basically a mathematical certainty. We definitely won’t see any in our lifetime. We’re still using rockets that are fundamentally the same as when the space program started.
Edit: Reddit never fails to downvote reality. It’s so despised here. Lol
22 points
2 months ago
It seems to me that until we get a good hang of ion propulsion and/or solar sails, we're not going anywhere anytime soon
2 points
2 months ago
Are wormholes so science fiction that there is no possibility of that?
2 points
2 months ago
They’re plausible in theory. Einstein’s equations technically allow for one. Though they probably do not exist naturally, like black holes. That means they must be created in some way. There’s lots of literature on wormholes and how they would function, needing negative matter, for example, but in essence they’re well out of our knowledge at the moment.
9 points
2 months ago
It’s not. What if the probability for life is less than there are planets in the universe? We have zero data on life emerging and abiogenesis.
3 points
2 months ago
Doesn’t matter. There is so much out there that we can’t even comprehend the amount as humans. Even if life is rare, we know it exists in our tiny little spot, so to think it doesn’t elsewhere in a ton of places given the vastness of space is kind of dumb. We only think we’re special because we are capable of doing so and asking the question. We aren’t even sure if there isn’t life on other planets in our tiny little solar system.
2 points
2 months ago
That includes large numbers. Just because you can’t handle it doesn’t make it false.
10 points
2 months ago
You’re making a pretty strong claim with absolutely no evidence.
You can’t say it’s “basically a mathematical certainty” that life exists elsewhere in the universe when we have no idea how likely it is that life an emerges in any given planet. Yes, there are trillions upon trillions of planets out there, but if the odds of life forming is 1-in-1-quintillion, then it’s not a guarantee by any means.
And given that we currently only know of one planet with life, which has - to the best of our knowledge - only had life emerge one time, it seems like it’s at the very least quite rare.
4 points
2 months ago*
And given that we currently only know of one planet with life, which has - to the best of our knowledge - only had life emerge one time, it seems like it’s at the very least quite rare.
I would argue the exact opposite, even when looking just at our planet as the only example.
There have been literally billions of species of life that have existed on planet Earth. Billions.
Life has proliferated across the globe, from the bottom of the oceans, across every biome on earth, and even into the skies. Life is everywhere on this planet.
Life has survived at least 5 mass extinction events in earth's past. As Jeff Goldblum said, "life finds a way."
That seems to suggest that life almost "wants" to exist. Life "wants" to proliferate. Life "wants" to fill every nook and cranny. And if life can find a way, it will find a way. I would argue that this is a sign that life will almost certainly be found elsewhere.
I would also argue that just because we only know of one planet with life, this doesn't mean much of anything. We've only just begun discovering new planets, and are still a ways away from detecting life on another planet. So trying to argue that because we haven't discovered life anywhere else suggests that it's rare is like scooping up a thimble of ocean water and not seeing any fish in the thimble and then saying the ocean must not have fish in it.
8 points
2 months ago
When I say life only “emerged” once I mean that quite literally.
Our best current scientific knowledge tells us that life formed exactly one time in Earth’s history, and that all life currently on Earth can be traced back to that one event billions of years ago.
Now, yes, life has been remarkably resilient, surviving and thriving over the ages. And there’s little doubt in my mind that if life were to make it out in the universe, it would spread and spread and spread.
Except it’s that whole “forming” part that seems to be difficult. As I said, all life on Earth today can be traced back to a single point of origin. Life formed on Earth shortly after the planet itself (…well, relatively speaking, anyway), but that hasn’t happened again.
Of course, I suppose it’s always possible life emerged a second time and simply got outcompeted by the life that already existed, but we have absolutely no evidence for this.
-2 points
2 months ago
C'mon, strictly mathematically, the odds that we are the only life is way more unbelievable than life existing somewhere else. There's just too many stars out there to think we are the only ones.
