15 Billion miles and no sign of life.
These satellites are an incredible feat of human technology.
These satellites are an incredible feat of human technology.
Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!
- Thread starter Turboomni
- Start date
Second thing first ...a 100 generations from now (~ 2,500 years), if humans are still around, they will be talking about the V'Gers. Yes, truly remarkable.
On the first point. 15 billion miles is NO doubt a long way. However, one light year is 6 TRILLION miles. Divide 15 billion by 6 trillion, and that probably a decimal point with 3 or 4 zeros to the right of it.
And, then, we're only 25% of the way to the next star (Proxima Centauri is ~ 4 light years [or 24 TRILLION miles away]).
That happens to be the where the closest exoplanet is TO earth - Proxima Centauri b - a super Earth with NO life on it like we have here, and probably NO life at all.
IF life like us WAS there, and NOT just ignoring us IF they were technologically capable of responding, its STILL close enough to "chat" with them regularly. That ain't happening.
Its headache-inducing to think about it, in ALL that space (in THIS galaxy alone), we aint found ANY life like us. Maybe it's the Fermi Paradox ... three minute vid below defines the paradox.
With statistics in favor of it, why hasnt anybody contacted us, and vice versa? It's the Dark Forest, man
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3175375
Old Man with a Hat
My bet is that the pointing angle to earth is so narrow that the angle must be incredibly precise.
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
Incredible save!
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
The ZEUS laser at the University of Michigan has achieved a U.S. record by producing a two-petawatt laser pulse, 100 times stronger than the world’s total electricity consumption, though lasting only 25 quintillionths of a second.
Located in a large, heavily shielded facility, ZEUS is designed to investigate quantum mechanics, replicate cosmic phenomena, and enhance wakefield acceleration through plasma, setting the stage for its inaugural major experiment later this year.
Supported by the National Science Foundation with a $16 million investment, this cutting-edge facility is now accessible to researchers across the country, with initial experiments focused on advancing particle acceleration, cancer therapies, and medical imaging technologies.
Located in a large, heavily shielded facility, ZEUS is designed to investigate quantum mechanics, replicate cosmic phenomena, and enhance wakefield acceleration through plasma, setting the stage for its inaugural major experiment later this year.
Supported by the National Science Foundation with a $16 million investment, this cutting-edge facility is now accessible to researchers across the country, with initial experiments focused on advancing particle acceleration, cancer therapies, and medical imaging technologies.
A private company in Japan fails on its second attempt to land on the moon. Dunno if this is just the degree of difficulty in a moon landing, or capability/design issues unique to this company, or combination of both?
Unmanned, this second attempt appears to have crashed on the surface. All going pretty good, then the craft goes silent. The likely reason was a crash. Coulda been something else. The net effect was a mission fail.
source: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s...rom-japan-crashes-into-moon-in-failed-mission
Going to Mars even harder ... we gortta contendwith weather (unknown until we get there) requiring another layer of capability/skills.
Back to the Moon ... there is the factual story of Apollo 11 when Neil Armstrong's last minute "piloting" of the lander (it was running out of fuel) saved the mission (and the crew's lives) when the landing area proved to be different than expected.
LSS, I personally remain in favor of humans trying to get to these other places. An achievement that goes beyond just "getting there" -- the technologies, processes, etc that come FROM the effort.
BUT, putting a human into space is both risky and expensive. Will unmanned/AI based missions make more sense?
Guess we'll see.
Unmanned, this second attempt appears to have crashed on the surface. All going pretty good, then the craft goes silent. The likely reason was a crash. Coulda been something else. The net effect was a mission fail.
source: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s...rom-japan-crashes-into-moon-in-failed-mission
Going to Mars even harder ... we gortta contendwith weather (unknown until we get there) requiring another layer of capability/skills.
Back to the Moon ... there is the factual story of Apollo 11 when Neil Armstrong's last minute "piloting" of the lander (it was running out of fuel) saved the mission (and the crew's lives) when the landing area proved to be different than expected.
LSS, I personally remain in favor of humans trying to get to these other places. An achievement that goes beyond just "getting there" -- the technologies, processes, etc that come FROM the effort.
BUT, putting a human into space is both risky and expensive. Will unmanned/AI based missions make more sense?
Guess we'll see.
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
AI and robots will be great aids for humans leading exploration to Mars.
Two movies come to mind.
Silent Running
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running
And
The Martian
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film)
Varied robotics in both…
NERD ALERT-
Jimbo Webb still doing its science thing.
