Space and the Universe

[Josh64]

That alien prank was so nasty :P I don't know what I would have done if that happened to me, I certainly wouldn't have had the balls to offer it a cup of tea despite how fake it looked :p As she said, i'd be too 'in the moment' to realise how stupidly fake it looked!

I agree with all of you though, space is a truly fascinating place, I took a look at the website 'Hubble' and some of those pictures are just incredible!

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Well Stephen Hawkings has a whole program about how we can use this fact to travel forward in time. The same effect achieved by going at extremely high speeds. Although it seem travelling to the past is impossible.

What I've heard is that theoretic time travel backwards in time is actually possible using the bend in the spacetime continuum. I think the point is that since time itself is being dragged around the black hole's gravitational field, while it isn't possible to go above the speed of light inside the field itself, travelling along the field in the direction it is being dragged at near light speed will result in one's actual speed outside the field exceeding the speed of light. And exceeding the speed of light is supposed to make you travel backwards in time.

 

Naturally, it all sounds incredible, and I have quite frankly no idea if it's all complete bollocks.

[Mokong]

The UN has appointed an "Alien Ambassador" to act as "first contact" on behalf of the human race in the event Aliens ever do come for a visit.

 

 

I guess you could view this in a "do they know something we don't" kind of way.

 

Maybe high Government officials are already in contact with Aliens and this kind of announcement is to prepare the regualar person for the arrival as they are on their way.... [/conspiracy theory]

 

But lets take this seriously for a minute, if Aliens were to land on Earth and there was one person whose job it is to be the "first contact" the "take me to your leader" person. How can such a role just be "appointed", this person is to represent everyone of us on a Universal, history changing, mega level.

 

Should we not have some kind of election so the people of Earth can elect an official to such an important role? Instead of someone nobody heard of till now?

[Grazza]

First of all, I'm sorry I didn't give a "heads-up" about Stephen Hawking's Universe. I've been watching them on Channel 4, but just had a mental block about mentioning it on here. If they're available on iPlayer (or the equivalent), I certainly recommend them, although I preferred the one about aliens, as the one about time travel made my brain hurt!

 

What I've heard is that theoretic time travel backwards in time is actually possible using the bend in the spacetime continuum. I think the point is that since time itself is being dragged around the black hole's gravitational field, while it isn't possible to go above the speed of light inside the field itself, travelling along the field in the direction it is being dragged at near light speed will result in one's actual speed outside the field exceeding the speed of light. And exceeding the speed of light is supposed to make you travel backwards in time.

 

I hadn't heard that one. Stephen Hawking said time travel into the past would be impossible because any wormholes would suck in radiation and collapse, but most importantly, he doesn't think the laws of the Universe would allow the possibilty of paradoxes.

 

Either way, it's not something to be messed with, in my opinion!

 

I guess you could view this in a "do they know something we don't" kind of way.

 

I'm glad you said that, because I thought it when I read it in the newspaper and immediately thought I must be paranoid!

 

But lets take this seriously for a minute, if Aliens were to land on Earth and there was one person whose job it is to be the "first contact" the "take me to your leader" person. How can such a role just be "appointed", this person is to represent everyone of us on a Universal, history changing, mega level.

 

Realistically, the big countries, like USA, Russia and China would storm in and demand to be part of it.

[Emasher]

To be perfectly honest, its not like the aliens will know that they're supposed to talk to this person anyway. The first person they make contact with will most likely be the first person who doesn't run away from them, or act hostile towards them. Likely they'll eventually meet the ambassador, but it just seems rather unlikely that he'll be first. Even if they did research on the planet before landing, it seems unlikely that they would be able to understand us enough to know that we want them to first meet with this person, and even if they did find that out, there's still a chance they decide not to respect that.

[Grazza]

Any aliens who could travel to Earth, though, would be massively, unbelievably intelligent. They would have intercepted our TV broadcasts and certainly know that they should contact Barack Obama, for instance.