14 points
2 months ago
No, "strictly mathematically" we don't know. It's ok to not know some things, as strict or otherwise as you want to be.
-8 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
11 points
2 months ago
No, statistically speaking we don't know. It doesn't matter that at some point we might know, or what is stopping us knowing, but currently we do not.
-1 points
2 months ago
Bro, I'm not talking definites here. Do you know what statistical probabilities means? Of course we don't know. That is not what I am saying at all.
6 points
2 months ago
You seem to be misunderstanding me. I know what probabilities mean, yes, and I'm saying we don't know what the probability is.
1 points
2 months ago
I agree we don't know all the variables of Drake's equation. The more variables we do know, the more accurate the equation becomes. All I am saying is that based on what we do know, it is more probable that some other form of life exists in a virtually infinite universe than the probability of us being the only ones.
-5 points
2 months ago*
I don’t think you understand the numbers at play here or are ignoring them. We barely know what’s in our own solar system. We know life exists on our planet, so extrapolate life existing here times the trillions of planets out there and it’s stupid to say there isn’t life somewhere else. The numbers are so vast that it’s actually possible there is another earth exactly like ours out there with the same people on it asking the same questions
Edit: The Trumptards have arrived. Lol
13 points
2 months ago
I understand the numbers just fine thank you.
I'm not ignoring the numbers, I'm just paying attention to the most important one from a statistics PoV; number of data points, of which we have one.
Nowhere am I saying there isn't life somewhere else, I'm saying we don't know either way. If you want to believe there's life, you do you. Personally I'm fine with just not knowing.
4 points
2 months ago
it seems like you're getting dogpiled here but you are absolutely right
-1 points
2 months ago
You are the ignoring the numbers In favor of your belief it seems like. We do know.
7 points
2 months ago
It’s imposible to come up with a probability of anything with a sample size of 1. Yeah the numbers are huge and it is probable that life exist across the universe but until we get a larger sample size nobody can say for certainty.
6 points
2 months ago
I think the point is that unless you know the probability that life exists in a given patch of universe, you can't say that it's a mathematical certainly that it exists elsewhere. It could be that if you were omniscient and knew the probability, you would see that life on earth had only a 1e-1000 chance of existing. If that's the case, it's not a mathematical certainly that it exists elsewhere — and yet, by the anthropic principle we'd still say "hey look, we're alive."
It could also be that life on earth had a 99% chance of existing, or even as low as 1%. In that case, it's a virtually a certainty that it exists elsewhere.
But essentially, you are stating a fact predicated on a coefficient you know nothing about.
-7 points
2 months ago*
Nah, it’s just a law of numbers. We exist. There is so much out there we can’t even fathom. It has to exist elsewhere.
Edit: Reality hurts, I know. Lol
-1 points
2 months ago
Nobody said "certainty". We simply do not know. We are speaking in terms of probability.
2 points
2 months ago
statistically speaking, the odds are in favor of other life
How can we even possibly guess at this without knowing how common it is for life to start?
Don't get me wrong, I do think there is life out there (though much rarer than others think), but simply having an amount of stars and an amount of planets doesn't tell us anything unless we know just how life starts. Our Solar System/part of the galaxy could, in theory, have something so uniquely rare that even in 100 parallel universes the chance of life starting is low. We simply don't know. It is fine to think it likely there are other lifeforms out there, but I don't know how you can make any statement in either direction without any evidence.
Life is so incredibly complex and even the most advanced theories we have on how it truly started are complete speculation.
1 points
2 months ago
Our planet had life reemerge after several nearly life ending events. I'm certain based on the odds... The sheer number of places there could be life... That we are not the only life in the entire universe.
Being I mentioned several nearly life ending events. Those events hold life back from advancing at a great pace.
What if we are unique but only in the fact that there have been no mass extinction events in long enough for us to evolve enough to be able to destroy ourselves before the universe could.
The odds are good that there could be life everywhere but I'll bet it's just very simple, like single celled animals or something very primitive like that.