Recall one of the main reasons we parked it out at L2, and gave it infrared sensing "eyes", was to try to explain scientifically how the universe came to look the way it does to us. Now, after about 15 billion years.
Almost as a side benefit, we also got all these wonderful images. Still the science work goes on. This week, the space kids believed they found some more evidence of "how" the "Dark Ages" (i.e., soon after its theorized formation - the Big Bang - the universe became able to let light move around) ended.
So the theory goes, go-zillions of tons of neutral hydrogen atoms - the stuff that clumped together (after the universe got cool enough to form atoms) under gravity and became stars, galaxies, etc, - made the universe "opaque".
The "Dark Ages". If anybody was around (highly unlikely), who could incidentally see "visible" light, back then, and looked up at the sky, there would have been NO twinkling objects shining up there (i.e., they were there. it was just "foggy").
This opaque state effectively blocked the star light from moving around the baby universe. This lasted for ~400,000 years, until the UV light from stars/galaxies/black holes that did form "re-ionized" (i.e., knocked electrons OFF the neutral hydrogen atoms, turning them into ions, which could NOT block light. When enough "re-ionization" had occured, the universe "lit up".
So, where did all this UV light come from?
Big a** black holes, big-a** galaxies/stars, AND/OR a bunch of low-mass "baby galaxies" that we could NO LONGER see (it was all 10+ billion years ago) ... before Jimbo comes along able to see further back in time.
THIS WEEK, with an assist from "gravitational lensing", Webb found evidence of a "bunch of baby galaxies" This suggests that such things were VERY (more than we guessed) abundant in the early universe. Helps explain the "re-ionization".
More really nerdy stuff going on at link here. You might need to read it twice. I did, but it made more sense second time around.
Most all the "smudges" are galaxies (that cluster, Abell 2744, is the "lens, and its 4 billion LYs from earth). The little galaxies look like they are mixed in with the bigger ones, but they are actually 5-8 billion LY further away.
The white squares highlight these "baby galaxies, the enlarged square is ONE of them that the lens has brought into view. Its "red-shifted" (again, they are 10+ billion LY away, the "lensing" making them appear closer to us in the image) but the baby galaxies are showing up as "green-ish" dots due to re-ionized oxygen (same way UV light re-ionized the hydrogen).
What's all of this stuff - really? Starts out though IF one believes in this whole theory to begin with. Some folks dont. Or think it all came about another way.
Still, using either of the two main ways (science or theology-based views), "in the beginning, there was light."
The open debate is "how" or "who" caused it to happen.
Jimbo Webb still doing its science thing.
Recall one of the main reasons we parked it out at L2, and gave it infrared sensing "eyes", was to try to explain scientifically how the universe came to look the way it does to us. Now, after about 15 billion years.
Almost as a side benefit, we also got all these wonderful images. Still the science work goes on. This week, the space kids believed they found some more evidence of "how" the "Dark Ages" (i.e., soon after its theorized formation - the Big Bang - the universe became able to let light move around) ended.
So the theory goes, go-zillions of tons of neutral hydrogen atoms - the stuff that clumped together (after the universe got cool enough to form atoms) under gravity and became stars, galaxies, etc, - made the universe "opaque".
The "Dark Ages". If anybody was around (highly unlikely), who could incidentally see "visible" light, back then, and looked up at the sky, there would have been NO twinkling objects shining up there (i.e., they were there. it was just "foggy").
This opaque state effectively blocked the star light from moving around the baby universe. This lasted for ~400,000 years, until the UV light from stars/galaxies/black holes that did form "re-ionized" (i.e., knocked electrons OFF the neutral hydrogen atoms, turning them into ions, which could NOT block light. When enough "re-ionization" had occured, the universe "lit up".
So, where did all this UV light come from?
Big a** black holes, big-a** galaxies/stars, AND/OR a bunch of low-mass "baby galaxies" that we could NO LONGER see (it was all 10+ billion years ago) ... before Jimbo comes along able to see further back in time.
THIS WEEK, with an assist from "gravitational lensing", Webb found evidence of a "bunch of baby galaxies" This suggests that such things were VERY (more than we guessed) abundant in the early universe. Helps explain the "re-ionization".
More really nerdy stuff going on at link here. You might need to read it twice. I did, but it made more sense second time around.
Most all the "smudges" are galaxies (that cluster, Abell 2744, is the "lens, and its 4 billion LYs from earth). The little galaxies look like they are mixed in with the bigger ones, but they are actually 5-8 billion LY further away.
