Starship Asterisk*

Art, you might as well ask him if he has his towel with him, too. I thought it was a better question than: "What does the T stand for?" (Ann could tell you it should be: "For what does the T stand.") No, it should be, "What stand the T for?" :wink: Like bystander, I to...

I hope I won't break any rules with this post, but if I do, I ask bystander or someone else in charge to delete it. I grew up with people with very strong beliefs. When I was eight I was told that many of them waited for the end of the world, which they believed was imminent. My grandfather was one ...

Wow-wow-wow!!! Look at that Crater Lake Panorama with star reflections in the lake!!!! A-mazing!!!

Ann

That's a wonderful image, Luc Perrot! And thank you for describing all the work that went into taking it!

Ann

I am very interested in dark energy. Is Dr. Bonnell involved in any research about that? Does he have any particular thoughts about dark energy? Astronomy and astrophysics have made huge strides in recent years and recent decades. What breakthroughs and discoveries have been the most interesting, ac...

Please leave religion, or lack thereof, out of the discussion, Rule #14. Sorry, bystander. I was out of line. Religion aside, does anyone know how much support the Big Bounce hypothesis (which postulates that our universe is going to undergo collapse and then rise again, phoenix-like, from the ashe...

Using the distance light must have traveled to light up the inner ring as the base of a right angle triangle, and the angular size as seen from the Earth for the local angle, one can use basic trigonometry to calculate the distance to SN1987A, which is about 168,000 light-years That's great! Then w...

In retrospect, somebody probably ought to have asked themselves where all the entropy of the incoming universe would go during the process, but there are all sorts of ways to think around the Second Law of Thermodynamics if you really want to. If you really want to... that's pretty much my point, H...

I have been following the discussion about the fate of the universe for a much longer time than astronomers have known about the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. I know that there is a hardcore lot out there who have been around for a long time, and who want to live in a "bouncing...

Although the weird scale of things is confusing, I love how this image truly brings out how the Earth appears to be "suspended" in space, how there is really no up and down (please note that the image must have been taken from the Southern hemisphere) and how space is there all around us. ...

I never met a weapon i did'nt like Ronald Regan ( 1989 )

Well, the man was shot once, and he could have been killed. Was he trying to say that he didn't mind turning the other cheek?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Gua ... gan372.jpg

Ann

It's a good thing humanity invented the wheel, eh?



Ann

Hmmmm, solar photography has picked up, so that the Sun tends to look more interesting in recent pictures. And hey, that first one was taken by P-M Hedén, a fellow Swede! :mrgreen: What about the yellow background of his Sun image? It's okay with me, because it brings home the realization that the c...

I get it! Iota Geminorum is a Hostess Glo-ball! Look at that orange surface and the depleted white-out center!

Run for your lives! Next stop, ummmm... Titan?

Ann

And to think that Venus used to be classified as a habitable planet. Is it still classified as such? Chris just said that there are five habitable planets in our solar system. Apart from the Earth and Mars, which has not been proved to be a completely dead world, which would the other three be? Euro...

According to Star Trek canon, tribbles are native to the planet Iota Geminorum IV. It's because it marks the spot where Pollux and Castor hold hands, right? Iota Geminorum: Trigonometric parallax: 25.90 +/- 0.91 milliarcseconds Proper motion in RA: -121.28 +/- 1.40 milliarcseconds/year Proper motio...

Chris wrote: It sort of makes sense that technology develops exponentially, while biological change is basically linear. Makes it hard to survive if a species develops god-like power while possessing a fairly primitive system of thinking and acting. I also think this is the best explanation for why...

Well they are intelligent, right? I mean, would you go to a sparcely populated part of a large city, a down and out area where gunfire is heard every night, and start yelling, "Here I am! I just want to say Hi!" One of those super intelligent ETs did try to communicate with us once but he...

"... in the nearby Milky Way Galaxy" indeed. And how close to Earth would that galaxy be? Yeah, what's with these sentences? "Visible in the background are a few water clouds a few kilometers away hovering over the nearby Earth. Visible well beyond that are thousands of individually ...

Yup, the rocks look fake, even though they aren't, but that's the way they appear: http://www.timhaufphotography.com/gallery/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/Utah/BryceCanyon1_lg.jpg http://www.timhaufphotography.com/gallery/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/Utah/BryceCanyon_lg.jpg http://www.timhaufphotography.c...

Once again, a set of captivating and (to me at least) beautiful images. Dark Dunes and (especially) Dust Fans look like art, and I think a good case for Layered Deposits, too. bystander, thank you for posting these, and all of the HiRISE series! I love these images. I don't know why they strike a c...

I did the Drake Equation interactive too and got 8 communicating civilizations in our galaxy. I slashed the average number of habitable planets for each star from 2 to 0.1. I think even that may be on high side. I did away with much of the intelligence and the communication, too. I got one. I stuck...

It might be interesting to see what values each of us who are interested in this discussion get when they run the Drake Equation interactive . Mine works out to 798,400 -- a bit on the high side compared to most of you, I imagine. That's mainly because I'm optimistic about the life span of an intel...

It might be interesting to see what values each of us who are interested in this discussion get when they run the Drake Equation interactive . Mine works out to 798,400 -- a bit on the high side compared to most of you, I imagine. That's mainly because I'm optimistic about the life span of an intel...

Thanks for the link to the hypothesis about the Titan-like haze enveloping young Earth, bystander. I note, however, that Titan itself doesn't appear to be particularly warm. I haven't even heard that it is significantly warmer than most other Saturnian moons, despite its cosy covering of haze. Could...