You know the Universe right...

[Rushback]

if it's so big and it contains everything, and God created it right, and all the galaxys and planets are all swirling around in it in a big sort of huge gigantic swirling mass of objects creating a super duper sort of galatic symphony thingy...... then why is it that we will only ever see the moon and perhaps some nice images of through hubble telescope?

I mean, why all that effort if it will never be appreciated?

unless when we die we get to fly around wherever we want to you know like to neptune and have a look

on another note, The speed of light, more than 386 thousand miles per second.. How do they know.. what's the speed of dark?

where does all the stuff end up once it's been sucked up into a black hole?????

These things worry me on a daily basis :mad:

[RedRich]

There's nothing there really.

Its just a conspiracy to keep us all interested. In case we stop paying our taxes.

Eh?

[fan4dmb]

But when you think about how large everything is... it makes you realize how insignificant the things in our lives are. I mean, the earth is like a grain of sand in the beach we call the universe. And we're just tiny little beings on that tiny piece of sand. Pretty amazing! :)

[red raw]

I'm more concerned with how "Advanced" we are as a species... I mean look at what we do!

We have TV shows, can make music, create pictures, invent, travel, have created value systems, jobs, houses...

Other animals do fascinating things like build nests, dams and even some sing (sort of) but nothing comes close to us.

We can't surely just be "Lucky" enough to have evolved when other species didn't.

I think those conspiracies about us being "Tampered" with by intelligent aliens thousands of years ago have more logical answers than simply saying we "Evolved from monkeys, but some monkeys didn't evolve" :rolleyes:

[ohdear]

I think the speed of dark is the same as the speed of light.

And the universe is expanding and dying you know,were all for the chop.

[The Prince]

Think about the temperature of absolute zero. That's -273 - the temperature that atoms stop moving at. Nothing is colder in the universe. Now think about the heat of stars. The coolest star, red giants like Betelgeuse ( the type of star the Sun will turn into) have a temperature of about 3,600K. The hottest are in excess of 50,000K (K being Kelvins. 0 Kelvin being absolute zero). If you took the average temperature of the universe with all those billions of stars, how hot do you think it is?



















Think about it. Billions of galaxies with billions of superhot stars in them, not to mention globular clusters.













Guessed?












I'll tell you. It's about .1 degree above absolute zero. That's how big the universe is.

[The Prince]

As for being advanced here's an odd thing for you. In December, as most of you know, I had a near death experience. I didn;t see any white lights or tunnels but felt I was being processed by a group of people who I couldn't see. Lots of "Move your arms, Karl. This'll make it easier" etc by voices. At one point I was told that the hardest part for "transfer" was coming and could I move my hands and feet. I could not. Then the voice said to someone else. "He can't move. He's ready."
Then every now and then I was shown an image of a room with a voice (always behind me) saying "Look at this picture, Karl. Study it." This happened about once every ten minutes but each time the room felt "realer" and the voice behind me got a bit louder. The voice was also talking and joking to his mates as if it was his job but I could never catch what they were saying. I kept asking if I'd been good and was I going somewhere good as I was sure that this was death. At one point I asked the voice what was wrong with me (I thought I was in hospital with food poisoning as I'd been vomiting a lot for days earlier). The voice said "You've had a stroke, Karl" which is strictly true. Now, I, my subconscience, didn't know that but "he" did and he was right. Anyway, I was still getting pictures of the room and was still asking about had I been good enough. Then came another voice which said "3-2-1" and I was IN the room. Not dreaming it, IN it. A room as real as the one you're in now. I was lying on the bed dressed in white (my hospital clothes, I learned afterwards, were not white). Finally a woman came in and started messing around with straps and things. She wouldn't answer my questions and gave the air of someone just doing their job - the way a dinner lady ignores the questions of a schoolkid when he's asking for more pudding. Finally, the voice came in behind me and said something really, really funny and I started laughing. I knew then that the place was alright. Then I woke up.

What struck me the most was the fact that I was being moved to a more advanced place and that it'd been going on for thousands of years like a big secret to everyone who has ever lived. I felt very loved at the end. I knew it wasn't Earth. Maybe that's what we do when we die. We literally leave the planet. Maybe we've been somewhere before this life.

[Ducatiboy749]

As for being advanced here's an odd thing for you. In December, as most of you know, I had a near death experience. I didn;t see any white lights or tunnels but felt I was being processed by a group of people who I couldn't see. Lots of "Move your arms, Karl. This'll make it easier" etc by voices. At one point I was told that the hardest part for "transfer" was coming and could I move my hands and feet. I could not. Then the voice said to someone else. "He can't move. He's ready."
Then every now and then I was shown an image of a room with a voice (always behind me) saying "Look at this picture, Karl. Study it." This happened about once every ten minutes but each time the room felt "realer" and the voice behind me got a bit louder. The voice was also talking and joking to his mates as if it was his job but I could never catch what they were saying. I kept asking if I'd been good and was I going somewhere good as I was sure that this was death. At one point I asked the voice what was wrong with me (I thought I was in hospital with food poisoning as I'd been vomiting a lot for days earlier). The voice said "You've had a stroke, Karl" which is strictly true. Now, I, my subconscience, didn't know that but "he" did and he was right. Anyway, I was still getting pictures of the room and was still asking about had I been good enough. Then came another voice which said "3-2-1" and I was IN the room. Not dreaming it, IN it. A room as real as the one you're in now. I was lying on the bed dressed in white (my hospital clothes, I learned afterwards, were not white). Finally a woman came in and started messing around with straps and things. She wouldn't answer my questions and gave the air of someone just doing their job - the way a dinner lady ignores the questions of a schoolkid when he's asking for more pudding. Finally, the voice came in behind me and said something really, really funny and I started laughing. I knew then that the place was alright. Then I woke up.

What struck me the most was the fact that I was being moved to a more advanced place and that it'd been going on for thousands of years like a big secret to everyone who has ever lived. I felt very loved at the end. I knew it wasn't Earth. Maybe that's what we do when we die. We literally leave the planet. Maybe we've been somewhere before this life.

:eek:

Sleep well kids.;)

Seriously Prince, that's a pretty vivid experience....not experienced that myself but have certainly seen "the lights". Pretty amazing. Nice one.

[NeverOffside]

What struck me the most was the fact that I was being moved to a more advanced place and that it'd been going on for thousands of years like a big secret to everyone who has ever lived. I felt very loved at the end. I knew it wasn't Earth. Maybe that's what we do when we die. We literally leave the planet. Maybe we've been somewhere before this life.

That is quite interesting. I've read various testimonies about these things, and they always get me interested. I did read one explanation for these events being just random synaptic activity, where previous experience of NDE's, added to your existing memory bank, and sensory inputs at the time, can create your own NDE. So basically, it's all in your imagination. Literally, I mean.

[Taksin]

That is quite interesting. I've read various testimonies about these things, and they always get me interested. I did read one explanation for these events being just random synaptic activity, where previous experience of NDE's, added to your existing memory bank, and sensory inputs at the time, can create your own NDE. So basically, it's all in your imagination. Literally, I mean.

Ah, but they would say that wouldn't they.. It doesn't really explain the nature of Karl's experience. Beware people who think they can explain everything that goes on in humans.

I've heard some interesting stories about a GP in Scotland (a real person) who would turn up in people's dreams - more vivid than normal dreams - and perform some sort of medical procedure, leading to some hard to explain recoveries from illness.

[Taksin]

This is a briliant illustration of the scale of some stellar bodies


http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/arcturus-antares-big.htm

[Davide]

When you really start thinking about space it blows the mind. How did it all get there? What was there before it and how did that get there.... and so on. Did it just appear one day? If so, how? Questions we simply don't have the answers for.

I've read about the Big Bang Theory but that still doesn't explain things.

Are we alone in this universe? Who knows

[Mick R]

Amazing post, Karl. I was reading that and hoping that there wasn't a punchline coming at the end.

As Dougal would say, "I'm very cynical, as you know, Ted."

But the reason I think that I'm so cynical is because I desperately want proof of 'other things'.

A friend of mine lost her husband in a motorcycle accident, but she is convinced that he still exists somewhere.

I always leave after speaking to her thinking that she is deluding herself, there is nothing more. But, tying in nicely with the theme of the thread, the majesty of the universe is something I desperately, desperately want to witness, somehow, when all this comes to an end.

[The Prince]

I'd say alone in terms of human life but there must be organisms growing somewhere. There was probably plants on Mars before the atmosphere drained away. There are more stars in our galaxy than grains of sand on our planet so there must be a planet somewhere which shares our "Goldilocks" status - i.e. just right, in terms of atmosphere, mean temperature etc.

[ohdear]

When you really start thinking about space it blows the mind. How did it all get there? What was there before it and how did that get there.... and so on. Did it just appear one day? If so, how? Questions we simply don't have the answers for.

I've read about the Big Bang Theory but that still doesn't explain things.

Are we alone in this universe? Who knows

It's an utter mindfuck alright.Like I said in my post,the universe is expanding,but nobody can tell you what it is expanding into!!!!!.

And then there's other dimensions.

Good thread this.

[Davide]

Amazing post, Karl. I was reading that and hoping that there wasn't a punchline coming at the end.

As Dougal would say, "I'm very cynical, as you know, Ted."

But the reason I think that I'm so cynical is because I desperately want proof of 'other things'.

A friend of mine lost her husband in a motorcycle accident, but she is convinced that he still exists somewhere.

I always leave after speaking to her thinking that she is deluding herself, there is nothing more. But, tying in nicely with the theme of the thread, the majesty of the universe is something I desperately, desperately want to witness, somehow, when all this comes to an end.


I think it was Einstein that said energy cannot be destroyed. If that's the case, where does our 'energy' go? When people report sightings of ghosts they mention orbs. Is that a form of trapped energy.

There are so many unanswered questions regarding space, aliens, ghosts etc.

[Taksin]

Amazing post, Karl. I was reading that and hoping that there wasn't a punchline coming at the end.

As Dougal would say, "I'm very cynical, as you know, Ted."

But the reason I think that I'm so cynical is because I desperately want proof of 'other things'.

A friend of mine lost her husband in a motorcycle accident, but she is convinced that he still exists somewhere.

I always leave after speaking to her thinking that she is deluding herself, there is nothing more. But, tying in nicely with the theme of the thread, the majesty of the universe is something I desperately, desperately want to witness, somehow, when all this comes to an end.

One remarkably common experience that is not often discussed (as opposed to the 'white tunnel' experience that Karl mentioned) is the sense of a visitation from a loved one who has recently passed away. It sounds like something that could be easily dismissed as wishful thinking but, if you ever talk to someone who's been through it, it can be a fairly unfanciful story.

My friend felt the hand of her husband on her shoulder a couple of weeks after he'd died. She just knew it was him.

[CODE RED]

I think it was Einstein that said energy cannot be destroyed. If that's the case, where does our 'energy' go? When people report sightings of ghosts they mention orbs. Is that a form of trapped energy.

There are so many unanswered questions regarding space, aliens, ghosts etc.

Its merely changed from one form to another isn't it?

[rixf666]

use the fork luke!

[Where'sHeggem?]

Fair play Prince for sharing your experience. Its very easy to get ridiculed for stating what you've stated, but i think you're on good ground. Someone else just can't or shouldn't knock what they don't understand.

Anyhoo, I for one believe there is more to life than this simple existence. There has to be, doesn't there? So many cynics say life on this insignificant planet occured by absolute chance, one in a billion. Well there are multiple billions of suns and sytems like ours, so that chance had to have occured elsewhere.

I know a few people whom i love and respect, who really seem to understand the levels of existence beyond our own. All we know at the moment are the physical levels of existence. Beyond that its a matter of speculation, but more than likely real based on the vast amount of people who see and feel things that they believe are true with every fabric of their being. Cynics describe it as a mass delusion, but i can't subscribe to that.

With regards to the ghost and energy thing, my own thoughts are that ghosts aren't necessarily dead people. Its just really latent but powerful energy created from feelings and emotions that create a window to the past, a recording if you will, that some people are capable or feeling or seeing.

People need to believe in something else, though. Its what drives us on.

With regards to the whole universe thing, one of my favourite books and films is "Contact", written by Carl Sagan, who incidentally was not a believer in the "extra-terrestrial" thing. I loved the book, and the film was pretty true to the book in my humble opinion. Read it or watch it, it may just help you to grasp the possibilities.

[Mel Wood]

Deep and difficult subject, but extremely interesting to read your experience Prince. I've also heard several different events from family down the years following near-death experiences with regard to 'seeing themselves' and there being some kind of 'checkpoint' or crossroads. I know I haven't described that too well but still.

Ultimately it seems it's something that we can't fully know until we experience it at the end or don't, I suppose. Maybe it's a construct of the mind to protect/prepare/make us accepting but it's especially heartening to me (Mr Cynical/skeptical of anything 'unworldly') right now to think there's summat better to experience later.

A relative of mine, through a list of medical crises that could fill a medical almanac has been 'close to the end' many times and describes having had 'NDE' a few times. Something that always strikes me when we talk about it is the absolute certainty in him that 'it's actually nothing to worry about'.