The white squares highlight these "baby galaxies, the enlarged square is ONE of them that the lens has brought into view. Its "red-shifted" (again, they are 10+ billion LY away, the "lensing" making them appear closer to us in the image) but the baby galaxies are showing up as "green-ish" dots due to re-ionized oxygen (same way UV light re-ionized the hydrogen).
What's all of this stuff - really? Starts out though IF one believes in this whole theory to begin with. Some folks dont. Or think it all came about another way.
Still, using either of the two main ways (science or theology-based views), "in the beginning, there was light."
The open debate is "how" or "who" caused it to happen.
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I'm afraid this is old news. On a cosmic scale plus/minus five years may be insignificant, but similar news has already been reported on the web some time ago:
January 15, 2022: BBC Science Focus
November 21, 2019: The Byte
November 11, 2019: YouTube
Must have been some AI algorhythm bumping this item.
January 15, 2022: BBC Science Focus
November 21, 2019: The Byte
November 11, 2019: YouTube
Must have been some AI algorhythm bumping this item.
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Sorry buddy!
vera rubin telescope up and running. ground based, with biggest camera every constructed. The first images rival even those of James Webb parked 1M miles away -- in space.
source: Vera Rubin: First celestial image from revolutionary telescope. Many of the details/specs at the link.
Vera Rubin on a mountain top in Chile
Immediately below. The Virgo cluster of galaxies.
right below, the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, 9,000 LY from earth.
source: Vera Rubin: First celestial image from revolutionary telescope. Many of the details/specs at the link.
Vera Rubin on a mountain top in Chile
Immediately below. The Virgo cluster of galaxies.
right below, the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, 9,000 LY from earth.
Webb finds a previously unknown exoplanet.
source: https://www.reuters.com/science/first-time-webb-telescope-discovers-an-alien-planet-2025-06-25/
source: https://www.reuters.com/science/first-time-webb-telescope-discovers-an-alien-planet-2025-06-25/
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
Jupiter as Webb sees it:
neat.
reminds me. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, AND Neptune have rings. Saturn the obvious most spectacular, but the other gas giants have them too.
Neptune from Webb
Uranus from Webb (yup, Uranus is kinda laying on its side. Axis is "horizontal", theory being at some point a big planet collided with it and knocked it over.)
Saturn from Webb
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67newport
Old Man with a Hat
no chineseium parts. if there was it my not have made if off the launch pad.
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
On this day in 1965, Mariner 4 sent back the first close-up photograph of Mars. In grainy black and white it depicted the regions known as Cebrenia, Arcadia, and Amazonis. Over the next few hours, the spacecraft came within 9,846 km of the martian surface and returned a total of 21 pictures, showing a cratered terrain and an atmosphere much thinner than previously thought. Based on its findings, scientists concluded that Mars was probably a dead world, both geologically and biologically. Later missions, however, revealed that the ancient region imaged by Mariner 4 was not typical of the planet as a whole. In 1967 Mariner 4 returned to the vicinity of Earth and engineers were able to use the ageing craft for a series of operational and telemetry tests to improve their knowledge of techniques needed for future interplanetary missions.
I remember this event ~when it happened.
Yeah, I have been a science nerd for sixty years. When my Dad wasnt teaching me about cars, he was teaching me about the stars (rhyme intended).
Hell, on the one hand I knew who Santa Claus really was, while at the same time I believed there were "canals" on Mars with little green men. Mariner 4 turned my little world upside down. No hint of canals .. just a bunch of craters.
I argued with my Dad AND my second (maybe it was third grade in fall of 1965) grade teacher that Mariner 4 really went to the moon. Dad was more diplomatic in letting me down with a " Parfait" at Dairy Queen.... that teacher was not so kind. Used me a a "learning moment" for the whole class. no shiny red apple for her
In my lifetime, we know a lot more about Mars. Not just thevpictures but the science. It used to look like THIS planet does now, only a few billion years ago.. Now a rusted out rock Anyway, a decade later and I am about to exit high school, the VIking orbiter repeated the Mariner photos in extraordinary detail.
sources: Mariner 4 images with Viking Orbiter comparisons, https://www.researchgate.net/figure...ner-4-was-the-first-spacecraft_fig1_233796188, Mariner 4 - Wikipedia
Viking Orbiter photos on left, vs same photo from Mariner 4 on the right. The little blac/white arrows show corresponding features between the two photo in 1965 (Mariner 4) vs. those in 1975 (Viking orbiter)
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We definitely have come a long way with the technology in 60 years:
source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/us/gallery/mars-best-photos
source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/us/gallery/mars-best-photos
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