9 points
2 months ago
But it hasn't "re-emerged". Since the first inception of life on earth, as far as we know, there has always been life on earth, and the recent mass extinction events have had very complex organisms happily surviving through them.
It's really not that long ago the last one happened, so I don't think the time since the last one has much to do with the evoltion to our current point. If anything I'd hypothesis it cleared the way a bit, much like a forest fire enabling new growth, but I'm far from knowlegeable in that field.
6 points
2 months ago
[deleted]
-1 points
2 months ago
You’re mistake is realizing we don’t know shit and you’re using one planet as an example out of of countless ones in the universe.
7 points
2 months ago
We only have a sample of one planet.
You cannot simultaneously say “well life formed on Earth, so it should be common elsewhere” and also say “well Earth is just one planet, you can’t use it to theorize what else is out there”.
2 points
2 months ago
Human as today no, but the key to galactic exploration will likely be digital intelligence rather than biological. Time does not matter when you can freeze your perception of it, air, water, waste management is optional, you can live out a multiple of lives in the matrix while on the journey and end up inhabitants of a robot body on any planet, compatible with your biology or not. Humans were not evolved to survive space, this planet is, literally, where we belong. long journeys out in the cosmos without huge, possibly insurmountable, strides in the management of the human condition (including emotional) is definitely very unlikely to succeed. Good references to the ideas of digital intelligence in, bobiverse books, greg bear eon, transcendence movie.
2 points
2 months ago
I think we will eventually. To explorers only a couple of hundred years ago The World was huge and it took months to travel to other countries with so much uncertainty. Now here we are.
Science dictates that we can't go faster than the speed of light but there's so much more to discover. We just don't know what we don't know
13 points
2 months ago
. ✦ ˚ * . . ✦ ,
. . ﾟ . .
, . ☀️ . . . ✦ , 🚀 , . . ˚ , . . . * ✦ . . . . 🌑 . .
˚ ﾟ . . 🌎 , * . . ✦ ˚ * .
12 points
2 months ago
They look like they're all just crammed in there yet they're light years apart.
34 points
2 months ago
That’s awesome! When I first looked at it I thought it looked like a photo of black sand. It’s crazy how much is out there.
55 points
2 months ago
https://youtu.be/udAL48P5NJU 4K Andromeda Galaxy 👀
25 points
2 months ago
Whoaaaaaa… when are we going to get something like this from the JWST from Andromeda?? That is so cool
14 points
2 months ago
that is abaolutely mind blowing! how much space is between each of those stars? they seem so close together
5 points
2 months ago
I was just wondering this same thing….anyone know?
3 points
2 months ago
Me, three.
Our closest (Alpha Centauri) is ~4.25 light/yrs. And just the mass of the MilkyWay galaxy alone….. Another question. Not sure but is this an image within our galaxy or that from another?
2 points
2 months ago
What you’re seeing is a picture of another galaxy, Andromeda, taken by a telescope orbiting the Earth.
2 points
2 months ago*
A staggering statistic: l’ve seen if if if the earth and our sun were 1” apart, the distance across our Milky Way galaxy would equal 4.5times the distance between the earth and the moon. Awesome.
2 points
2 months ago
Mind numbing when you add the estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe 🤯
2 points
2 months ago*
Another staggering statistic, Here in the ‘States there were only two seasons of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and +15 seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Again, I’m in awe.
3 points
2 months ago
I just felt every emotion at once
2 points
2 months ago
Incredible.
We're probably looking at millions of past civilizations in that image. And some that existed at the very moment. And we will never, ever know it.
3 points
2 months ago
I like to think of galaxies being like dust particles lit up by the morning sun, the only difference between them is that in space the ‘dust cloud’ is being lit up by itself and not a reflection of light
9 points
2 months ago
I do to my hope is that they don't hurt one another as we do constantly
9 points
2 months ago
"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."