Interesting thread.

Re the universe etc. Always seems ludicrously unlikely to me for there not to be intelligent life elsewhere given the infinite x infinite parameters of the universe as we know it now.
The other question for me comes up when people say 'Well, if another planet has water it could sustain life...' I always think 'Well we're not really in possession of all the facts yet are we? Who's to say any other life form would even have similar composition to us and need H2O?'

I find it all pretty unimaginably huge anyway and I'm not all that confident the boundless vastness we can comprehend isn't a negligible speck from another perspective too.

[The Prince]

Deep and difficult subject, but extremely interesting to read your experience Prince. I've also heard several different events from family down the years following near-death experiences with regard to 'seeing themselves' and there being some kind of 'checkpoint' or crossroads. I know I haven't described that too well but still.

Ultimately it seems it's something that we can't fully know until we experience it at the end or don't, I suppose. Maybe it's a construct of the mind to protect/prepare/make us accepting but it's especially heartening to me (Mr Cynical/skeptical of anything 'unworldly') right now to think there's summat better to experience later.

A relative of mine, through a list of medical crises that could fill a medical almanac has been 'close to the end' many times and describes having had 'NDE' a few times. Something that always strikes me when we talk about it is the absolute certainty in him that 'it's actually nothing to worry about'.

Interesting thread.

Re the universe etc. Always seems ludicrously unlikely to me for there not to be intelligent life elsewhere given the infinite x infinite parameters of the universe as we know it now.
The other question for me comes up when people say 'Well, if another planet has water it could sustain life...' I always think 'Well we're not really in possession of all the facts yet are we? Who's to say any other life form would even have similar composition to us and need H2O?'

I find it all pretty unimaginably huge anyway and I'm not all that confident the boundless vastness we can comprehend isn't a negligible speck from another perspective too.

That's what I felt at the time. I wasn't in the least bit worried about being dead, more a feeling of "what's next?"

I woke up intermittently and saw that my Mum and sister (The Princess) had travelled to see me so I thought "well, this must be it" and I'm dimly aware of a Doctor trying to talk to me so I was more intersted in what lay ahead.

Here's an odd thing. I was transferred from Harrow Hospital to the Neurological wing of UCH when I came around. This would have been about two hours after I'd been in "the room." They foolishly put me in a cab instead of an ambulance (without an oxygen cylinder and I was struggling for air for four days) with my Mum. I sat in silence, still thinking I was dead. When I arrived I knew all the nurses from somewhere and even said "Hello Chris" to the bloke who put me to bed. He didn't have a name tag and was surprised that I'd "guessed" his name. You see, I was convinced I was dead and thought it was very clever that the other people had put people around me who looked like my Mum and friends etc. I was utterly convinced that that was the case and it was several hours before I was dissuaded.

[rowben86]

if it's so big and it contains everything, and God created it right, and all the galaxys and planets are all swirling around in it in a big sort of huge gigantic swirling mass of objects creating a super duper sort of galatic symphony thingy...... then why is it that we will only ever see the moon and perhaps some nice images of through hubble telescope?

I mean, why all that effort if it will never be appreciated?

unless when we die we get to fly around wherever we want to you know like to neptune and have a look

on another note, The speed of light, more than 386 thousand miles per second.. How do they know.. what's the speed of dark?

where does all the stuff end up once it's been sucked up into a black hole?????

These things worry me on a daily basis :mad:

Don't they work out the speed of light by the distance of the Sun to say another object i.e Earth by how long it takes the light to get here, which if I remember right is 8 seconds.

[The Prince]

Eight minutes.

If you're looking at the Moon it's how it was a second ago. Should you look at Jupiter, and I strongly advise you to, it's how it was forty five minutes ago.

If you look at Rigel, the bottom right star in the constellation of Orion, you're looking at how it was 900 years ago. Due to the type of star it is, a white/blue supergiant, it is a contender for a supernova. It could have gone supernova in the last 900 hundred years so there's every chance that you're looking at something which no longer exists. We just haven't seen the light from the explosion yet.

[Taksin]

Eight minutes.

If you're looking at the Moon it's how it was a second ago. Should you look at Jupiter, and I strongly advise you to, it's how it was forty five minutes ago.

If you look at Rigel, the bottom right star in the constellation of Orion, you're looking at how it was 900 years ago. Due to the type of star it is, a white/blue supergiant, it is a contender for a supernova. It could have gone supernova in the last 900 hundred years so there's every chance that you're looking at something which no longer exists. We just haven't seen the light from the explosion yet.

which sort of explains relativity theory...

My favourite stat (and I've long forgotten the actual figures) is the Voyager craft (I think it's called) that was catapulted out of our solar system, giving us images of sunsets on Uranus and Pluto as it went, at something like 175,000 miles an hour (they span it round the sun a couple of times to build up speed) is headed toward the nearest star in the galaxy to our own sun.. the first port of call beyond Pluto..



I think it was about 10,000 years that journey is expected to take.

[red raw]

Eight minutes.

If you're looking at the Moon it's how it was a second ago. Should you look at Jupiter, and I strongly advise you to, it's how it was forty five minutes ago.

If you look at Rigel, the bottom right star in the constellation of Orion, you're looking at how it was 900 years ago. Due to the type of star it is, a white/blue supergiant, it is a contender for a supernova. It could have gone supernova in the last 900 hundred years so there's every chance that you're looking at something which no longer exists. We just haven't seen the light from the explosion yet.

Imagine a world in which money did not exist. Where every resource is shared and not over consumed. Where almost all human life on Earth is only involved in the "Space Program". If it was our only frontier and every job & position in the world was only dedicated to space exploration, at any cost, we'd have our answers.

Unfortunately we'll never know.

(and I'm sure there's a better way to travel quickly through space than by burning fossil fuel, we just don't know it yet!)

[CODE RED]

It's an utter mindfuck alright.Like I said in my post,the universe is expanding,but nobody can tell you what it is expanding into!!!!!.

And then there's other dimensions.

Good thread this.

Scientists have theorised that since the Universe's expansion is accelerating, it will reach a point where all matter down to even the electrons will be pulled apart completely leaving the "great nothingness".

In my limited knowledge of this subject (perhaps sub-novice compared to others on the forum) I'm not sure I can comprehend that.

[The Prince]

Voyager set off in 1977 (I think) and only left the solar system about two years ago!

I love the Carl Sagan story about when he was asked what music to put on the plaque. You know, the one which showed a man and woman and a pic of the solar system and our place in it in case it was found by alien intelligence. He was asked what music ashould be put on it. He said anything but Bach. When asked why not Bach he said "Because it'd look like we were showing off."

[rowben86]

Don't they work out the speed of light by the distance of the Sun to say another object i.e Earth by how long it takes the light to get here, which if I remember right is 8 seconds.

Sorry i meant 8 minutes.:rolleyes:
Heres a link:http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-5320.html

[Evs]

Didn't I read that Pluto was stripped of planetary status recently? If so, why? What constitutes a 'planet'?

[rowben86]

Didn't I read that Pluto was stripped of planetary status recently? If so, why? What constitutes a 'planet'?

The size of the object constitutes if it is a planet or not.

[Evs]

Why was it a planet for so long then stripped of that status? How could they deduce if it is now smaller than originally thought?

Size isn't everything..........................I hope ;)

[Where'sHeggem?]

Never mind that, our Sun could have exploded and we wouldn't know anything about it until 8minutes time...

[Taksin]

Voyager set off in 1977 (I think) and only left the solar system about two years ago!

I love the Carl Sagan story about when he was asked what music to put on the plaque. You know, the one which showed a man and woman and a pic of the solar system and our place in it in case it was found by alien intelligence. He was asked what music ashould be put on it. He said anything but Bach. When asked why not Bach he said "Because it'd look like we were showing off."

that's very funny! and I agree with him really.. a more honest offering might have been a video of Big Brother 7, or some footage from Iraq.

maybe we should start a campaign to bring it back and reload it?

[The Prince]

The size of the object constitutes if it is a planet or not.

Sort of. If anything Pluto is a large asteroid that happens to have it's own moon (Charon) which is about half its size. I think the reason is was downgraded was because of it's rotation around the sun which is much, much different from the other planets (17 degrees inclined to the ecliptic). Planets don't normally do that but comets and asteroids do. For example one asteroid, Chiron, moves between Saturn and Uranus and no one knows why its escaped the gravity of either planet. Thus Chiron is going around the sun but also between planets which is very strange.

Pluto should never have really have been called a planet but should have been a Kuiper belt object, that is, an object way out beyond the orbit of the known solar system.

The orbit of Pluto is so chaotic that in its 248 year orbit of the sun, it actually spends 20 years inside the orbit of Neptune, making it the eighth "planet" in terms of distance from the sun.

How great is astronomy? I could talk about this stuff all day.

[Evs]

You certainly seem to know your shit mate! Cheers.

[Rushback]

love it :D


So, we know the universe is expanding and The Big Bang happend one way or another so here's a thought....

if we could create a space craft which could travel far beyond all physical speeds and fly away off into space, would the inhabitants of that space craft eventually reach shockwaves that were originally sent out when the big bang happened?

Also, Would there be a sound literally like a woosh as it passed through or would the vacuum of space be strong enough to nullify it

I'd be quite appreciative if someone could answer this one cheers :D

[ohdear]

love it :D


So, we know the universe is expanding and The Big Bang happend one way or another so here's a thought....

if we could create a space craft which could travel far beyond all physical speeds and fly away off into space, would the inhabitants of that space craft eventually reach shockwaves that were originally sent out when the big bang happened?

Also, Would there be a sound literally like a woosh as it passed through or would the vacuum of space be strong enough to nullify it

I'd be quite appreciative if someone could answer this one cheers :D


Good questions,but not sure it would make any sound as there would be no air to carry it,at least not as far as I know.

If the big bang is true though,it was a hell of a long time ago and catching up with that,which is not something I've ever thought of by the way ,question,would take something pretty special.

[AnfieldAura]

I still don't see how the Big Bang theory explains anything. If nothing can come from nothing, where did the stuff that went bang come from?

And who made God?

:D

[jak16lfc]

Ok i have one theory, here goes.

if we do eventually figure out a way to travel at the speed of light, which will enable us to discover a lot more about our universe etc, then it would mean we could theoretically travel in time, is that right? (If you can travel at the speed of light then you can travel through time?) so this would of already happend, if it is going to, as somebody would have travelled back in time and told us, no? and therefore we would have discovered time travel a long time ago from the people who travelled back in time. so it is either that we will never discover how to do it because we dont know now, or, we have BUT they, the people who traveleld back, merely look like normal people and have come back to learn how we lived, monitor us etc. or even change things in the past. i.e. Global warming or fossil fuels, to save us and themselves.

Now im too confused to say anything else about it :confused: i hope i made sense, can anybody explain or expand on what i have just said?

[Rushback]

I still don't see how the Big Bang theory explains anything. If nothing can come from nothing, where did the stuff that went bang come from?

And who made God?

:D


maybe God was created with The Big bang

if not, then the universe might be part of a much bigger project, maybe several universes existing in different rooms in God's Flat or something, therefore, the universe is not infinite and time outside it might not exsist leading to the 'eternal life' part of the bible

so, when we die, we fly around for a bit looking at all the nice things, then we are directed to the back door and into gods kitchen where we find dinners nearly ready and if we don't wash our hands we get a holy clip round the ear

[King Xabi]

You know your stuff Prince mate. :)

Really interesting thread. The pictures showing the size of the Earth compared to different stars was pretty amazing.

On the subject of "Is there any other life but us?"
I think there has got to be other life. If the Universe is so huge there must be another planet with different organisms on it.

Was also wondering-

Is it possible that there is more than one Universe?
Have any UFO sightings been genuine?
Was the Roswell incident really just a weather balloon?

[AnfieldAura]

When I was 13 I was convinced that the earth is just an electron (or a proton, although I'm siding more with negativity here) in an atom and that atom is part of something (eg. a can of Fanta) in another earth. And the earth that the can exists on is really just another proton/electron in an another atom etc etc. Like Russian dolls.





Disclaimer:I'm all grown-up now so obviously I don't believe in such nonsense.

[Rushback]

Ok i have one theory, here goes.

if we do eventually figure out a way to travel at the speed of light, which will enable us to discover a lot more about our universe etc, then it would mean we could theoretically travel in time, is that right? (If you can travel at the speed of light then you can travel through time?) so this would of already happend, if it is going to, as somebody would have travelled back in time and told us, no? and therefore we would have discovered time travel a long time ago from the people who travelled back in time. so it is either that we will never discover how to do it because we dont know now, or, we have BUT they, the people who traveleld back, merely look like normal people and have come back to learn how we lived, monitor us etc. or even change things in the past. i.e. Global warming or fossil fuels, to save us and themselves.

Now im too confused to say anything else about it :confused: i hope i made sense, can anybody explain or expand on what i have just said?



