Best images from Hubble: Prepare to be amazed

epictring · 2013-01-29T16:21:31+00:00

After looking at these real photos, you realise more and more that everything is possible - even beyond our wildest dreams. http://photos.uk.msn.com/slideshow/photos/hubble-space-telescope-images/2x7z7t6k#1

ezietsman

aja wrote
ez wrote
In other news, the Kepler mission's current estimates gives the milky way alone more than 100 000 000 000 planets and probably more than 1 000 000 000 earth-sized ones.

We are not alone.
I do not see the link...

If you are living in a vast desert and you have not seen any traces of any other human at all, would you suddenly say: "Well, I am here alone and I have no evidence to support that there are any other people in this desert, but it is really big so therefore there must be other people in this big desert as well."

Using a logical argument based on fuzzy information does not necessarily lead to a correct solution. Often, the solution is not logical. This type of thinking gets us into trouble all the time, for example see "aether"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

Turns out all vast deserts on Earth has multiple peoples living in it ?

wirt

aja wrote
ez wrote
In other news, the Kepler mission's current estimates gives the milky way alone more than 100 000 000 000 planets and probably more than 1 000 000 000 earth-sized ones.

We are not alone.
I do not see the link...

If you are living in a vast desert and you have not seen any traces of any other human at all, would you suddenly say: "Well, I am here alone and I have no evidence to support that there are any other people in this desert, but it is really big so therefore there must be other people in this big desert as well."

Hmm, not quite. If I might tweak your analogy a bit:
If you lived in a vast desert but have seen no other human life at all, you could say that "I have seen no other human life in this desert, but the fact that I am in this desert proves that it is possible. In fact, I have explored only a fragment of a percentage of a fraction of this desert, and it's entirely possible that there are others living where I have not yet explored."

I agree that there is no proof of anything, but if humanity has learned anything of life is it's capability to spring up from anywhere. We have bacteria growing on nuclear control rods by Thor, you could not make a more hostile environment if you tried. But do I have hope of finding this life and communicating with it at all? Absolutely not, sadly.

babbalute

Hostile environment for the bacterie ? it couldn't live there if it was hostile. In our eyes and narrow (human)mind we call it hostile. As for the Universe of whatever one wants to call it we have absolutly no idea how big it is, if it ends somewhere or not, what it contains (that include possible other life in any form, number of stars, black holes, nebula's, etc). Maybe ones we know what "nothing" is or consist of we will have concurred all knowledge ? Just an observation. (Even nothing e.g. in a vacuum or under exstreem hihg pressure is still something as it is somewhere, either inside or on top, (like cremora (lol), below at the edge of something or elswere. Simply try and understand if there was nothing..... what does it represent, how does it look like etc.? Hubble and other telescope pics are fantistic, none of us humans could ever paint or picture or compose this. Journy of a lifetime could be travelling in any direction in space imagine what kind of music we would have composed, if we could ever bring back home.

BMU

ez wrote
BMU wrote Is it just me, or can one actually SEE the gravity lensing around this one? I'm going to pretend that's it and proceed to be very highly excited. Damn that's cool. Space bends people! It really bends, it's mind blowing.
I don't think that one is real.

Yah I figured. That's why I chose to ignore the probable truth and get excited about it anyway. Imagination, wonderful thing HAHA.

Re. the 'we are not alone' debate - why argue. Whatever case it is, it's interesting. If the universe is this big and empty, it'll be fascinating to understand why. If it's full of life, that's obviously fascinating too.

It's win-win!

(Except if they come here with their ray guns "We are your friends KAKAKAKKA" Pew! pew! ARRGGGHHHH! Blood-pain-death.)

That wouldn't be so much win-win. ?

Personally I lean slightly towards: the universe is full of life but the distances are so great it really doesn't matter. None of us will ever meet each other.

Bob-Dubery

wirt wrote Hmm, not quite. If I might tweak your analogy a bit:
If you lived in a vast desert but have seen no other human life at all, you could say that "I have seen no other human life in this desert, but the fact that I am in this desert proves that it is possible. In fact, I have explored only a fragment of a percentage of a fraction of this desert, and it's entirely possible that there are others living where I have not yet explored."

I agree that there is no proof of anything, but if humanity has learned anything of life is it's capability to spring up from anywhere. We have bacteria growing on nuclear control rods by Thor, you could not make a more hostile environment if you tried. But do I have hope of finding this life and communicating with it at all? Absolutely not, sadly.

This subject was touched on in the episode of QI shown last night. In the 1880s a British explorer in the Artic stumbed upon a tribe of Eskimos. There were about 200 of them. They were very isolated and had no idea that there were other human beings. They thought they were it until they encountered the expedition party. Their isolation was such that they had, for example, no idea of extracting metals from ores.

Interestingly they had metal implements. These were formed from shavings taken from a meteorite that they had stumbled upon and that was largely metallic.

lindsmuse

'If I might add to the awesome already on this thread:
http://www.solarsystemscope.com/ Since Lindsmuse said something about a model, this is one of the better ones to be found. (Set view to geocentric and zoom in to earth, set planets and distances to scale in settings, then zoom out really, really slowly for the ultimate in mindf***ingness)'

This is fantastic Wirt - just had to put the music off after a while - what a presentation!

vic

Mannemarak wrote ...scientifically, we are an 'accident', right amount of everything at the correct time. On the other side of that coin, the shear scale of everything suggest that we CANNOT be alone.

...religiously, what is the point of all the other places if it is just us...why build a 20 story mansion if you are a single person that needs no more than 3 or 4 rooms.

I do not want to go into any discussion here to get anyone upset, everyone can think to themselves what they want, those pics made me think...

See the Drake equation....

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There's another take on the Drake equation

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