The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

[Blzer]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Did anyone get to see Mars tonight? It was at it's closest point to Earth in 15 years.

It was beautiful. Just a huge red ball of light in the southern sky.

Is it no longer visible outside? I'm in California right now.

[Dave_S]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Is it no longer visible outside? I'm in California right now.

You can see Mars tonight by looking to the southwestern sky. Weather permitting, Mars will be visible low on the southwestern horizon, with the moon shining to the upper left. Saturn will also be visible, as shown in the map below


It's not like super huge, I think the moon still looks like 75x bigger. It's easy to spot in the sky without light pollution.

[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

You can see Mars tonight by looking to the southwestern sky. Weather permitting, Mars will be visible low on the southwestern horizon, with the moon shining to the upper left. Saturn will also be visible, as shown in the map below


It's not like super huge, I think the moon still looks like 75x bigger. It's easy to spot in the sky without light pollution.

Yeah Mars has been one of the things that just draws your attention lately when you are outside here. You can't really miss it unless your view is blocked or have a lot of light pollution. Its hard to believe that men are from there, and women are from Venus but i will take their word for it.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Yeah Mars has been amazing for weeks now. My buddy got to see it from the beach in Florida a couple weeks ago. He texted me and asked if there was a giant red star that was supposed to be in the sky lol.

[Dave_S]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Tried to get a picture.

[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Tried to get a picture.

That's actually really cool.

Here is mine. You seed a Samsung S9 phone and use the digital zoom. Sorry about the blurriness i took it out the window with my left hand while eating Taco Bell driving down the freeway.

[steelerfan]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

[emoji38][emoji38][emoji38][emoji38]

Very nice!

[Dave_S]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I took a picture of the moon also. Never tried before, pretty happy with it. Used a Canon EOS Rebel T5i

[pietasterp]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

We've had socked-in clouds/fog every night so I haven't gotten to see anything. Sucks.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I have some theories as to why we haven't made contact other than the obvious theories out there.

So I was just thinking, what if there was never a mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs? They would most likely still be here. Obviously way more evolved but not as an intelligent civilization. So what does this say about other possible alien life? If on other earth like planets, this type of life developed meaning the dinosaurs, there could be billions of planets that simply have that type of life if there was never a mass extinction event.

And to the opposite, how many planets with intelligent civilizations were wiped out by a mass extinction event. It's probably a lot.

Of hand, I believe a supernova will basically vaporize everything in a 40 Light year radius. Supernova's are pretty common so just think how many civilizations have been instantly vaporized.

We are actually really lucky. We live in the suburbs. Nothing really remarkable about where we are. The closest star to us other than the sun will never become a supernova.

And the stars within 40 light years won't be going supernova any time soon.

The one thing we do have to worry about is a rogue gamma ray burst, and also asteroids. So I guess that's a good trade off.

Most cosmologists believe life is everywhere because of the models show that life seems to take hold very quickly on planets like ours. Obviously these are just models. But it makes you wonder how many planets that have or had life suffer a devastating fate before it can really ever take hold like we have.

Thus making contact a bit trickier.

[Dave_S]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I don't think there will ever be contact because I can't imagine there will ever be a type 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale.

If there is contact it will be from different dimension and not from distant space.

Don't hold me to any of this.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I don't think there will ever be contact because I can't imagine there will ever be a type 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale.

If there is contact it will be from different dimension and not from distant space.

Don't hold me to any of this.

I think it's possible for there to be type 2's out there. But 3 and 4. That's probably pushing it.

I don't think we will ever even get to type 1 though. Unless we somehow avoid mass extinction.

As far as other dimensions, I also believe that's possible. If the multiverse exists then it would stand to reason there would be life there. In fact, I just read an article not long ago about how we think life is billions of times more common in the multiverse than we originally thought. That's the theory anyway.

[Mabster]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Mars Curiosity rover turned 6 today.

[BurghFan]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Mars Curiosity rover turned 6 today.

Still just a youngster compared to 14 1/2 year old Opportunity

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

https://gizmodo.com/new-horizons-spacecraft-sees-hydrogen-wall-at-the-end-o-1828258683

Nice. Oort cloud, here we come.