:D

take my really fast space ship theory that we can reach the shock waves of the big bang, is that effectively going back in time?

but, proper time travel can't involve speed i reckon

If you wanted to travel back and forth in time, you'd have to disengage yourself from all the physical properties that make up this particular universe because time exsists in a continous straight line

Ok, say someone has already done so and they plan on getting back to report their findings, this in theory could be the only way to do it because time is relevant and the future has never happened at any one point in time so in order to travel ahem..Back to the future... they'd need to extract themselves from time itself and loop in at a point further on

erm, yeah :o

[Deba Kopite]

If God is red (ours), where do the Mancs go when they die? :confused:

[The Prince]

I know it was deemed as a coffee table book but I really do recommend a Brief History of Time for many of these questions. What happens when a watch falls into a black hole etc? Did Einstein's wormholes exist? First class stuff.

AA, I've always thought that planets rotating a star always resembles a molecule in shape and I'm not convinced that that's a coincidence. Thus the human race really are a mere infection on an atom.

[rowben86]

If God is red (ours), where do the Mancs go when they die? :confused:

Hell of course!:rolleyes: ;)

[Psychoticmonkey]

What struck me the most was the fact that I was being moved to a more advanced place and that it'd been going on for thousands of years like a big secret to everyone who has ever lived. I felt very loved at the end. I knew it wasn't Earth. Maybe that's what we do when we die. We literally leave the planet. Maybe we've been somewhere before this life.

That post was probably the most fascinating thing I've ever read on these boards.

I find it quite difficult to accept that this life is it, we as humans are top of the ladder and we've got an average of 78 years to keep the species going. For a start, why is it that in every culture in the world, no matter how isolated or ancient, there is some awareness of a greater, or spiritual element. It seems that as soon as humans gained some consciousness of self, they also gained a sense of divinity.

Is this simply because of human nature, 'God' being something buried within the human subconscious? We are aware of our own existence and place, and so attempt to find some perspective by placing ourselves above animals and below Gods, or spirits in some sort of hierarchy. Or is it actually the truth, that there really is more to understand but at the moment we're 'not ready'. I'd certainly like to think so.

It's remarkable that those who have near death experiences like Karl's all seem to feel some comfort and peace, rather than fear. Is that because they really have had a glimpse of something far greater than in everyday life? I find it hard to believe that it is all in the imagination - look at Karl's knowledge of the nurse's name, or Mick's friend's hand on shoulder experience. I hate being told I'm nothing more than a series of chemical reactions and impulses because I feel that there's so much more than that.

Whenever I think about this it scares the hell out of me. I wouldn't even say I want 'the answers', or proof of anything greater. When people say they can't accept the existence of God, or heaven, or whatever because there isn't any proof, I can't help thinking that's a bit narrow-minded. How can you demand certainty in human terms of something so great. While on one hand, I realise just how tiny and insignificant I am in relation to the universe, on the other my thoughts, feelings and experiences suggest to me that I am so much more than that. An individual.

I'm a big fan of Jungian thinking, if anyone's familiar. In an over-simplistic nutshell, Jung believed that the 'purpose' of all of our lives is to achieve individuation. This means we have explored and accepted our conscious mind and our unconscious mind - we have reached an acceptance of our own strengths and our own faults. Effectively, we have reached an understanding of our own place in the universe as an individual. Jung remained deliberately ambiguous as to whether this denies or accepts the existence of something greater.

The thing is, I don't want to come across as saying 'God is just a feeling' because I'd like to believe there is so much more than that.

If you look at Rigel, the bottom right star in the constellation of Orion, you're looking at how it was 900 years ago. Due to the type of star it is, a white/blue supergiant, it is a contender for a supernova. It could have gone supernova in the last 900 hundred years so there's every chance that you're looking at something which no longer exists. We just haven't seen the light from the explosion yet.

This may demonstrate my ignorance, but does that not mean that if we were able to look far enough (which I realise is impossible), we could, in theory, see the very beginning of time?

(And then what about beyond that? Would we then be looking at the very edge of the universe? In which case, what's on the 'other side' of that edge?)

[AnfieldAura]

AA, I've always thought that planets rotating a star always resembles a molecule in shape and I'm not convinced that that's a coincidence. Thus the human race really are a mere infection on an atom.

I like that, 'infection of an atom'.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7761/solarsystemorbitsrk7.jpg
Solar system

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/1193/catomeqh0.gif
atom

[King Xabi]

This may demonstrate my ignorance, but does that not mean that if we were able to look far enough (which I realise is impossible), we could, in theory, see the very beginning of time?

(And then what about beyond that? Would we then be looking at the very edge of the universe? In which case, what's on the 'other side' of that edge?)

Good questions.

I get a weird feeling in my head just thinking about that.
So hard to understand and take in.

[Seth7724]

I'm more concerned with how "Advanced" we are as a species... I mean look at what we do!

We have TV shows, can make music, create pictures, invent, travel, have created value systems, jobs, houses...

Other animals do fascinating things like build nests, dams and even some sing (sort of) but nothing comes close to us.We can't surely just be "Lucky" enough to have evolved when other species didn't.

I think those conspiracies about us being "Tampered" with by intelligent aliens thousands of years ago have more logical answers than simply saying we "Evolved from monkeys, but some monkeys didn't evolve" :rolleyes:

I saw a bird watching my televison once....

Even though it was off.....

[Seth7724]

I know it was deemed as a coffee table book but I really do recommend a Brief History of Time for many of these questions. What happens when a watch falls into a black hole etc? Did Einstein's wormholes exist? First class stuff.

AA, I've always thought that planets rotating a star always resembles a molecule in shape and I'm not convinced that that's a coincidence. Thus the human race really are a mere infection on an atom.

Prince, you have enlightened me. I am going to put these points forward to my boring physics teacher, and confuse the fuck out of him

[Taksin]

[QUOTE=The Prince;758971]

Pluto should never have really have been called a planet
[QUOTE]

One of Amis' characters describes Pluto as a 'toilet', which I've always loved..

Prince, that voyager has only been out of the solar system for 2 years comes as a surprise to me, given how long ago I saw the photos of Neptune, Uranus and, most shocking of all, the Sun as a small, dim and distant object.. Is that because of the definition of a solar system? Do you know if there is an official range to it?

[Psychoticmonkey]

I think I'll order A Brief History Of Time actually. It's only £7 on play.com and it's a fascinating topic. By the way, has anyone seen Donnie Darko? There are some interesting approaches to these kinds of questions.

I'm a big fan of Jungian thinking, if anyone's familiar. In an over-simplistic nutshell, Jung believed that the 'purpose' of all of our lives is to achieve individuation. This means we have explored and accepted our conscious mind and our unconscious mind - we have reached an acceptance of our own strengths and our own faults. Effectively, we have reached an understanding of our own place in the universe as an individual. Jung remained deliberately ambiguous as to whether this denies or accepts the existence of something greater.

By the way, I would highly recommend Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung - it's about £7-8 from here (http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?r=BOOK&title=353867). It's quite chatty in tone, an easy read but utterly fascinating. I'll be honest and say it changed my outlook on life...

That's quite biographical, but for a book which outlines Jung's beliefs (theories isn't really the right word) this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jung-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192854585/ref=sr_1_1/026-0092937-1313211?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182371742&sr=8-1) is a very good place to start (and only £4!)

[RedRich]

I'm interested in Jung's theories and believe he has the key to understanding some of the things earlier in the thread. Just the whole collective unconscious etc, and then moving on to the microcosm/macrocosm.

I believe the way to true understanding of 'reality' is to develop understanding of the internal as well as the external. 'Inner' and 'outer' space, if you will :o

P.s Rushback you're a top banana :D

[Psychoticmonkey]

I'm interested in Jung's theories and believe he has the key to understanding some of the things earlier in the thread. Just the whole collective unconscious etc, and then moving on to the microcosm/macrocosm.

I believe the way to true understanding of 'reality' is to develop understanding of the internal as well as the external. 'Inner' and 'outer' space, if you will :o

P.s Rushback you're a top banana :D

Absolutely. At school, I had a teacher who was absolutely convinced by Freud's theories. Around the time I started to get an interest in Jung (I visited his homes in Zurich and Bollingen, in fact), I also attended some Freudian Psychoanalysis talks held by this teacher, and at one point he began criticising the idea of the collective unconscious. He thought of it as an actual 'thing' somewhere, which all humans are plugged into, which is pretty absurd.

But then when asked to explain not just human, but all animal instinct he said it's simply how we are raised - we learn everything from our environment. If that's true, surely any awareness of God has to be true? Because we've gained that awareness from our environment, not from our imagination. Also, my cat follows its instincts. I've had her since she was a kitten, and I never tought her how to hunt, yet she still does it (she's good as well, keeps bloody bringing in half-dead birds/mice).

Common aspects shared among all species, like a cat being able to hunt, are labelled as insinct (or for Jung, collective unconscious). Seeing as this instinct seems to be part of the mind, rather than the body, is it not equally valid that some belief in God or spirits is also fundamental to our existence? It would certainly explain why even the most remote tribes have an awareness of a religious or 'other' element.

[Taksin]

By the way, I would highly recommend Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung -



That's the one where he has the dream about liverpool isn't it?

[fwd_fish]

Imagine a world in which money did not exist. Where every resource is shared and not over consumed. Where almost all human life on Earth is only involved in the "Space Program". If it was our only frontier and every job & position in the world was only dedicated to space exploration, at any cost, we'd have our answers.

Unfortunately we'll never know.

(and I'm sure there's a better way to travel quickly through space than by burning fossil fuel, we just don't know it yet!)

I think the USSR have already tried that one mate.

On the subject of dead relatives popping round to see how we're getting on, I had a freaky experience a couple of months ago. I was sleeping away with the missus when I managed to wake myself up during a nightmare. I was sat bolt upright in bed, making the most blood curdling screaming noise I've ever heard. I was a bit shaken to say the least, the missus was hysterical. If anybody had popped round they night I've got a funny feeling they weren't friendly, but it was probably just a nightmare. Before we went back to sleep, I had to give the house a once over armed with a kitchen knife.

On the subject of religion, there is either some truth in it or it is the greatest wind up of all time.

Finally, there has got to be some other life out there.

[Psychoticmonkey]

That's the one where he has the dream about liverpool isn't it?

Yep - he's in Liverpool with a bunch of Swiss guys (f***ing wool) when he discovers a flower which represents the very centre of the psyche/the Self. That's the dream that inspired him to continue his work... Also marked the beginning of a sort of mid-life crisis or mental breakdown as he moved onto a different 'era' in his life.

[Taksin]

Yep - he's in Liverpool with a bunch of Swiss guys (f***ing wool) when he discovers a flower which represents the very centre of the psyche/the Self. That's the dream that inspired him to continue his work... Also marked the beginning of a sort of mid-life crisis or mental breakdown as he moved onto a different 'era' in his life.

yeah, I've seen Liverpool do that to a few people..

It was a Magnolia tree if I remember right, and it was at the centre of the pool of life - hence the quote on Flanagans..

[The Prince]

[QUOTE=The Prince;758971]

Pluto should never have really have been called a planet
[QUOTE]

One of Amis' characters describes Pluto as a 'toilet', which I've always loved..

Prince, that voyager has only been out of the solar system for 2 years comes as a surprise to me, given how long ago I saw the photos of Neptune, Uranus and, most shocking of all, the Sun as a small, dim and distant object.. Is that because of the definition of a solar system? Do you know if there is an official range to it?

Well, it's supposed to be the planetessimals outside of Pluto's orbit in the Kuiper Belt. That's a second asteroid belt but nothing like as dense as the one between Mars and Jupiter, then the Oort Cloud - named after a Dutch astronomer and which contains lots of comet-like objects.

I suppose the solar system ends when there is no gravitaional pull from the sun.

Comets are interesting things. There are probab;y hundeds of them in the Oort Cloud and when they move very slowly until the gravitional pull of one of the gas giants passes by (by billions of miles obviously). Then they move in towards the sun. Many are ripped apart.

I watched the Shoemaker-Levy comet hit Jupiter in 1994. The equivalent of a someone firing a pea shooter at a rhino.

[Mick R]

I don't know anywhere near enough, but I think about things and sometimes com up with ideas - I would doubt these ideas have never been considered before, but I've never yet met anybody who says they also have considered these things - things like the theory that all events are occurring at once, but - as time is linear, and we only travel through it in one direction, then we don't usually experience the same happenings more than once.

I have on many occasions experienced deja vu, and would not have had any clue as to how that can happen. I read about our astral body leaving the physical body, and moving forward in time, observing future events, but always tied to the physical body by an ethereal umbilical cord. I could do that tonight, then experience the deja vu tomorrow, and have no recollection of the astral travelling (or "dream") that I had...

Forgive me, I'm not explaining this well, but the following bunkum makes me believe it may be possible.

If it's a load of crap and has been proven so, I'm sure someone will let me know (Mr Prince seems the best equipped candidate!!).

--------------

"The Train Stations of Time
And while we're waxing philosophical and pondering the mysteries of mathematics (and holding in a big wee while Walter is working in the bathroom), how about time? Walter and I were discussing the possiblity of time travel as he slurped a well-earned cup of tea. He's having none of it, and I agreed to an extent - as we do not know how to travel faster than light, how can we travel through time? But that's not to say that we won't figure it out sometime in the future.