[Emasher]

Not necessarily, for one, if they had a very different ideology than the United States, they're unlikely to go to the United States to make first contact, if they were communists for instance, they might decide to go to china instead. There's also the possibility that they're so fundamentally different from us that they either can't find, or can't find a way to translate enough of our signals. Its also possible that they only ever had one civilization on their planet, and only ever had one language, so they might get confused with us having so many languages.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

By the way, REALLY looking forward to Stephen Hawking's Universe. The trailer here in Denmark is really captivating.

[Diageo]

Just watch it on the internet, it's very good.

By the way, REALLY looking forward to Stephen Hawking's Universe. The trailer here in Denmark is really captivating.

[Dog-amoto]

Considering how great the distance is between systems, I'm going to assume that Voyager is just out in the vacuum of space a "Little" ways beyond the solar system.

 

Voyager has travelled 1/600th of a light year in the 30+ years since launch. Considering the nearest star is over 4 light years away...

[Josh64]

The UN has appointed an "Alien Ambassador" to act as "first contact" on behalf of the human race in the event Aliens ever do come for a visit.

 

 

I guess you could view this in a "do they know something we don't" kind of way.

 

Maybe high Government officials are already in contact with Aliens and this kind of announcement is to prepare the regualar person for the arrival as they are on their way.... [/conspiracy theory]

 

But lets take this seriously for a minute, if Aliens were to land on Earth and there was one person whose job it is to be the "first contact" the "take me to your leader" person. How can such a role just be "appointed", this person is to represent everyone of us on a Universal, history changing, mega level.

 

Should we not have some kind of election so the people of Earth can elect an official to such an important role? Instead of someone nobody heard of till now?

 

I would elect the first person to meet and greet said aliens to be Justin Bieber, he just seems to get along with most people, ones not wielding bottles of water that is.

 

Really though, I've never heard of such a pointless job! As most of you have said, if aliens did come to earth, what would the likeliness be of this person going to greet them and why would the aliens care/understand anyway?

[Frank]

Interesting stuff on the whole topic of time travel. I'm a little unsure about the whole thing though. Surely, if time did go forward we wouldn't even notice, no?

I doubt it's similar to how it's portrayed on T.V. etc. where time travel automatically creates the future or brings us back to the past. But that's just my opinion :p

 

I don't usually like to watch those giant documentaries about space. Sometimes I really do think that they're pretty interesting and good but usually it just makes me feel so small and insignificant It's pretty scary just how large this ever-growing universe is.

[Mokong]

I hadn't heard that one. Stephen Hawking said time travel into the past would be impossible because any wormholes would suck in radiation and collapse, but most importantly, he doesn't think the laws of the Universe would allow the possibilty of paradoxes.

 

If you go with the infinate Universes Theory, then any possible paradoxes do not occour as any "paradoxial change" (is paradoxial a word?) would simply shift the timeline to a new alternate Universe.

 

It's too late for me to be going into long sciencey posts right now so I'll just leave it there.

[Grazza]

If you go with the infinate Universes Theory, then any possible paradoxes do not occour as any "paradoxial change" (is paradoxial a word?) would simply shift the timeline to a new alternate Universe.

 

It's too late for me to be going into long sciencey posts right now so I'll just leave it there.

 

No, I get you.

 

Following on from the news that the UN has appointed someone to greet aliens, I saw this story about an event that happened yesterday. I know some of you will scoff at the idea of UFOs being alien, but this is remarkable. Six USAF members plus one other military member, representing 120 other military personnel, have made statements that UFOs have interfered with our nuclear weapons:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8026971/Aliens-have-deactivated-British-and-US-nuclear-missiles-say-US-military-pilots.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1315479/Aliens-interfered-weapons-UFOs-deactivating-nuclear-missiles.html

 

I know it's hard to believe, but since when have so many USAF personnel made formal statements about this? It's unprecedented.

[Grazza]

We've got Stephen Hawking tonight, on Channel 4 at 7pm (two hours? Great!) and The Sky at Night on tomorrow at 12:10am on BBC1.

