Starship Asterisk*

Avalon wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2024 2:40 am What kind of explanation is "before" not having any meaning in the context of the universe? The entire illustration is a timeline of the universe.

That doesn't mean there's a "before". That word is pretty hard to define when time doesn't exist.

True enough, given SF-levels of engineering. With 0.01 to 0.1 C being the fastest a realistic vessel can move in the real univese, given the limits of real engineering, relativistic tiime compression inside the vessel isn't much of a factor. And you're entirely correct about the travellers not havi...

So, so many questions. What IS outside of time, like before the BB? How is it that humans existed for millions of years and the formation of cities only during the last 10,000 years? Were they without any intelligence or social skills before that? How convinced are we about the Theia event? How are...

Sure, but it must be possible to compare the two opposing forces operating between my two protons. But I suppose in retrospect, that in isolated space, it would take much more than a 1 meter spatial separation for dark energy to overcome the mutual attraction between them. I'm still interested in t...

There are fairly good theoretical engineering designs for space-craft, mainly City-farms with sustainable populations of inhabitants - "generation ships" - that could travle at speeds ranging up to one tenth of the speed of light. At that incredible speed, this galaxy is " only "...

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_240621.jpg Hubble's NGC 1546 A member of the Dorado galaxy group , the island universe lies a mere 50 million light-years away. There are fairly good theoretical engineering designs for space-craft, mainly City-farms with sustainable populations of inhabitants ...

So this question just occurred to me: how much weaker (or stronger) is dark energy compared to gravity? Say, given two protons separated by a meter, how does their mutual attraction due to gravity compare to the dark energy expansion force due to the spatial separation between them? "Stronger&...

"Dark energy overtakes gravity." Is this because gravity was universally weak at this stage due to less matter? I am not sure what exactly this statement really implies. What would be the difference between the Universe with no dark energy and the Universe after dark energy "overtook...

"Dark energy overtakes gravity." Is this because gravity was universally weak at this stage due to less matter? I am not sure what exactly this statement really implies. What would be the difference between the Universe with no dark energy and the Universe after dark energy "overtook...

What do you mean by being "in principle observable"? (assuming the "dark ages" was the period of time from the BB to about 380,000 years when photons were freed to travel) Electromagnetic radiation isn't the only medium we have for observation. Gravity waves (which we are increa...

Really, now? We don't know if there was a big bang, it is a hypothesis without any evidence to support it. We have no idea what is this "inflation", except we know it must have violated all assumptions that are the foundation of modern physics. We have no idea how things were in the part ...

Spoiler! I was giving our math challenged friend an opportunity to work that out. Yeah, thanks... But thank you, Johnny, for working it out for me. Ann And quite coincidentally, I'm sure, 0.5° is almost exactly how "wide" the Moon appears in Earth's skies! (PS - I suspect Ann is not nearl...

Really, now? We don't know if there was a big bang, it is a hypothesis without any evidence to support it. We have no idea what is this "inflation", except we know it must have violated all assumptions that are the foundation of modern physics. We have no idea how things were in the part ...

Syringa vulgaris wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 2:59 pm The honest answer is, we don't know. We have some conjectures, but most of these are just that.

We don't know what? The vast majority of stuff on the spiral we know with a high degree of confidence due to robust evidence.

"Within a few billion years, atoms formed," while technically correct, is somewhat misleading. Unless JADES-GS-z14-0 is made up of something other than atoms? The failure is the lack of a comma after "Within a few billion years" in the caption. A problem you have corrected here,...

Humans first appeared only about 6 million years ago, ... That’s a rather broad definition of “human.” 6 million years ago is when our lineage split from the chimpanzee/bonobo lineage, so this definition would include Australopithecus and Ardipithecus. I’ll take it, though. Probably would be better...

My computer was acting up yesterday, and I dislike using my mobile phone to comment on Starship Asterisk*, so I decided not to even try to comment. But I have a stupid amateur question. If the Earth was seen rising over the Moon, shouldn't the Earth also be seen to slowly rotate? Well, yes, the Ear...

My computer was acting up yesterday, and I dislike using my mobile phone to comment on Starship Asterisk*, so I decided not to even try to comment. But I have a stupid amateur question. If the Earth was seen rising over the Moon, shouldn't the Earth also be seen to slowly rotate? Well, yes, the Ear...

The Earth doesn't rise over the Moon unless the camera is moving. The video shows the camera as stationary. Bad video. The Moon is tidal lock to the Earth. That means the Earth's position is fixed at the same azimuth and zenith. To get the Earth to rise, the camera must be moving toward the Earth. ...

It should also be noted that "AI" as the term is usually used is merely a subcategory of Machine Learning, which is now essential to all branches of scientific research (including astronomy). Technically, ML is a subcategory of AI, the one that used to be called "statistics" and...

Well, with all due respect to NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, the whole thing seems a bit synthetic to me. Come on now, give our "AI" overlords some room for mild hallucinations. They had to generate quite a lot of frames in between shots to make it look smooth, and they had to inte...

Thanks. Who are the folks in our government who should be promoting and lobbying for an improved early detection system? NASA? Homeland Security? Other? Sadly, in the press of more immediate alligators nipping at our leaders' ears, projects such as this too often get lost in the shuffle. It's only ...

Thanks. Any information about a timetable (and/or funding) for such a space-based detection system? The closest for now is ESA's NEOMIR, which is still in the early stages and not guaranteed to happen. And it's not a complete warning system, but more of a supplement to existing ones in that it shou...

Thanks, Chris. Let's hope we never need to use it. I forget the title of the film that dealt with this topic, but, as I recall, it struck me as being perhaps a bit too close to reality for comfort regarding the way people reacted to the situation. Until we have a fully space-based detection system,...

Thanks, Chris; that's helpful. It's far from clear (to me at least) how the 13-day early warning (16 June - 29 June) might have been used had the asteroid been on a collision course with a heavily populated area. Are you aware of preexisting plans that might have been implemented? Can't help wonder...