One theory at the moment is that time folds back on itself (rather like a Walls Vienetta) in layers, and that we may be able to take short cuts through the fabric of time. It's all rather heady stuff and can be discussed and masticated over for years and years.

Once again, I have mused on something and come up with my own thoughts, although (as I discovered with the magic of the number 11, this too has almost certainly been postulated previously, given the number of people who have pondered it, including many finer minds than my own).

I wonder whether time is linear, like a long road, or perhaps like a railway line. The days (or the months, or the years, or even the aeons) are the stations. This week, our trains (our bodies?) have stopped off at Sunday Central, Monday Circus and Tuesday Square, due to visit Wednesday Hills, Thursday Town, Friday Forest and Saturday Cross over the next four days - providing the train isn't derailed!

This also means that stations such as Sunday Central and Monday Circus still exist - behind us. And as yet, we don't know how to make the trains travel backwards. This I find frustrating.

I was lying in the bath last night. The bathroom used to have a big white cupboard in the corner, with an old green boiler inside. This I have torn out, and the bath now sits in that corner. My head last night was where the boiler used to be, covered in lagging and surrounded by cobwebs. Going by the above, the boiler is still there, where my head is, occupying the same space. Only, it is not occupying the same space-time (does that sound right?). My head and the boiler are occupying the same space, but not the same space-time, which means that my head is not sitting inside an ancient boiler (stop sniggering at the back and making references to Wayne Rooney).

If I could go back to the station known as August 2006 Strand from the station I am currently visiting (October 2006 Port), naturally the boiler would be sitting in the corner of the bathroom.

Hmmm. This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands."

[Mick R]

the Oort Cloud

Sounds like a Doctor Who baddie...

[The Prince]

This may demonstrate my ignorance, but does that not mean that if we were able to look far enough (which I realise is impossible), we could, in theory, see the very beginning of time?

(And then what about beyond that? Would we then be looking at the very edge of the universe? In which case, what's on the 'other side' of that edge?)

Well, astronomers can now see back much further thanks to Hubble and can find new quasers all the time. Quasars being active young galaxies with enormous red shifts...

A red shift is the scale on a galaxies' spectrum that shows whether a star is moving away from us or not. If it's moving to us, as one of our neighbours Andromeda is, they have a blue shift. Edwin Hubble discovered this and it therefore means that the universe must be expanding. Think of and uninflated huge ballon with dots all over it. As you inflate the balloon the dots get further and further apart. Hence galaxies, in the main part, are getting further away from each other.

Back to quasars. Because they are super luminous bodies we can measure how far away they are and some of them are in excess of three billion light years away. Therefore, the universe must be older than this at least.

[Mick R]

What are the definitions of, and differences between; Solar System, Galaxy, Universe?

[The Prince]

Sounds like a Doctor Who baddie...

The Oort Cloud?

An anagram of

Doctor He Lout.

So he is bad after all.

[The Prince]

What are the definitions of, and differences between; Solar System, Galaxy, Universe?

Solar system - anything affected by the pull of the sun.

Galaxy (including globular clusters) - a city of stars. Clusters being like the suburbs. We're on the arm of the Milky Way

Universe - the lot

[Mick R]

Right, I thought I had a grasp on the difference between galaxy and universe (in fact universe is the one I understood fully) but I was unaware of the meaning of 'solar system'.

So solar system is the little one (relatively), as it includes only one star - our own.

Then galaxy involves a much higher number of stars, and....the universe is obviously each and every star.

You said you could talk all night about this type of stuff - I say 'please do'.

This is the best thread I've read in years.

I had a certain level of understanding, and a higher level of interest, but some of what you are coming out with is superb. I'm the type of fella who knows the sun is 93m miles away, its light takes 8 minutes to reach us, and the speed of light is approx 186,000mps.

I'm like the "Commodores football fan" of astronomy - Once, twice, three times a season. You, sir, are the astronomy die-hard, attending all home and aways, domestic and European (including pre-season friendlies). The 900 year-dead star business is a particular mind blower.

More, please... :D

[red brick]

I think the USSR have already tried that one mate.

On the subject of dead relatives popping round to see how we're getting on, I had a freaky experience a couple of months ago. I was sleeping away with the missus when I managed to wake myself up during a nightmare. I was sat bolt upright in bed, making the most blood curdling screaming noise I've ever heard. I was a bit shaken to say the least, the missus was hysterical. If anybody had popped round they night I've got a funny feeling they weren't friendly, but it was probably just a nightmare. Before we went back to sleep, I had to give the house a once over armed with a kitchen knife.On the subject of religion, there is either some truth in it or it is the greatest wind up of all time.

Finally, there has got to be some other life out there.


This has happened to me and the wife on a number of occasions. The only difference being we've never felt threatened. Whoever or whatever has been friendly. The first time was years ago when we lived in a mobile home while we built our house. My wife was up in the living room watching tv late one night when the calender on the wall started to swing back and forward on its own. Then there was nothing for a long time. Recently it has happened more frequently. More to the wife. She used to complain about feeling that somebody was watching her. Then one night she felt a blowing in her ear as she sat at her pc.About 6 months ago we were in bed and I was having trouble getting to sleep but as I started to drift off I felt a hand rubbing my knee and it wasn't my wife:D . Then about 3 months ago we had a stupid falling out at bedtime and she said she was going to sleep on the sofa. The same thing happened to her only it was her head which got rubbed.
As for the life after death thing . my wifes mums best friend died years ago but they said that just before she died she really perked up as if she was making a miraculous recovery, then she said hold on mammy I'm coming now. That was her last words before she died. Her Mum had died years before.

[The Prince]

Well, more stuff

I can't see how we'd be able to witness anything close to the Big Bang as the first stars, stars that have lived and died many times already (I'll go on about this in a minute) only began to form 150 million years after the Big Bang. Cosmology is not my thing as I prefer recognisable date to theories. Patrick Moore is an astronomer (and a pen pal of mine in the early nineties when I was really obsessed with this stuff) while Hawking and Hubble were cosmologists.

Stars. Right. There are two main types. Our star is a pretty cool one. It'll begin to bloat in about five billion years time and swell to a red giant. It will swallow every thing up to Mars and then destroy everything else nearby. Again if you look at Orion and look at the top left star above the belt you'll see such a star called Betelgeux (not Beetlejuice - it's pronounced Betel-gerrz). Anyway, then it'll eventaully throw off its outer layers (google M57 in Lyra to see what this looks like) and leave a very dense white dwarf star with no light.

The second type are hot blue/white stars. These can become so massive and hot that they go into supernova and explode. This is the biggest explosion possible after the Big Bang. They throw off their shells and leave a dense object called a pulsar. Pulsars can spin up to eighty times a second and are so dense that a pinhead of matter from it would weigth thousands of tons.

Still with me?

This is the good stuff.

When both types of stars throw off their material it wanders about until over millions of years it forms again and becomes another star. The pressure from it forms the core etc and the process begins again. Our sun has already done this many times.

So...

Every single thing you see, can touch, can hold has once been a star. Including you. You are the remnants of a star. A bit left over. Water is starjuice, your furniture was once in a star.

[Mick R]

Well, I've heard and read a fair bit previously, but I've never heard that one before. Again - very interesting and thought-provoking.

Somebody mentioned earlier that energy cannot be created nor destroyed - I thought it was matter, rather than energy - could be wrong, of course.

But your last post takes the above theory to its logical conclusion, I guess.

I always joke that, if matter cannot be created nor destroyed, then all those selfish bastards on diets are just making us lard-arses even fatter - well, their excess weight has to go somewhere!!

I never thought I'd say that one of my favourite songs featured Willie Nelson, not to mention Waylon Jennings or Kris Kristofferson, but The Highwayman is a tremendous idea, I think:

-----
"I was a highwayman, along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..."
-----

Luckily Johnny Cash gets the best line: "Or I may simply be a single drop of rain".

Is there believed to be a finite amount of 'matter' in the universe?

I guess so, from what you just posted, and it actually confirms reincarnation, doesn't it? Not in the way most people would hope for, though... ;)

[The Prince]

Regeneration I suppose. See, the Doctor was right.

3567

M57 picture. You can see the star in the middle. The gas being blown off to eventually form again. For anyone interested you can see this in the constellation of Lyra.

[Taksin]

The Oort cloud..

that's finding a way into my day to day vocabulary. :p

[Taksin]

Prince, do you make use of any of the telescopes in London? I noticed the one up near Highgate recently, which I think is used by a club..

my ex's dad told the story of holidaying in Turkey and a man in the street walking around with a telescope on his back saying "Jupiter, Saturn..". He was intrigued, payed his million whatsits, and the telescope was put on a tripod to reveal - The Rings Around Saturn. He was flabberghasted.

Many don't realise how accessible such views are.

[Taksin]

Is there believed to be a finite amount of 'matter' in the universe?



I remember seeing a map of the universe published about 10 years ago. It was a 3-D map of huge clusters of Galaxies that looked a bit like cigarette smoke or a coral (let's say a cross between the two).

that was it. beyond this map is nothing as far as they could tell. they were able to point to us somewhere bottom left (not us, TTWAR, but the milky way).

[The Prince]

I thought of doing the tourist telescope thing while Mars was at its best perihelion (closest to the sun) for years. The ice caps were visible. Should have done really.

The only problem I had was the Aurora Soho nearby. Couldn't see a thing.

[Taksin]

I thought of doing the tourist telescope thing while Mars was at its best perihelion (closest to the sun) for years. The ice caps were visible. Should have done really.

The only problem I had was the Aurora Soho nearby. Couldn't see a thing.

I haven't seen the icecaps..

neither have I seen Venus, who has been stunning recently, through a telescope..

[Taksin]

The only problem I had was the Aurora Soho nearby. Couldn't see a thing.

did we have the 1hr lights out in London last night? or is it supposed to be tonight? 9-10pm I believe..

[The Prince]

Venus in a telescope is disappointing. Just a white dot.

I first saw Saturn in August 1993 and it really is a heart stopping moment. Just utterly fantastic.

[Taksin]

Venus in a telescope is disappointing. Just a white dot.

I first saw Saturn in August 1993 and it really is a heart stopping moment. Just utterly fantastic.

I certainly can't recall the date, but it was around the same time and I was similarly stunned. I knew a bit about the sky, enough to recognise Saturn. We were staying in a friends house in Spain and had been using the telescope to spy on bikini babes on expensive boats.. I just set it up one night and almost fainted..

[Taksin]

But when you think about how large everything is... it makes you realize how insignificant the things in our lives are. I mean, the earth is like a grain of sand in the beach we call the universe. And we're just tiny little beings on that tiny piece of sand. Pretty amazing! :)

Kant was attending a lecture by a materialistic astronomer on the topic of man's place in the universe. The astronomer concluded his lecture with: "So you see that astronomically speaking, man is utterly insignificant." Kant replied: "Professor, you forgot the most important thing, man is the astronomer."

[Mel Wood]

Venus in a telescope is disappointing. Just a white dot.

I first saw Saturn in August 1993 and it really is a heart stopping moment. Just utterly fantastic.

I could have this wrong but isn't it very occasionally very visible with the naked eye?

I vividly remember seeing a huge light orangey orb which appeared to be so close it was in our back garden. This was mid-late 70's but I remember reading later that it had been a rare view of 'The Morning Star' which I understood to be Venus.

Could this have happened Prince, or should I be restarting my medication?

It was an awesome sight whatever it was.

Didn't know you were a penpal of Mr Moore. Had the pleasure of meeting him after a lecture with the B.A.A.S when I was younger and he signed a book for me which I still have.
He talked at the time of evidence of organisms on Mars (this was 1984) and I remember the same 'news' being manipulatively broken as a biggish story in conjunction with the release of the movie 'Independence Day' in 1995. Old news resold as unnecessary movie marketing. Sweet. :rolleyes:

Re: the telescope guys in Turkey, I'm tempted to start something similar up in Liverpool. Just buy a cheapo telescope and paint a tiny Neptune on the far lens. Possibly with a flying saucer dogfight raging around its orbit. Fiver a pop.
Get in.

[Taksin]

I could have this wrong but isn't it very occasionally very visible with the naked eye?


has been very visable for the last few months... but at night time at the moment. soon after sunset look in the direction of where the sun was a few hours ago. there you will see the second brightest object in the night sky..

[The Prince]

Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are visible with the naked eye. I've only seen Mercury once and that was because I knew exactly because I knew where to look for it.

Look at the sky and try to find something bright that doesn't shimmer. If it's white and very bright you've either got Venus or Jupiter. Saturn is a little fainter but you should be able to spot it. If you've got binoculars you'll see a few of Jupiter's moons (one of which is bigger than Pluto and Mercury) but no surface details.

Alternatively watch the object over a few nights and if its position changes relative to the other stars, it's a planet.

[CODE RED]

Sort of. If anything Pluto is a large asteroid that happens to have it's own moon (Charon) which is about half its size. I think the reason is was downgraded was because of it's rotation around the sun which is much, much different from the other planets (17 degrees inclined to the ecliptic). Planets don't normally do that but comets and asteroids do. For example one asteroid, Chiron, moves between Saturn and Uranus and no one knows why its escaped the gravity of either planet. Thus Chiron is going around the sun but also between planets which is very strange.