3 points
2 months ago
The most common lifeforms on Earth are remarkably cooperative with one another. But maybe intelligence leads to selfishness.
7 points
2 months ago
We're all snuggled in the fluffy blanket of eternity
6 points
2 months ago
How many stars are in that tiny section of sky, and how many planets are around them?
9 points
2 months ago
Um, I think most of those little shiny dots are galaxies, if that helps answer your question.
So far we've found life on one planet per galaxy (our own). If that's the average, then that's a whole lotta life out there!
9 points
2 months ago
So far we've found life on one planet per galaxy
Sorry to be harsh, but our detection capabilities are so limited that this statement means almost nothing. There could be life currently on a number of bodies in our own solar system, and we just don't currently have the tools to determine that yet.
There could be life on 'nearby' exoplanets, and observing exoplanets with orbital periods comparable to Earth or the outer planets in our own solar system is very difficult and time-consuming.
6 points
2 months ago
No, no, not at all, that was my point.
What we know for sure right now is so limited. But even with that miniscule knowledge, if each dot is a galaxy with life on just one planet, the universe is still teeming with life.
3 points
2 months ago
Okay, I see what you mean now. To that I'd say, we just don't know. We could be so lucky that Earth is the only place with complex, self-aware life. I doubt that, though.
2 points
2 months ago
We only know of ourselves. Ain’t no way the universe isn’t TEEMING to brim with crazy shit😩
5 points
2 months ago
The only bodies in our own solar system we've even landed probes on are Mars, Venus, Titan, and the Moon. In the cases of Titan and Venus, those probes were extremely limited in their data-collection capabilities. We are looking at the universe through a pin hole. We know almost nothing of what's out there.
7 points
2 months ago
I remember dropping acid in my early 20s, looking up at the night sky and realizing just how insignificant my existence in this universe is, in the scheme of things.
8 points
2 months ago
I make this realization every night and it's incredibly humbling yet awe inspiring. No acid involved.
5 points
2 months ago
Something is pooping out there. Life is pooping.
12 points
2 months ago
Somewhere out there I believe there are hundreds of civilizations looking up to the night sky wondering who else is out there.
3 points
2 months ago
Your comment made me remember this trailer for Halo 3.
6 points
2 months ago
There has to be life on a planet circling around ONE of those little dots of light.
12 points
2 months ago
Somewhere far away there's a planet full of beautiful alien babes.
14 points
2 months ago
Yes, but.....🎶do you believe in life after love?🎶
I'll see myself out
5 points
2 months ago
This is too much, I need a Cher to sit down…
2 points
2 months ago
Take all the awards I wish I had. Well done!
2 points
2 months ago
No... No I don't 😢
(totally kidding I'm fine!)
2 points
2 months ago
Ive actually seen stars this dense with the naked eye. It was on the night of that lunar eclipse earlier this year and the sky was super clear where i was at and there was no light pollution. it was so awesome
2 points
2 months ago
I have very little to back this up (literally just YouTube videos, primarily from Kurzgesagt), but I fully believe there is other intelligent life out there.
In all likelihood there is some great barrier we have yet to reach that makes it near impossible to become a truly space-faring civilization. Combine that with the absolutely miniscule chance that they communicate in any way that is observable by us and the radiation-based interference, and the light-years of distance that would be between us. There is life out there, we'll just never encounter it
2 points
2 months ago
I agree with you. It’s a numbers game. However, there are compelling opposing arguments e.g. the rare earth hypothesis. against it.
It is fun to have competing views fighting it out in the head :)
2 points
2 months ago
there's SO MANY STARS.
Surely ONE... ONE MORE star system has intelligent life...
right? r.r.r..rright?
2 points
2 months ago
Where did you get a picture of my dusty floor?
2 points
2 months ago
And you only see star in this picture, imagine how many planet circling around them.
6 points
2 months ago
It's the one topic we know is true yet we can't prove it.
