Space and The wonders/mysteries of The Universe

Can't go wrong with Douglas Adams.

This looks like it may be good: an online documentary channel, $3/month. Unfortunately they seem to NOT be tapping into the best that BBC and PBS has to offer and making much of their own content. I say making their own content is unfortunate because it's being made by the founder of the Discovery channel, which is pretty watered-down fare compared to the Beeb and PBS. But still, documentaries at a very fine price.

https://app.curiositystream.com

I have been watching a few new youtube channels recently, some dealing with religion and pitting eminent personalities against each other and others (like secular talk) that just pick things they like/don't like and explain why.

Got me thinking (again) about philosophical rubbish and trying to work out how there can never have been a beginning of 'stuff' and that something in some reality must have always been there in some form or another.

I wonder if humans will ever get to a point of knowing how that all works!

Probably not. But at least we got some good origin story imagery out of it.

Lancebloke wrote:I have been watching a few new youtube channels recently, some dealing with religion and pitting eminent personalities against each other and others (like secular talk) that just pick things they like/don't like and explain why.

Got me thinking (again) about philosophical rubbish and trying to work out how there can never have been a beginning of 'stuff' and that something in some reality must have always been there in some form or another.

I wonder if humans will ever get to a point of knowing how that all works!

that's a good question, reality, there must have always been stuff or reality wouldn't have existed.

In short words, auroras are colorful lights in the night time sky primarily appearing in Earth's polar regions. But what causes them? The culprit behind aurora is our own Sun and the solar plasma that is ejected during a magnetic event like a flare or a coronal mass ejection. This plasma travels outward along with the solar wind and when it encounters Earth's magnetic field, it travels down the field lines that connect at the poles. Atoms in the plasma interacts with atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere.

So, auroras are caused by collisions between fast-moving particles (electrons) from space and the oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere.
These electrons originate in the magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by Earth’s magnetic field.
As they rain into the atmosphere, the electrons impart energy to oxygen and nitrogen molecules, making them excited. When the molecules return to their normal state, they release photons, small bursts of energy in the form of light.

When billions of these collisions occur and enough photons are released, the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere emit enough light for the eye to detect them. This ghostly glow can light up the night sky in a dance of colors. But since the aurora is much dimmer than sunlight, it cannot be seen from the ground in the daytime.

Cool computer graphic.

One thing they don't explain, which is kinda cool, is that the charged particles actually go spiralling around the magnetic field lines; and follow them to the poles. Since the lines become compressed at the poles, so does the particle density. Hence you get more collisions at the poles which produces the aurora.

Watch Titan, Mimas, Dione and Enceladus passing directly in front of Saturn.

This event toook place on Feb. 24th of 2009.

Transits like these are rare. "They only happen every 14 to 15 years when the orbits of Saturn's moons are nearly edge-on to Earth," says Keith Noll of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute.
In 1995-96, the last time the geometry was right, Hubble photographed two (Titan and Tethys) and three (Mimas, Enceladus, Dione) moons transiting Saturn. This was the first time the great telescope captures four.

Hubble wasn't the only one looking. Amateur astronomers along the Pacific coast of North

Not sure if this has been posted before.

Cripes, that puts it into perspective. How long it was before Dinosaurs trumped around & even more astonishing is how short a span us bodkins have been about. And for all its very short "life" look at the damage we have done.

That was very well done. The shot of the intersection at the end especially...

Well, I tried zooming up on that intersection on both Google and Apple maps. I think it's stock footage from somewhere else. Should be 33rd and 5 avenue based on right before they zoomed in on the intersection, but the cars are going the wrong way (it's one-way to the west) and I can't find an exact match to street marking, curb, etc.

Hiya Lance what you been doing?

Hi Figgy. Just busy with life! Counting down to my holiday!!!!!

chris63 wrote:Watch Titan, Mimas, Dione and Enceladus passing directly in front of Saturn.

This event toook place on Feb. 24th of 2009.

Transits like these are rare. "They only happen every 14 to 15 years when the orbits of Saturn's moons are nearly edge-on to Earth," says Keith Noll of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute.
In 1995-96, the last time the geometry was right, Hubble photographed two (Titan and Tethys) and three (Mimas, Enceladus, Dione) moons transiting Saturn. This was the first time the great telescope captures four.

Hubble wasn't the only one looking. Amateur astronomers along the Pacific coast of North

Cool...

Been trying to set up my cheap telescope last few days. Think it is finally ready to point at Jupiter once the clouds move... sure it will just be a bigger bright spot when I look through. It is a rubbish scope!!!

A picture the Hubble Telescope composited (from over 2,000 images taken by 2 cameras in around 50 days) of galaxies over 13.2 Billion lightyears away...the universe is estimated to be 13.7 Billion years old, so the stars and planets etc in this image are only around 500 million years old:



In other words, life on earth is likely to have existed longer than these galaxies, and many of the stars in the above image have probably long since burnt away...

{{{I love the fact and it blows my mind every time I look up at the starts, that I am also looking backwards in time- often wondered if you had your St warp drive and were looking at a star as you approached- would it be like watching its life in fast forward as you caught up with its present state in time?}}}

malickfan wrote:A picture the Hubble Telescope composited (from over 2,000 images taken by 2 cameras in around 50 days) of galaxies over 13.2 Billion lightyears away...the universe is estimated to be 13.7 Billion years old, so the stars and planets etc in this image are only around 500 million years old:



In other words, life on earth is likely to have existed longer than these galaxies, and many of the stars in the above image have probably long since burnt away...

so in all that lot there is bound to be life of some sort and we cant be the only ones surely But in all that lot there are absolutely NO humans. we would never in all history and time find other humans like us. and what do we do? turn our world into hell on earth and waste our time fighting.

The idea that once you look deep enough into space the galaxies are scattered as thick as stars always gives me chills.

what the fuq is this stuff?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/nasa-cover-up-astronomer-claims-8123857