Pluto should never have really have been called a planet but should have been a Kuiper belt object, that is, an object way out beyond the orbit of the known solar system.

The orbit of Pluto is so chaotic that in its 248 year orbit of the sun, it actually spends 20 years inside the orbit of Neptune, making it the eighth "planet" in terms of distance from the sun.

How great is astronomy? I could talk about this stuff all day.

I'm enjoying this thread.

[The Prince]

I certainly can't recall the date, but it was around the same time and I was similarly stunned. I knew a bit about the sky, enough to recognise Saturn. We were staying in a friends house in Spain and had been using the telescope to spy on bikini babes on expensive boats.. I just set it up one night and almost fainted..

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/scopeview.htm

[Taksin]

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/images/sat_c.jpg


that's the one!

[The Prince]

That's the view I used to get with my 4.5 reflector.

3573

Jupiter looks like this. Don't forget that one of the moons are bigger than Mercury and Pluto.

[AnfieldAura]

This thread is so good I feel like changing my name to AnfieldAurora.


:o

[RedRich]

This thread is so good I feel like changing my name to AnfieldAurora.


:o

:D

[charpi]

i have a question, hopefully one of the learned ones here could help me with it...

1 revolution of the earth = 1 day right?

so if you are on a satellite and you travel around earth once and given the speed of the satellite it would take less than 1 day, so time on earth has passed 1 day and you, on space observing earth, maybe even less than half a day would have passed, thus if everyone on earth have aged a day and for you, only half a day, wouldnt you live twice the age of people on earth?

eg, you spend 50 years in space and when you return it is now 2107 instead of 2057...

hope you can help me, i watched a documentry about it many years ago when i was like 9 or 10 years old and too young to think about it....now im confused whether time does slow down or not??

thanks

[Taksin]

It doesn't work out that way. Our relation to time is not only determined by the earth's rotation - that determines the way we portion it... into 24 hours. But time ticks along regardless.

What is time? There's a thread.

Time in space causes other problems of longevity, remember. The longer a human spends up there, the greater the physical stress they encounter on returning to earth's gravity.. I would wager the effects are life shortening .

[Taksin]

That's the view I used to get with my 4.5 reflector.

3573

Jupiter looks like this. Don't forget that one of the moons are bigger than Mercury and Pluto.

that's beautifully clear, Prince. even through my spanish telescope the moons are impressive.

I wonder what the early astronomers made of the rings of Saturn, given they had a long relationship with the visible planets through the tradition of astrology? Do you happen to know? They must have been perplexed at the least.

[The Prince]

Time is relative and the duration of the year doesn't really matter. If you're on the planet Venus your year is shorter than your day as it goes around the sun every days but it takes 584 days (I think) to rotate on its axis. The Martian year is much the same as ours but if you were on Jupiter you'd be having a birthday party every ten years. As for Neptune, you'd be dead way before your first birthday.

Uranus is interesting. It's north pole sits on the equivalent of our equator so if you were at the south pole you'd never see the sun (which would only appear as a very bright star).

[red raw]

Uranus is interesting. It's north pole sits on the equivalent of our equator so if you were at the south pole you'd never see the sun (which would only appear as a very bright star).

Blowing my mind!

Question. Uranus is so far from the sun that it would appear just a "Very Bright Star"... Does it still receive any kind of Heat from the sun? and is it twilight all the time (on the North Pole) or actually daylight?

btw: I do know that it is freezing there,, but is there a temp difference between the poles?

[The Prince]

Technically all objects receive some level of heat from the sun but it'd be negligible for the outer gas giants. I assume it would be night all the time if you could see through the gas.

Just looked it up and found this.

Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic. At the time of Voyager 2's passage, Uranus' south pole was pointed almost directly at the Sun. This results in the odd fact that Uranus' polar regions receive more energy input from the Sun than do its equatorial regions. Uranus is nevertheless hotter at its equator than at its poles. The mechanism underlying this is unknown.

Actually, there's an ongoing battle over which of Uranus' poles is its north pole! Either its axial inclination is a bit over 90 degrees and its rotation is direct, or it's a bit less than 90 degrees and the rotation is retrograde. The problem is that you need to draw a dividing line *somewhere*, because in a case like Venus there is little dispute that the rotation is indeed retrograde (not a direct rotation with an inclination of nearly 180).

The same site asks...

Why doesn't Uranus radiate more heat than it receives from the Sun as the other gas planets do? Is its interior cold?
Why is its axis so unusually tilted? Was it due to a massive collision?
Why do Uranus and Neptune have so much less hydrogen and helium than Jupiter and Saturn? Is it simply because they are smaller? or because they're farther from the Sun?
What will happen to Uranus's weather as it progresses through its seasons?

[red raw]

Technically all objects receive some level of heat from the sun but it'd be negligible for the outer gas giants. I assume it would be night all the time if you could see through the gas.

Just looked it up and found this.

Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic. At the time of Voyager 2's passage, Uranus' south pole was pointed almost directly at the Sun. This results in the odd fact that Uranus' polar regions receive more energy input from the Sun than do its equatorial regions. Uranus is nevertheless hotter at its equator than at its poles. The mechanism underlying this is unknown.

Actually, there's an ongoing battle over which of Uranus' poles is its north pole! Either its axial inclination is a bit over 90 degrees and its rotation is direct, or it's a bit less than 90 degrees and the rotation is retrograde. The problem is that you need to draw a dividing line *somewhere*, because in a case like Venus there is little dispute that the rotation is indeed retrograde (not a direct rotation with an inclination of nearly 180).

The same site asks...

Why doesn't Uranus radiate more heat than it receives from the Sun as the other gas planets do? Is its interior cold?
Why is its axis so unusually tilted? Was it due to a massive collision?
Why do Uranus and Neptune have so much less hydrogen and helium than Jupiter and Saturn? Is it simply because they are smaller? or because they're farther from the Sun?
What will happen to Uranus's weather as it progresses through its seasons?

There's so much you know, Prince... and yet so much we really don't know!

Another question that you might be able to clear up...

Do all the planets rotate around the sun in a "Flat Disk" type affair (surface of a CD) or do some planets rotate on a slightly different axis, creating something akin to this logo (if you imagine the Sun to be in the centre of all that) http://www.sherwoodsys.com/images/bleft.jpg?

[The Prince]

That's what I was saying about Pluto's orbit. The other planet stay roughly to a few degrees of the ecliptic (and I think Neptune's is perfect as it the circularity of its orbit) but Pluto's is similar to the blue stripe in that image. 17 degrees off - i.e. hardly the movement of a regular planet but quite normal for an asteroid.

[Devski]

Excellent thread chaps - utterly rivetting, keep it up!

My two-pennorth:

Donnie Darko is based on Faust & Chaos theory. Some of you have touched on this already - but it's very interesting if you read into it a bit further. (Not Wikipedia mind...) Very confusing too.

I am usually of the belief that we are just freaks of nature who exist for a pin-prick of time (that goes for life on this planet really) - but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise.

After my mother died in 1988 I had one of those "people in the room" experiences. Very vivid, very real. I was terrified to begin with, then it became clear the "presence" meant no harm. Then it went. Or I woke up. Both really. I never identified the presence as being any person in particular, but the timing of it obviously led me to possible conclusions.

However, ultimately I think I was just having a vivid dream/waking experience I have to say.
Question: Why does this only happen when we're asleep then? It's just the subconcious being a bit overactive. IMHO.

As for the solar system, universe etc - fascinating stuff too. But I view it as a very different, seperate beast to "God" or whatver. The universe is physical. "God" is spiritual for me (not that I believe in one per se) the two things are completely detatched. And the spiritual world, the world of our thoughts/feelings/conscience etc may well just spring from our intelligence & our imaginations.

[red raw]

Excellent thread chaps - utterly rivetting, keep it up!

My two-pennorth:

Donnie Darko is based on Faust & Chaos theory. Some of you have touched on this already - but it's very interesting if you read into it a bit further. (Not Wikipedia mind...) Very confusing too.

I am usually of the belief that we are just freaks of nature who exist for a pin-prick of time (that goes for life on this planet really) - but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise.

After my mother died in 1988 I had one of those "people in the room" experiences. Very vivid, very real. I was terrified to begin with, then it became clear the "presence" meant no harm. Then it went. Or I woke up. Both really. I never identified the presence as being any person in particular, but the timing of it obviously led me to possible conclusions.

However, ultimately I think I was just having a vivid dream/waking experience I have to say.
Question: Why does this only happen when we're asleep then? It's just the subconcious being a bit overactive. IMHO.

As for the solar system, universe etc - fascinating stuff too. But I view it as a very different, seperate beast to "God" or whatver. The universe is physical. "God" is spiritual for me (not that I believe in one per se) the two things are completely detatched. And the spiritual world, the world of our thoughts/feelings/conscience etc may well just spring from our intelligence & our imaginations.

I believe in the Matrix... and Planets are the "Architects" To Do Lists and stars are just the "Architects" Spam Emails. :D

[Taksin]

It's just the subconcious being a bit overactive. IMHO.


Hate to sound like someone off the scientology thread, but I suppose one question is 'what purpose does the subconcious perform from an evolutionary perspective?'. Are the scientific answers to this entirely convincing or are they fudging the theory to fit the evidence?

[Taksin]

because in a case like Venus there is little dispute that the rotation is indeed retrograde (not a direct rotation with an inclination of nearly 180). [/B]


so Venus spins the wrong way?

does that explain why women are so difficult?

[refugee]

Deep and difficult subject, but extremely interesting to read your experience Prince. I've also heard several different events from family down the years following near-death experiences with regard to 'seeing themselves' and there being some kind of 'checkpoint' or crossroads. I know I haven't described that too well but still.

Ultimately it seems it's something that we can't fully know until we experience it at the end or don't, I suppose. Maybe it's a construct of the mind to protect/prepare/make us accepting but it's especially heartening to me (Mr Cynical/skeptical of anything 'unworldly') right now to think there's summat better to experience later.

A relative of mine, through a list of medical crises that could fill a medical almanac has been 'close to the end' many times and describes having had 'NDE' a few times. Something that always strikes me when we talk about it is the absolute certainty in him that 'it's actually nothing to worry about'.

Interesting thread.

Re the universe etc. Always seems ludicrously unlikely to me for there not to be intelligent life elsewhere given the infinite x infinite parameters of the universe as we know it now.
The other question for me comes up when people say 'Well, if another planet has water it could sustain life...' I always think 'Well we're not really in possession of all the facts yet are we? Who's to say any other life form would even have similar composition to us and need H2O?'

I find it all pretty unimaginably huge anyway and I'm not all that confident the boundless vastness we can comprehend isn't a negligible speck from another perspective too.

the whole deal with water is due to it being different to all the other hydrogen compounds in is group ie. hydrogen sulphide, if water followed the trend for group 6 hydrogen compunds it would be a gas at earth temperature but as we know its a liquid because of its bonding.

likewise, all life on this planet is carbon based because carbon is the olny element that can make such stable giant structures, maybe to a lesser extent silicon. theoretically if there is another planet somewhere in the universe round the same temperature a earth and the same elements, and there undoubtedly will be, then there is a good chance there is other life forms out there. there may be other elements also in the universe that we dont have in our solar system but that could form life sustaining structures but that doesnt really fit in with the whole Big Bang theory or the patterns in the periodic table which have so far not been disproven.

[refugee]

I like that, 'infection of an atom'.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7761/solarsystemorbitsrk7.jpg
Solar system

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/1193/catomeqh0.gif
atom

sorry to be a geek but that model of the atom is quite old and has since been replaced by one. with the rutherford (solar system like) model of the atom, if you have an electron in a constant orbit around a central nucleus then it will be accelerating. this would release radiation and lose energy and eventually spin into the nucleus. it also doesnt explain variable valency, the slitting of light among other things.

the current model used is the shrodinger model which is a probability based representation which has so far explained all the anomolies of the rutherford model.

[Mel Wood]

the whole deal with water is due to it being different to all the other hydrogen compounds in is group ie. hydrogen sulphide, if water followed the trend for group 6 hydrogen compunds it would be a gas at earth temperature but as we know its a liquid because of its bonding.

likewise, all life on this planet is carbon based because carbon is the olny element that can make such stable giant structures, maybe to a lesser extent silicon. theoretically if there is another planet somewhere in the universe round the same temperature a earth and the same elements, and there undoubtedly will be, then there is a good chance there is other life forms out there. there may be other elements also in the universe that we dont have in our solar system but that could form life sustaining structures but that doesnt really fit in with the whole Big Bang theory or the patterns in the periodic table which have so far not been disproven.
Aha. Didn't know the 'rules' re life-sustaining substances in relation to Big Bang / periodic table. Very interesting indeed, thanks.

[Taksin]

there may be other elements also in the universe that we dont have in our solar system but that could form life sustaining structures but that doesnt really fit in with the whole Big Bang theory or the patterns in the periodic table which have so far not been disproven.