 

Apparently the latter is about "Light Echoes", but I hope they feature the "Goldilocks Planet" too.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Stephen Hawking is on the Danish Discovery Channel tonight as well after two consecutive episodes of MythBusters. Can't wait!

[MoogleViper]

How come nobody has mentioned the new Earth-like planet?

 

Astronomers have detected an Earth-like exoplanet that may have just the right kind of conditions to support life.

 

Gliese 581g lies some 20 light-years away in its star's "Goldilocks zone" - a region surface temperatures would allow the presence of liquid water.

 

Scientists say that the newly found world could also potentially have an atmosphere.

 

Their findings, made with the Keck telescope in Hawaii, appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

 

The researchers, from the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, have been studying the movement of the planet's parent star, a red dwarf called Gliese 581, for 11 years.

 

Their observations have revealed a number of exoplanets spinning around the star.

 

Possibility of life

Recently they discovered two new alien worlds, so together with the previous findings, this brings the number of planets orbiting Gliese 581 to six.

 

But the most important new revelation is that one of those worlds might be the most Earth-like planet yet identified.

 

"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, an astronomer at UCSC.

 

"The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

 

Gliese 581g has a mass about three to four times that of Earth. It orbits its sun in 37 days and is thought to be a rocky world. It has enough gravity to possibly have an atmosphere.

 

Gliese 581g is located in its star's "Goldilocks zone" - a zone in space where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water.

 

Such a zone defines the region in a star-centered orbit where an Earth-like planet could sustain that water on its surface - and therefore life.

 

"We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone - one too hot and one too cold - and now we have one in the middle that's just right," said Dr Vogt.

 

The planet's average surface temperature is estimated to be between -12C and -31C.

 

But unlike Earth, this alien world has one side always facing its sun and the other side constantly in the dark. So in-between the two sides, between shadow and light, there could be an area where life could potentially thrive.

 

"Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," said Dr Vogt.

 

Alien worlds

The first exoplanet orbiting a star was detected more than a decade ago.

 

Since then, nearly 500 other worlds have been found beyond our Solar System, many of them Jupiter-like gas giants.

 

Now, astronomers are hoping to spot more exoplanets where life could be possible.

 

"We're at exactly that threshold now with finding habitable planets," said Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution, a co-author of the study.

 

Dr Vogt agreed: "The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20%, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number," he said.

 

"There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy."

[Grazza]

That's the one I just mentioned, albeit not in any detail.

 

It's bound to have life on it, I think. I'd love to see how similar it is to ours, eg. does it have humanoids, apes, felines, canines etc? Don't suppose we'll be able to find out anytime soon.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

That's the one I just mentioned, albeit not in any detail.

 

It's bound to have life on it, I think. I'd love to see how similar it is to ours, eg. does it have humanoids, apes, felines, canines etc? Don't suppose we'll be able to find out anytime soon.

If there is indeed life on it, it would give us our first look at how life could potentially develop elsewhere. Would it look like anything we've ever seen on Earth?

[Grazza]

If there is indeed life on it, it would give us our first look at how life could potentially develop elsewhere. Would it look like anything we've ever seen on Earth?

 

I've got a feeling it would. Of course, there could be wildly different extra-terrestrials out there, such as living gas clouds etc, but I'm even more interested in how universal the known prototypes are. For instance, would aliens have eyes, mouths and legs? I'm sure some of them would. That leads me to wonder if they have creatures like ours, even humans.

 

Take the cat, for instance. It is basically the same creature all over the world, yet it has evolved into different species depending on the needs of the environments, and so we end up with tigers, lions, cheetahs - they are all fundamentally the same as a domestic cat, but bigger/stronger, more camouflaged when necessary. So, would we find giant cats on other planets, I wonder?

 

I'm particularly interested in seeing dinosaurs. Imagine if they had existed elsewhere, never to have been wiped out...