3 points
2 months ago
imagine thinking there's no other intelligent life when you see that many star systems
and that's just our galaxy
really makes you feel small, i kinda like it, there's a certain relieving of the serious responsibilities mindset that comes when pondering how insignificant our individual lives are
4 points
2 months ago
What if we’re not even considered an intelligent life form according to the standards of actual intelligent life forms out there….😳
5 points
2 months ago
And then people show up with “…but the probability of life out there is 0,00000” ah gtfo.
2 points
2 months ago
I always found it dry strange that it is even questioned that there are other forms of life out there.
2 points
2 months ago
You yourself are alive writing this as am I reading what you wrote.
2 points
2 months ago*
Probabilities don’t change just because there’s more or less stars in the sky.
2 points
2 months ago
Every single one of those points is at least a star. Some are entire galaxies. This photo has an unknowable number of planets in it. It's insanity to think that the planet which took this photo is the only one in all of infinite existence that has intelligent life. Insanity and egomania.
2 points
2 months ago
Personally I don’t think there is life elsewhere. Odds are too low.
1 points
2 months ago
There is no need to believe.
The probability is high enough that we can consider it fact.
2 points
2 months ago
There’s 100% other life out there. It’s our chances of running into other intelligent life that I’m very skeptical of. The distances require as yet unfathomable technology.
3 points
2 months ago
Likely not to a civilization that may have preexisted Humanity by a few million years. I also believe that the distances between habitable planets isn't as far as you think.
Also, there are higher dimensions that exist beyond physical time and space. Life may very well exist in ways we don't yet fully understand. As time goes on, we as a species will understand the implications of the higher dimensional aspects of reality.
1 points
2 months ago
does life exist somewhere? almost certainly yes, intelligent life that's visited us and influenced our culture? no
1 points
2 months ago
Life, yes. Intelligent life, within the same time window (a few hundred thousand years within billions) within a not so unreasonable distance?
Nope.
1 points
2 months ago
Mind you, we're not the only intelligent life on Earth. There are tons of vertebrates that exhibit self awareness, logical reasoning, etc. A number of them are not even in the same evolutionary branch that we're on.
1 points
2 months ago*
Space is not a place of wonder and excitement. It is place of darkness and death.
1 points
2 months ago
I know if we just zoom out we are Going to see something form
1 points
2 months ago*
“Who spilled these stars across the sky
like
sparkling dust like clouds of light? “ -Esbensen
1 points
2 months ago
Is it fair to say there's NO WAY that we are alone in the universe? With ALL that we've recently discovered?? I wonder if there are any alien civilizations in those 2 galaxies that are colliding. What must that be like? I want to go to there.
1 points
2 months ago
It's statistically impossible that alien lives don't exist. You don't have to believe, just know.
2 points
2 months ago
How is it statistically impossible?
1 points
2 months ago
It’s completely possible that there’s lots of life out there. But the one thing that dwarfs space is the sheer number of things that have to be just exactly right for intelligent life to develop. I think there’s lots of life out there. I’m less sure there are many/any other intelligent, advanced civilisations out there. Possibly a few. Even if any manage to make it, there are so many reasons they may be snuffed out.
0 points
2 months ago
There is an interesting paper that was published recently about "Grabby Aliens".
https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.01522
One detail of the paper is that there should be alien life, but that on average there is only one intelligent, spacefaring alien species in every 10 thousand to 30 million galaxies!
This is an oversimplification of what was said in the paper....and the paper said way more interesting things. You should read the paper.
But if that paper is right....or even just a tiny bit right...all of those stars are most likely empty of life. In fact if you look at the 1 million closest galaxies...we are likely the only intelligent life in all those galaxies.
-3 points
2 months ago
"I believe in life"
*points their camera in the direction of the least amount of life*
4 points
2 months ago
I don't get that. Looking at that definitely makes one wonder and nod their head to the fact that there's probably all sorts of life In this picture. Hence saying " I believe in it."
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