I've often wondered about this but, being someone who struggles with chemistry, haven't found the answers...

Are there gaps in the periodic table that we think are probably 'fillable' taking into account the vastness of the universe, or are they most likely to be mainly unstable substances?

[Where'sHeggem?]

With regards to silicon as another element capable of bonding with other elements to create a life-form, based on what we know about silicon and its properties, someone quite famous (can't remember his name) in this field actually stated any such silicon based being is likely to breath sand and excrete concrete.

The serious part aside, It may just look like Pamela Anderson (or parts of it).

[refugee]

I've often wondered about this but, being someone who struggles with chemistry, haven't found the answers...

Are there gaps in the periodic table that we think are probably 'fillable' taking into account the vastness of the universe, or are they most likely to be mainly unstable substances?

there aren't really any gaps in the naturally occuring elements. they all increase pretty much standardly with regards to atomic number so following the patterns there isnt really anywhere for them to go.

the bigger atoms are quite unstable and radioactive, even the ones made by boffins that dont occur naturally. some physics people think that if they keep making more synthetic elements then eventually there will come a point where they become stable again and stop being radioactive, somewhere around atomic number 120 if memory serves me well, but thats all way over my head.

[Taksin]

there aren't really any gaps in the naturally occuring elements. they all increase pretty much standardly with regards to atomic number so following the patterns there isnt really anywhere for them to go.

the bigger atoms are quite unstable and radioactive, even the ones made by boffins that dont occur naturally. some physics people think that if they keep making more synthetic elements then eventually there will come a point where they become stable again and stop being radioactive, somewhere around atomic number 120 if memory serves me well, but thats all way over my head.

so Carbon remains by far the best bet for life across the universe..

There is something very elegant about that, to my mind.. that all structure must come out of these rudimentary entities (the elements). Like all music being limited to a small range of notes, or ideas about sacred geometry..

[CODE RED]

Excellent thread chaps - utterly rivetting, keep it up!

My two-pennorth:

Donnie Darko is based on Faust & Chaos theory. Some of you have touched on this already - but it's very interesting if you read into it a bit further. (Not Wikipedia mind...) Very confusing too.

I am usually of the belief that we are just freaks of nature who exist for a pin-prick of time (that goes for life on this planet really) - but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise.

After my mother died in 1988 I had one of those "people in the room" experiences. Very vivid, very real. I was terrified to begin with, then it became clear the "presence" meant no harm. Then it went. Or I woke up. Both really. I never identified the presence as being any person in particular, but the timing of it obviously led me to possible conclusions.

However, ultimately I think I was just having a vivid dream/waking experience I have to say.
Question: Why does this only happen when we're asleep then? It's just the subconcious being a bit overactive. IMHO.

As for the solar system, universe etc - fascinating stuff too. But I view it as a very different, seperate beast to "God" or whatver. The universe is physical. "God" is spiritual for me (not that I believe in one per se) the two things are completely detatched. And the spiritual world, the world of our thoughts/feelings/conscience etc may well just spring from our intelligence & our imaginations.

Perhaps the key to "everything" is to find such a link. Or maybe its impossible to find and in fact an important part of human existence to always "wonder".

[The Prince]

Bumping this.

Bit disappointed that David Icke hasn't posted.

[RedRich]

Bumping this.

Bit disappointed that David Icke hasn't posted.

He's too busy watching 'V' and trying to make out like its a true story :p

[Where'sHeggem?]

He's too busy watching 'V' and trying to make out like its a true story :p


Back in the 80's, I had a thing for the sweet little blonde girl who led the resistance in "V". Can't remember her name, but she was a doctor you know...

[Ricky_Blowdeal]

Bumping this.

Bit disappointed that David Icke hasn't posted.

I thought you banned him for being a WUM:D

[CODE RED]

[QUOTE=The Prince;761921]Bumping this.

Bit disappointed that David Icke hasn't posted.[/QUOTE

Whatever happened to him?

[RedRich]

[QUOTE=The Prince;761921]Bumping this.

Bit disappointed that David Icke hasn't posted.[/QUOTE

Whatever happened to him?

Apparently he's doing very well for himself now. After things like 9/11 and everything thats going on in Iraq a lot more people are going to his shows/seminars now because they feel he 'predicted' correctly.

[Taksin]

[QUOTE=CODE RED;763696]

Apparently he's doing very well for himself now. After things like 9/11 and everything thats going on in Iraq a lot more people are going to his shows/seminars now because they feel he 'predicted' correctly.

and his shell-suit collection is going from strength to strength too

[Ducatiboy749]

http://www.wikisky.org/

and

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

and

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html

and

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html

[Mel Wood]

On one of the earlier subjects of this thread, I read a quote the other day I thought summed it up quite pithily.

"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering."

[1984]

Ocasionally I get double deja-vu, by which I mean that I have the feeling I have experienced something before, but the last time I had had the same feeling; if you get what I mean. Anyone else get this?

[The Prince]

That's quite common apparently and I used to get it when my brain was less frazzled.

[Ducatiboy749]

Ocasionally I get double deja-vu, by which I mean that I have the feeling I have experienced something before, but the last time I had had the same feeling; if you get what I mean. Anyone else get this?

If you mean repetitive deja-vu's then yes.

Always seems to happen when I'm abroad too.

[1984]

Oh.

Speaking of being abroad I started to have wierd dreams when I worked in Dachau. I once dreamt I was a prisoner there and it was the first dream I remember having in German as I was speaking German with an SS guard. However in most of the dream I was speaking French, which is strange as my French is fairly poor. Plus I could understand French in the dream as well.

Now, a friend of mine told me this dream was a past-life thing. My opinion is that my mind has picked up a lot of French (I have been there various times and heard the language a fair bit) and, even though I could not understand most of it, it stayed in my mind.

I seem to remember reading that we use just 10% of our brains, or something.

[AnfieldAura]

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

This is boss. Definitely worth signing up for. Takes 2 seconds to register and then you can start your trial straight away.

We need your help to sort through the million or so galaxies imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. No experience is required, and you get to be literally the first person to set eyes on part sof the Universe which surrounds us. If you sign up now you might just get a sneak preview.

http://chrislintott.net/

:D

[user name]

a friend of mine once said that he didn't believe in life-after-death... just that he would travel all round the universe forever and ever... sounds good to me...



The Beatles - Across The Universe Lyrics

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva

ohm... (spelling?)... the mantra that aides meditation... the first sound we make as babies... the recurrent echo of 'background noise' that is left over from the 'big bang'... in perpetuity...:)

[Evs]

One of the few things I disagreed with Ian McDonald about in his superlative 'Revolution in the Head' was the fact that he described 'Across the Universe' as 'boring' :eek:

It's one of the most beautiful, profound things ever recorded.

The version on 'Anthology 2' is my favourite.

[The Prince]

And David Bowie's version is atrocious.

[Mel Wood]

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

This is boss. Definitely worth signing up for. Takes 2 seconds to register and then you can start your trial straight away.


Strangely compelling that site, going through the blurry ones waiting for the odd spectacular spiral etc. Passed the trial, started categorising and before long 'discovered' what I'm pretty sure is a ring galaxy and have emailed them with it like they asked.

Which was nice.

[spike6519]

Sort of. If anything Pluto is a large asteroid that happens to have it's own moon (Charon) which is about half its size. I think the reason is was downgraded was because of it's rotation around the sun which is much, much different from the other planets (17 degrees inclined to the ecliptic). Planets don't normally do that but comets and asteroids do. For example one asteroid, Chiron, moves between Saturn and Uranus and no one knows why its escaped the gravity of either planet. Thus Chiron is going around the sun but also between planets which is very strange.

Pluto should never have really have been called a planet but should have been a Kuiper belt object, that is, an object way out beyond the orbit of the known solar system.

The orbit of Pluto is so chaotic that in its 248 year orbit of the sun, it actually spends 20 years inside the orbit of Neptune, making it the eighth "planet" in terms of distance from the sun.

How great is astronomy? I could talk about this stuff all day.

Prince, I bow down to you sir as it is obvious that your knowledge on this subject is vastly superior to everyone else.

[The Prince]

Just been reading this again.

Interesting stuff.

[North Wales Red]

Ocasionally I get double deja-vu, by which I mean that I have the feeling I have experienced something before, but the last time I had had the same feeling; if you get what I mean. Anyone else get this?

I got de-javu when I went to the Vatican in April and say that big goldy globey thingy in the gardens.

[redebreck]

don't know if anyone else has mentioned this but....

have any of you ever really thought about infinity?

think about it..!!!

[The Prince]

In terms of time?

I still think there'll be a Big Crunch.

[CODE RED]

Haven't they discovered that the Universe is actually expanding faster and faster. Hence the Universe will end with all matter pulling apart?

However, some Quantum Physicists (is that a title?) believe that the original Big Band was preceeded by a Big Crunch of a previous Universe....I think...

I can't say I'm very knowledgeable about all this though...

[CODE RED]

Ocasionally I get double deja-vu, by which I mean that I have the feeling I have experienced something before, but the last time I had had the same feeling; if you get what I mean. Anyone else get this?

Maybe that's to do with quantum particles and parallel universes...errmmm...

[The Prince]

I think there's evidence for a previous universe. The Big Bang consists of one "singularity" whihc means that everything was held together in one tiny set of something and nothing else did. The same term is used about black hole interiors where mass and matter are so compressed that nothing else can exist separately.

[godisfowler]

Just to bring the scale of this thread down a bit, but still enormous, something on how big our own Earth is.

I read once that if it were possible to dig a hole to the centre of the earth, and gravity was constant to the core, if you dropped a brick down the hole it would take 45 minutes to reach the centre. Obviously this could never happen, but it puts thing in perspective doesn't it. Seems like an awfully long time...

[The Prince]

I like the old story about a man digging in America to try to get to, I think, China. Had he dug through and not been burned alive, would he have come out feet first.

[North Wales Red]

I read that there is only ann infinite amount of energy in the universe and that one day it will run out and this guy said that we were fucked when electricity got invented.So everytime we leave lights and tellys on etc not only are we contributing to global warming but we're actually moving even quicker towards this event.

[The Prince]

That would imply that man makes the least bit of difference. We really don't.

[ger_ryan22]

Had this conversation years ago with a friend, we were talking about how the f*ck can there just be no ending to the universe! We have to hit a 'wall' somewhere, no?? I reckon, seen as everything fuckin else in the universe is round, could the Universe itself be round too? Then if you were to travel so far in one direction, eventually, you'll just end up back where you started! That's my theory and I'm sticking to it :rolleyes:

[Taksin]

was just reading this yesterday on a favourite website.. food for thought

"Saturn having transited (from the sidereal perspective) from Cancer into Leo during July, August seemed a good month to watch a (pre-recorded) documentary on that peculiar planet. A few of its many curiosities:

Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is lighter than water.

Its “ringlight” is so much brighter than Earth’s full moonlight that it prevents lightning from being visible on Saturn’s surface.

Saturn is the windiest locale in our solar system, with speeds of 600 miles per hour or more. Saturn’s South Pole hosts a 5000 mile-diameter hurricane-like tempest with a true eye wall that is unique in our solar system.

In 1979 the Voyager spacecraft transmitted photos of a perfect hexagon over Saturn’s North Pole; in October 2006 the Cassini spacecraft found it there still. This polygon is similar to Earth’s polar vortex (which is circular), but Saturn’s is big enough to fit four Earths inside, and is 60 miles deep. A cloud has been circling inside it at 200 mph (100 meters per second) since at least the last twenty years. Never elsewhere in the universe has such a configuration been seen.

Of Saturn’s 48 named moons, Titan, our solar system’s biggest moon, has been partly explored. It looks much like earth, and is our solar system’s sole moon that like earth has an extended atmosphere, though since Titan is ten times more massive than Earth, its atmosphere is rather thicker than ours. Giant geysers erupt hundreds of miles into the air on the 300-mile-wide moon Enceladus, the solar system’s whitest object.

All this singularity associated with but one planet, denizen of a run-of-the-mill planetary system that circles a mid-range star in a mid-sized galaxy. The 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe each contain on average about 100 billion stars, meaning that there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on all of earth’s beaches. Wow!"

[The Prince]

was just reading this yesterday on a favourite website.. food for thought

"Saturn having transited (from the sidereal perspective) from Cancer into Leo during July, August seemed a good month to watch a (pre-recorded) documentary on that peculiar planet. A few of its many curiosities:

Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is lighter than water.

Its “ringlight” is so much brighter than Earth’s full moonlight that it prevents lightning from being visible on Saturn’s surface.

Saturn is the windiest locale in our solar system, with speeds of 600 miles per hour or more. Saturn’s South Pole hosts a 5000 mile-diameter hurricane-like tempest with a true eye wall that is unique in our solar system.

In 1979 the Voyager spacecraft transmitted photos of a perfect hexagon over Saturn’s North Pole; in October 2006 the Cassini spacecraft found it there still. This polygon is similar to Earth’s polar vortex (which is circular), but Saturn’s is big enough to fit four Earths inside, and is 60 miles deep. A cloud has been circling inside it at 200 mph (100 meters per second) since at least the last twenty years. Never elsewhere in the universe has such a configuration been seen.