 

Which Stephen Hawking episode is on tonight in Denmark, Dannyboy? The aliens one?

[ViPeR]

Time travel can seriously screw with your mind. Say someone goes back in time and stops a major event. The altered timeline would have to carry out in a different universe? If that's the case when you travel forward in time, the future wouldn't be any different. You'd have to go to the future of the alternate timeline to see the benefits surely? I'm guessing that's probably why it's impossible lol.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I've got a feeling it would. Of course, there could be wildly different extra-terrestrials out there, such as living gas clouds etc, but I'm even more interested in how universal the known prototypes are. For instance, would aliens have eyes, mouths and legs? I'm sure some of them would. That leads me to wonder if they have creatures like ours, even humans.

 

Take the cat, for instance. It is basically the same creature all over the world, yet it has evolved into different species depending on the needs of the environments, and so we end up with tigers, lions, cheetahs - they are all fundamentally the same as a domestic cat, but bigger/stronger, more camouflaged when necessary. So, would we find giant cats on other planets, I wonder?

 

I'm particularly interested in seeing dinosaurs. Imagine if they had existed elsewhere, never to have been wiped out...

 

Which Stephen Hawking episode is on tonight in Denmark, Dannyboy? The aliens one?

It's interesting to note that when scientists talk of requirement for life on other planets, they mean the type of life we know from planet Earth. Maybe we'll find life forms that are not carbon-bases like us. Maybe they don't need water to survive. On the other hand, maybe life on Earth is exemplative of all life. Who knows?

 

It's the first episode of Stephen Hawking's Universe, so I think it's the one about aliens. Unfortunately, the following episodes are going to air on Discovery Science, which I regrettably don't have.

 

Time travel can seriously screw with your mind. Say someone goes back in time and stops a major event. The altered timeline would have to carry out in a different universe? If that's the case when you travel forward in time, the future wouldn't be any different. You'd have to go to the future of the alternate timeline to see the benefits surely? I'm guessing that's probably why it's impossible lol.

This is the true issue of practical time travel. What would happen if one were to change an event?

[ViPeR]

This is the true issue of practical time travel. What would happen if one were to change an event?

 

I don't even think it's possible. The moment you set foot in another time you've altered it and therefore have created a completely unpredictable future. The Simpsons had a Halloween episode where Homer went back in time, sneezed and killed all the dinosaurs lol.

[Jimbob]

I don't even think it's possible. The moment you set foot in another time you've altered it and therefore have created a completely unpredictable future. The Simpsons had a Halloween episode where Homer went back in time, sneezed and killed all the dinosaurs lol.

 

Yeah, all the outcomes of different means of attack. Thats pretty much how i see it, if you decided to go back in-time and try and prevent something.

 

Going back to the planet discussion, life would most likely be found along the shadow-line of the planet. Unless, it had already adapted itself to live in either the light or dark sections. You know life, it has the habit of adapting and evolving.

[Dog-amoto]

*BLEAK POST ALERT*

 

If there was life on this planet, we would never find out about it.

 

We simply do not have, nor will we ever have, the technology or the fuel needed to make such a journey, even an unmanned one. Interstellar travel is nigh on impossible. I read somewhere that using Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (a series of controlled nuclear blasts) we could reach Alpha Centauri (4.3 light years away) in about 81 years, so if we were to visit this planet which is 20 light years away, we would be looking at about 300 years to get there. But to make the journey to Alpha Centauri would need a lot of fuel, 100 times that which our planet generates. So, we would either need to use just our sun's gravitational assist which would take tens of thousands of years, or find a yet unheard of propulsion system which uses little fuel.

 

Couple this with the fact that our population is ever expanding, increasing the disease and famine already rife here, where will the money and the resources come from? No government would ever fund such an expedition. Especially considering there is only a small chance of finding life.

 

It'll never happen unfortunately. I'm a strong believer that there is life out there, but we will never find it, and it's highly unlikely that it will ever find us

Edited October 2, 2010 by Dog-amoto