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

[PVarck31]

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

I present to you our future home, K2-18B.

https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2020/3/1/new-study-on-super-earth-k2-18b-shows-promising-results-it-might-be-capable-of-harboring-life

[Caulfield]

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

I present to you our future home, K2-18B.

https://www.universal-sci.com/headli...harboring-life

Me: ‘‘nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there.’’


Them (seeing us arrive): ‘‘there goes the neighbourhood.’’

[PVarck31]

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

Just got back in from some star gazing with my telescope. Wanted to find M47 which is an open star cluster at about 11 o'clock from Sirius and found it pretty easily. It's hard to miss. You can't see anything there with the naked eye unless you are in very dark skies. But as soon as I looked through my eyepiece, bam, tons of stars. I was using a wide-field eyepiece. With my kind of telescope and that eyepiece I saw about 50 stars clumped together. It was awesome.

Then I observed the moon for a while with a higher power eyepiece to look at some of the features up close. It's breathtaking no matter how many times you do it.

M47 looked a lot like this through my telescope minus some of the background stars.

[Blzer]

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

I present to you our future home, K2-18B.

https://www.universal-sci.com/headli...harboring-life

I think this planet was classified as a gas giant without a surface, though. It may be able to sustain life, but not human life (not saying we'd be traveling there anyway).

Anyway, that article had a misspelling, and I closed out of it after reading that part, heh. Being over a week old and not editing itself by that point takes away its reputability, not saying it's not sharing what other sites are sharing but still.

I love these discoveries nonetheless.

[PVarck31]

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

I think this planet was classified as a gas giant without a surface, though. It may be able to sustain life, but not human life (not saying we'd be traveling there anyway).

Anyway, that article had a misspelling, and I closed out of it after reading that part, heh. Being over a week old and not editing itself by that point takes away its reputability, not saying it's not sharing what other sites are sharing but still.

I love these discoveries nonetheless.

NASA originally categorized it as a super Earth or mini-Neptune. But recently, new information is pointing to a possibly rocky super Earth.

[PVarck31]

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

NASA originally categorized it as a super Earth or mini-Neptune. But recently, new information is pointing to a possibly rocky super Earth.

Check out this video about it. This guy is great. If you are into this stuff, he does videos about astronomy daily. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0hKZ0RRQ9Ok" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[BurghFan]

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

Thought I remembered some of you talking about the Bortles rating for light pollution in this thread, but maybe it was a different thread. Anyway, today's astronomy picture of the day has a nice visual representation of it.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

[PVarck31]

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

I think I mentioned it in maybe the most recent purchase thread. I know I did somewhere.

Anyway, my location is classified a Bortle 5. Can't really see any of the Milky Way, but on a really dark night I can see some of the Zodiacal light.

I honestly think I border very close to Bortle 4 because it can get pretty dark. Clouds usually aren't brighter than the sky.

The good thing about any of the classes, save for 9ish, is that deep sky objects such as galaxy's, nebulae, and star clusters are still able to bee seen with a good enough telescope and eyepiece. Obviously you can see less and less the higher you go up the scale when it comes to visual astronomy, but astrophotography, with the right equipment can give some amazing views.

I was actually gonna come in here and post this, last night I got to see Venus for the first time in my new 8 inch Dobsonion, and it was amazing. It's in it's last quarter phase going into it's crescent phase, and I was able to see the shadow that is still covering it. Glad I got to see it before it's phase ended. It was breathtaking.

Planet season is coming soon. In July, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars will be around 45 degrees in the southern sky and they will be so close that for a short time you will be able to see Jupiter and Saturn in the same FOV through the same eyepiece at the same time. That will be historic.

[PVarck31]

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

New paper says there are at least 36 intelligent alien civilizations in the Milky Way. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamieca.../#18b0f959694f

However, there is always a kicker, they are around 17,000ly away from each other. Meaning none of them can communicate. Which explains why we haven't found anyone.

[Jr.]

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

New paper says there are at least 36 intelligent alien civilizations in the Milky Way. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamieca.../#18b0f959694f

However, there is always a kicker, they are around 17,000ly away from each other. Meaning none of them can communicate. Which explains why we haven't found anyone.

And also makes a lot of assumptions, so the distance is far from the only reason we haven't found them

[TripleCrown9]

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

I'm personally not going to watch the entire video, but NASA released a 10-year timelapse of the Sun in the form of a 1-hour video.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9lTtrcSe-Hc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[PVarck31]

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

And also makes a lot of assumptions, so the distance is far from the only reason we haven't found them

For sure. This is definitely not proof that intelligent life exists in the universe.

It's really just a reworking of the Drake Equation using modern statistics and a potential answer to the Fermi Paradox.

But it is fun to think about how it could be true.

[Blzer]

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

We gotta crack the negative energy problem and learn how to create wormholes. After that we gotta know where to go.

We're still over several hundred years away from even the thought of that, I'm sure.

[PVarck31]

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

We gotta crack the negative energy problem and learn how to create wormholes. After that we gotta know where to go.

We're still over several hundred years away from even the thought of that, I'm sure.

The recent theories on wormholes is yes, we need negative energy, which can possibly be generated by quantum mechanics, But this might be a waste of time and effort because we now think even if we could travel through one it wouldn't save us any time.

[PVarck31]

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

Look at the moon and Mars is just above it shining bright read. Beautiful.