Of Saturn’s 48 named moons, Titan, our solar system’s biggest moon, has been partly explored. It looks much like earth, and is our solar system’s sole moon that like earth has an extended atmosphere, though since Titan is ten times more massive than Earth, its atmosphere is rather thicker than ours. Giant geysers erupt hundreds of miles into the air on the 300-mile-wide moon Enceladus, the solar system’s whitest object.

All this singularity associated with but one planet, denizen of a run-of-the-mill planetary system that circles a mid-range star in a mid-sized galaxy. The 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe each contain on average about 100 billion stars, meaning that there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on all of earth’s beaches. Wow!"


I disagree with that. Neptune is far windier.

[RED CORNER]

I disagree with that. Neptune is far windier.



Not Uranus?

[godisfowler]

I disagree with that. Neptune is far windier.

Uranus is the windiest mass I'm aware of.

boom bloody boom.

[Taksin]

I disagree with that. Neptune is far windier.

Are you talking about top speeds or just overall windiness? Is there a measurement for aggregate wind readings? Tricky to measure, I'd hazard a guess, as are overall global temperature changes..

[Taksin]

Uranus is the windiest mass I'm aware of.

you should get that checked out

[The Prince]

I see we've found the level.

The winds are constant. The Great Dark Spot of Neptune is a 1600mph storm that's been raging for 300 years. The area is three times the size of the Earth.

[Taksin]

The winds are constant. The Great Dark Spot of Neptune is a 1600mph storm that's been raging for 300 years. The area is three times the size of the Earth.


I don't think my umbrella would stand much of a chance on either planet

[redebreck]

In terms of time?

I still think there'll be a Big Crunch.

I was actually thinking about distance/shape/volume/whatever you want to call it.

we can measure things here on Earth - there is a finite size or distance or volume.

but in space - ??? where is the end of the universe, how big is it, what shape is it.

doing my head in, thinking about this stuff!

Is this thread a sticky yet? it should be!

[Taksin]

That would imply that man makes the least bit of difference. We really don't.

I wonder what your thoughts are, Prince, on the current hysteria about man made global warming? Does man think he has more influence on what are at least issues that concern the conditions within an entire solar system than he should?

[The Prince]

Only the destruction of Earth would change things and then only marginal. If you want to see how the greenhouse effect can alter a planet you only need to look at Venus. It's a similar size to the Earth (slightly smaller), has an atmosphere and is not significantly closer to the Sun to alter the temperature BUT it is covered by a huge cloud, has a surface temperature of 900 degrees (probes lasting 10 seconds are considered a success), has ludicrous gravity and constant electrical storms. Despite this, it hasn't affected the rest o fthe solar system as it's too small. Now, if Jupiter exploded or something, we'd be in trouble. Even the Moon being destrotyed would cause devastation but "in house" global warning won't affect anything else.

Incidentally, there's a theory that all life on Earth stems from fleeing Venusian who saw the changes of Venuus coming and colonised here.

[ger_ryan22]

What happened the Dinosaurs! :confused:

[Taksin]

Only the destruction of Earth would change things and then only marginal. If you want to see how the greenhouse effect can alter a planet you only need to look at Venus. It's a similar size to the Earth (slightly smaller), has an atmosphere and is not significantly closer to the Sun to alter the temperature BUT it is covered by a huge cloud, has a surface temperature of 900 degrees (probes lasting 10 seconds are considered a success), has ludicrous gravity and constant electrical storms. Despite this, it hasn't affected the rest o fthe solar system as it's too small. Now, if Jupiter exploded or something, we'd be in trouble. Even the Moon being destrotyed would cause devastation but "in house" global warning won't affect anything else.

Incidentally, there's a theory that all life on Earth stems from fleeing Venusian who saw the changes of Venuus coming and colonised here.


That's interesting. I suppose I was thinking about when my science teachers used to talk about a 'wobble' in the earth's movement that would cause an ice age, or now there are theories about Sun Spots. I just feel man might be getting a bit above his station if he thinks he can turn the temperature up or down.

[Evs]

Only the destruction of Earth would change things and then only marginal. If you want to see how the greenhouse effect can alter a planet you only need to look at Venus. It's a similar size to the Earth (slightly smaller), has an atmosphere and is not significantly closer to the Sun to alter the temperature BUT it is covered by a huge cloud, has a surface temperature of 900 degrees (probes lasting 10 seconds are considered a success), has ludicrous gravity and constant electrical storms. Despite this, it hasn't affected the rest o fthe solar system as it's too small. Now, if Jupiter exploded or something, we'd be in trouble. Even the Moon being destrotyed would cause devastation but "in house" global warning won't affect anything else.

Incidentally, there's a theory that all life on Earth stems from fleeing Venusian who saw the changes of Venuus coming and colonised here.

How did they get here?

[The Prince]

What happened the Dinosaurs! :confused:

Adric crashed the ship into Earth and killed them all. The Cybermen were happily killed in the explosion.

Jesus, don't you know anything.

[The Prince]

That's interesting. I suppose I was thinking about when my science teachers used to talk about a 'wobble' in the earth's movement that would cause an ice age, or now there are theories about Sun Spots. I just feel man might be getting a bit above his station if he thinks he can turn the temperature up or down.

Look north in the sky at the Great Bear. Draw a line from the two stars on the right that form the "bowl" shape and you'll come to a dimmish star called Polaris. If you were on the North Pole that star would remain overhead constantly and the other stars would move around it all night.

Now, there a blue star called Vega in the summer sky. you might see it now and you should because it's lovely. In something like 200,000 years time it'll be the "north star" as the Earth wobbles on its axis. It doesn't affect anything else.

[Taksin]

Look north in the sky at the Great Bear. Draw a line from the two stars on the right that form the "bowl" shape and you'll come to a dimmish star called Polaris. If you were on the North Pole that star would remain overhead constantly and the other stars would move around it all night.

Now, there a blue star called Vega in the summer sky. you might see it now and you should because it's lovely. In something like 200,000 years time it'll be the "north star" as the Earth wobbles on its axis. It doesn't affect anything else.

yep, familiar with polaris (thought Clooney was great). I didn't know we'd be fixing our pole on Vega though.. 200,000 years, that's well after the apocalypse anyway - no worries.

Are you saying that current theories suggest the wobble was not responsible for the ice ages?

[Jasonw]

You sound like someone with many questions. May I recomend Bill Brysons book "A short history of nearly everything" Excellent read.

[The Prince]

The Earth was wobbling long before the ice age.

It's like when it was discovered that sometomes Pluto moves between the orbit of Neptune and Uranus, leaving the former as the furthest planet from the sun. There was a bit of hysteria about the possibility of Neptune and Pluto colliding until it was pointed out that they've both been around for millions and millions of years so it would be a bit of unusual for them to collide now.

[ger_ryan22]

I think Taksin and The Prince should meet up somewhere for a pint and take this conversation from there :D

[user name]

yep, familiar with polaris (thought Clooney was great). I didn't know we'd be fixing our pole on Vega though.. 200,000 years, that's well after the apocalypse anyway - no worries.

Are you saying that current theories suggest the wobble was not responsible for the ice ages?

the 'wobble' u are refering to is known as the 'precession of the equinoxes' where the axis turns in a circle every 26,000 years... the quiche maya of south america calculated this movement time ago... there is a book by (?) and documentary by the same person that goes into depth... here he expounds the theory that this phenomenon was 'partly' responsible for the last ice-age...

just found this...


Precession of the Equinoxes

The precession of the equinoxes refers to the precession of Earth's axis of rotation with respect to inertial space. Hipparchus discovered that the positions of the equinoxes move westward along the ecliptic compared to the fixed stars on the celestial sphere. The exact dates of his life are not known, but astronomical observations attributed to him date from 147 BC to 127 BC and were described in his publications. He is considered the greatest astronomical observer, and perhaps, the greatest overall astronomer of antiquity.

Currently, this annual motion is about 50.3 seconds of arc per year or 1 degree every 71.6 years. The process is slow, but cumulative. A complete precession cycle covers a period of approximately 25,765 years, the so called great Platonic year, during which time the equinox regresses over a full 360°. Precessional movement also is the determining factor in the length of an Astrological Age.

hope this is what u were refering to... :)

[The Prince]

The Precession of the Equinoxes was discovered by Johnny and Joey Ramone.

Fact.

[user name]

The Precession of the Equinoxes was discovered by Johnny and Joey Ramone.

Fact.

:D

ps... if that's u in avatar foto with ray... get a fookin' haircut... ;)

[The Prince]

It's Jimmy Case. You go tell him now.

[user name]

It's Jimmy Case. You go tell him now.

:D... tell him? i'll hold him down and let ray loose with the shears... fookin' hippy... ;)

[Taksin]

http://www.livescience.com/images/050330_precession_03.gif

this is it - I'm just trying to confirm that it a different phenomena to the procession of the equinoxes. I thought it was.

[Taksin]

no, you're right, it does cause the precession (but is not actually what the precession refers to, if ye get me)

The Earth has 'a bulge.' It's a bit larger [43 km] in diameter at the Equator than it is between the poles. If the Earth had no spin, gravity would act the make the Earth a perfect sphere, but the Earth's spin throws its mass slightly outwards at the Equator.

The gravity of the Sun and Moon then act on this bulge and their action is to try to 'drag' this bulge down on to the plane of the Ecliptic. [The same gravity action of the Sun and Moon is responsible for the tides.] The Earth's Equator doesn't lie on the Ecliptic, it lies at 23° 26' degrees to it. It is the act of gravity trying to drag the bulge onto the plane of the Ecliptic that makes the Earth's axis precess. This last bit is pretty hard to visualise. [And was discovered relatively recently by Pierre Laplace, Traité de Méchanique Céleste 1799–1825 AD.]

The Maya's discovery, like that of the Stonehengers, is of the precession, not the wobble. Although they did see the movement of the pole star, so it does amount to the same thing in essence.

[.xX]

Its a shame that we will probably wipe ourselves out with a nuclear war before we are able to answer most of these questions.

[redebreck]

It's Jimmy Case. You go tell him now.

I used to watch South Liverpool's home games back in the late sixties - 67,68ish.

[user name]

http://www.livescience.com/images/050330_precession_03.gif

this is it - I'm just trying to confirm that it a different phenomena to the procession of the equinoxes. I thought it was.

i see what u mean (and next post)... the guy i was refering to is hancock... his book is quite old now (early 1990's :eek:) but a good read...

the maya also talked of 'the stars falling from the skies', now our 'resident astrologist' could help out here... the idea that the 'skin' of the earth could move so that the poles were at the equator and vice versa would make the stars appear to fall... this occurring over a very short time with cataclysmic repercussions for most living things...

ps... the picture is similar to an optical illusion i saw just yeaterday where u can see the object turning in either direction if u concentrate on the bottom... (this is so off-topic-off-topic :) )

[Taksin]

the idea that the 'skin' of the earth could move so that the poles were at the equator and vice versa would make the stars appear to fall... this occurring over a very short time with cataclysmic repercussions for most living things...



this is a favourite scare story hypothetical amongst commentators.. as I think the Prince mentioned earlier in this thread, one of the outer planets is rotating on its side as we speak - uranus or neptune?

[The Prince]

Uranus. Meaning that if you were on the South Pole of Uranus you'd never see the sun. Along with Venus it also rotates in the opposite way to the other planets.

[Lerpwl Am Byth]

Uranus takes about 84 years to orbit the Sun, so we're talking more or less 42 years straight of day then night.

[Tom Blease]

Yet Uranus is hotter at it's Equator than at it's poles. Weird.

Brilliant thread. Astronomy was the one subject that I enjoyed in Physics at school.

Why are there no Astronomy programs on TV? There's never even any on the Documentary channels. :mad:

[user name]

Yet Uranus is hotter at it's Equator than at it's poles. Weird.

Brilliant thread. Astronomy was the one subject that I enjoyed in Physics at school.

Why are there no Astronomy programs on TV? There's never even any on the Documentary channels. :mad:

just googled and if u look at princeton online eye on the sky they have 'astro cruises'... looks interesting... :)

[Aldridge Barnes]

if it's so big and it contains everything, and God created it right, and all the galaxys and planets are all swirling around in it in a big sort of huge gigantic swirling mass of objects creating a super duper sort of galatic symphony thingy...... then why is it that we will only ever see the moon and perhaps some nice images of through hubble telescope?

I mean, why all that effort if it will never be appreciated?

unless when we die we get to fly around wherever we want to you know like to neptune and have a look

on another note, The speed of light, more than 386 thousand miles per second.. How do they know.. what's the speed of dark?

where does all the stuff end up once it's been sucked up into a black hole?????

These things worry me on a daily basis :mad:


There are millions of galaxies in our universe.

And there are millions of universes.



Source: (ahem... ) Epcot, Walt Disney World

[AshyP]

Yet Uranus is hotter at it's Equator than at it's poles. Weird.

Brilliant thread. Astronomy was the one subject that I enjoyed in Physics at school.

Why are there no Astronomy programs on TV? There's never even any on the Documentary channels. :mad:

Because they are dull :p ;)

[Tom Blease]

Because they are dull :p ;)

I bet you're right at home in Leeds eh mate? :D

[AshyP]

I bet you're right at home in Leeds eh mate? :D

Touche Thomas :*(

[candyman]

Only the destruction of Earth would change things and then only marginal. If you want to see how the greenhouse effect can alter a planet you only need to look at Venus. It's a similar size to the Earth (slightly smaller), has an atmosphere and is not significantly closer to the Sun to alter the temperature BUT it is covered by a huge cloud, has a surface temperature of 900 degrees (probes lasting 10 seconds are considered a success), has ludicrous gravity and constant electrical storms. Despite this, it hasn't affected the rest o fthe solar system as it's too small. Now, if Jupiter exploded or something, we'd be in trouble. Even the Moon being destrotyed would cause devastation but "in house" global warning won't affect anything else.

Incidentally, there's a theory that all life on Earth stems from fleeing Venusian who saw the changes of Venuus coming and colonised here.

Prince have you seen 2010?
In the movie Jupiter is transformed into a mini star which eventually leads to earth like conditions in the outer planets. Not very likely is it?

Have you seen/read H.G. Wells the time traveller (not sure if that's the correct title), where the moon has been mined to such an extent it begins to break apart thus spelling the end of the Earth (due to an altered orbit around the sun)

Since we're talking about (at least I am :p) Sci Fi authors Psycho Monkey, have you read Dune by Frank Herbert? Seems like he uses a lot of Jungian theory in his books. Things like the Collective unconcious (he takes it a step further, kind of melding it with the idea of Race Memory).

[candyman]

I read recently that there was a convention of scientists involved in theoretical and exotic physics for Faster than Light travel.
They have theorised that it is possible to travel faster than light by bending the space/time fabric around a vesel and moving this "bubble" through space. This apparently would allow a vessel to move vast distances very quickly.
They theorise it could become possible in the next century.

Personally, I prefer the improbability drive from the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy where there's a chance that anything caught up in the improbability field can spontaneously change into a whale or a pot of petunias.

It was a sad day when Douglas Adams died.

[The Prince]

I think Einstein's "wormholes" would operate on a similar system. Or is it John Wheeler? One of them.

[candyman]

I think Einstein's "wormholes" would operate on a similar system. Or is it John Wheeler? One of them.

From what I understood Einsteins wormholes were slightly different.
His wormholes are a tunnel leading from location to the next. Incidentally I read that they have a theoretical idea of how to create them (they were calling them grey holes). It involves an extremely strong magnetic field (the power required for which we don't have on Earth even if we could harness all the power from all over the world for many many years). This would create a wormhole from one magnetic field to the next (destination).

The "Bubble" they were talking about was self contained and not a tunnel with an opening at each end.

[Taksin]

http://www.boreme.com/media/yr2004/i_mars_pics-1.jpg

[Taksin]

http://www.boreme.com/media/yr2004/i_mars_pics-2.jpg

[Taksin]

sunsets on mars

[Psychoticmonkey]

Incidentally, there's a theory that all life on Earth stems from fleeing Venusian who saw the changes of Venuus coming and colonised here.

Am I missing something, or is that the most ridiculous idea anybody has ever had?

Was it a bunch of single-cell organisms somehow predicting the downfall of their planet, and managing to built a spacecraft to flee to Earth?! Or some more advanced beings which, for some reason, de-evolved upon arrival on Earth*?


*I think that's known as the 'Kingston-Upon-Hull effect'.

[RedInBrazil]

I have read this whole topic and now my head hurts :)

But just to tell you of some experiences I have had.

About life after death: I know this is possible. When I was very young I was playing in my cousin's bedroom (he had lots of model planes) and I was all alone. My parents were downstairs with my aunt and uncle. They then heard me talking to someone. Which was strange because I was on my own up there. So they rushed up to see what was happening. They entered the room and I was smiling and playing happy like any other kid. (by the way I don't remember any of this, I was too young). They then asked me who I was speaking too. I told them my grandfather. Their faces went white as the reason they were at the house in the first place was to arrange for his funeral. He had died the week before. Now as I kid, I was too young to know what was happening and I never lie, even now. I was a good kid and wouldn't be playing around with my parents in that way. My parents said there was an "earthy" smell in the room too. When they asked me where he went, I said out the window (in an innocent child kind of way). They rushed to the window and of course there was nothing to see. No I said not through the open window, through the window.

Like I said before, I have no memory of this, my mother told me this story one day when I was an teenager. I never believed her, but she says it was a true experience, even to this day. Aparently, he told me to be a good boy and that he was going away for a bit and I wouldn't be able to see him for a while, but he will be around and looking after me. He said that we will meet again, but not for a long time. This kind of put the hairs on my neck on red alert when I heard it the first time. But it then made me feel good, because now I am not afraid of death, I know there is something else after it. It is over, it isn't the end. Just enjoy your life as you know it now, but don't be afraid of anything in it.

[Taksin]

I have read this whole topic and now my head hurts :)

But just to tell you of some experiences I have had.

About life after death: I know this is possible. When I was very young I was playing in my cousin's bedroom (he had lots of model planes) and I was all alone. My parents were downstairs with my aunt and uncle. They then heard me talking to someone. Which was strange because I was on my own up there. So they rushed up to see what was happening. They entered the room and I was smiling and playing happy like any other kid. (by the way I don't remember any of this, I was too young). They then asked me who I was speaking too. I told them my grandfather. Their faces went white as the reason they were at the house in the first place was to arrange for his funeral. He had died the week before. Now as I kid, I was too young to know what was happening and I never lie, even now. I was a good kid and wouldn't be playing around with my parents in that way. My parents said there was an "earthy" smell in the room too. When they asked me where he went, I said out the window (in an innocent child kind of way). They rushed to the window and of course there was nothing to see. No I said not through the open window, through the window.

Like I said before, I have no memory of this, my mother told me this story one day when I was an teenager. I never believed her, but she says it was a true experience, even to this day. Aparently, he told me to be a good boy and that he was going away for a bit and I wouldn't be able to see him for a while, but he will be around and looking after me. He said that we will meet again, but not for a long time. This kind of put the hairs on my neck on red alert when I heard it the first time. But it then made me feel good, because now I am not afraid of death, I know there is something else after it. It is over, it isn't the end. Just enjoy your life as you know it now, but don't be afraid of anything in it.

great story RiB.. tantalising

no matter how much the sceptic would like to dismiss it, it's carries the hallmark of truth - just about!

[RedInBrazil]

Another thing I want to bring up, is memory of past lives. I know many here have that deja-vu feeling all the time. Going to a place for the first time, but knowing it somehow. Seeing a person you have never met before, but knowing something about them. But ever wondered that maybe you are having memories from past lives crossing over to your current one?

I don't have many 'details' on this past life memory of mine, but I have very strong feelings that is it true and not some dream I had or something. I don't know when it was or where it was, but I remember fighting in some battle. Not like any of the recent battles either. This was an older battle, because I remember the guns. They were long rifles with the knives at the end for close combat. I don't remember much in the form of names or uniforms and I wish I did. But the one thing that I do remember is how I died. I was fighting as well as anyone else, fueled by the feeling of protecting my family (I know had a wife and kids back home). I remember being run through by one of those knives. Through the back of me and out the front. I can remember the vision of seeing the tip of the blade coming out of my chest. Just below my heart. I remember it feeling very cold inside of me. I remember that coldness spreading all over my body. But no pain. Only that instant pain, but after that, nothing. I guess I will need to try and find out more information. But I am scared to reach into the past. What if I find something I don't like?

Do you know the weirdest thing about all this though. In that exact same spot on my body, I have a lump at the front and a slight mark at the back. I have no explanation to why they are there. Now I know this doesn't make sense, because if it were true, I would be in a different body now. But maybe all these marks that we are born with (birthmarks) are kind of like marks from past experiences. I don't feel bad about this though. Again I feel happy knowing that there is something after death. Maybe if you did something wrong in this life, you get to fix it in the next? Who knows. If this is true, surely you get a 'format' of memories. But like any system format, sometimes there are things left behind.

I am not saying this is proof of anything. To me it is proof. I believe this. But I just wanted to share some stories with you. I know this went slightly off topic here, but it is a spiritual thing I am talking about. I am not a big believer of one supreme power or anything. I don't believe in all that. But I have an open mind in almost everything else. I do believe there is life on other planets, it would be stupid of us to think different. I do believe there are answers to all our questions and also answers to questions we haven't even asked yet. It kind of puts your life in perpective when you hear of things like this.

Has anything like this ever happened to any of you?

[RedInBrazil]

The funny thing is now I hate wars and everything it stands for.

Maybe there is a conection with this feeling I have now and past experiences.

[RedInBrazil]

To clarify, these are MEMORIES. I don't know where they come from. It wasn't a vision, or a dream or something I remembered when watching a film or something. They are memories. Just like something you did when you were a child. Your first toy, first kiss, that sort of thing. This is why I don't have many details. It is just a distant memory. Maybe under hypnosis I could get more details, but I don't want to find out ;)

[Taksin]

If your experiences are 'true', including the changes to your body, it still wouldn't prove past lives, to my estimation.. It might prove a psychic tendency, for example.

When I was a child I stayed with family friends in Spain. One night I had a very disturbing dream (I think it was a dream) - there were armies thundering past on horseback - I could see what they were wearing, and could see some of the characters quite clearly. I described it in some detail to the adults the next day.

It turned out that was the actual valley that El Cid took his troops through on his way to the conquest of Valencia in 1090. I can still picture them.

No idea what to make of it, but I think dismissing it is too easy

[RedInBrazil]

Sorry mate, I was in the middle of writing some big reply to you and the power flashed and the PC reset GRRRRRRRR

I am too lazy to type everything again, so I will give you the short version ;)

Funny you should mention being psychic. You are not the first person to say that to me. In my family there are many cases of these things happening and other weird and unexplained things. I guess it is in my blood. My cousin regularly gets messages from passed loved ones and passes them on to people in the family. She is always right too. It is no joke in the family, she is a trusted "go between".

I guess I will have to train the little "power" I have. I always seem to know a person's true feelings. Even when they are hiding them, I am a great judge of character. Even when I have only just met them. I can normally get a person spot on. I know when people are feeling bad, even when they might not know. I do tend to have a gift of such. I guess I will have to read up more about it and work on it ;)

[RedInBrazil]

As for your experience in Spain. Well some people say that areas that have a violent history have a kind of stored energy there. And some people are more sensitive to this energy than others. And can some times view it just like you would any movie. Maybe that is what you had.

[Psychoticmonkey]

Tell you who's a whole heap of fraud - that Derek Acorah.

Heard a bit on the radio the other night. It was just textbook cold reading - a combination of very vague statements which could apply to anyone, and then more specific comments based on the reactions of those fools phoning in.

When he did get it wrong, he turned it around on the other person as well:

"I sense...is there a child? Did you recently know someone who lost a child?"

"...No"

"Perhaps long ago? I'm just feeling something in the energy... A lost child? "

"No."

"Don't worry, that's OK Linda, don't worry about it".


I think it's a little disrespectful actually. Pretending you're in touch with someone else's dead relatives in order to make money.

[RedInBrazil]

Agreed, there is too much of that going on.

My cousin though, is the real deal. She once told my mother that her mother was trying to contact her but she was blocking her somehow. She said that her mother had talked to her and said to tell her to go see her sister. That she was very ill and needed her to be with her. The next day my mother called her sister's house. The brother in law answered and told her that her sister was rushed to hospital late last night. They later found out that she had cancer. She died a few months later, but my mother was with her all the time.

Little things like that make you believe in this stuff.

[RedInBrazil]

Of course my Grandmother was dead (just in case that part wasn't clear).

[Taksin]

Of course my Grandmother was dead (just in case that part wasn't clear).

:p

[Taksin]

Tell you who's a whole heap of fraud - that Derek Acorah.


didn't he play for Liverpool?

[Psychoticmonkey]

didn't he play for Liverpool?

He certainly did, trainee under Shankly.

Interesting stuff RIB. I don't really know where I stand when it comes to the last few posts on here. I recently had a look at Jung's 'Synchronicity', which is essentially the meaning behind 'meaningful coincidences'*, but at that point in his writing he was still trying to appeal to a scientific audience, so it's a bit heavy going (lots of ridiculous maths and suchlike).


*Without meaning to dismiss your experience as a 'coincidence' - just the term he uses to describe freaky shi'.

[The Prince]

Easily my favourite thread ever.

[Taylor]

Tell you who's a whole heap of fraud - that Derek Acorah.

Heard a bit on the radio the other night. It was just textbook cold reading - a combination of very vague statements which could apply to anyone, and then more specific comments based on the reactions of those fools phoning in.

When he did get it wrong, he turned it around on the other person as well:

"I sense...is there a child? Did you recently know someone who lost a child?"

"...No"

"Perhaps long ago? I'm just feeling something in the energy... A lost child? "

"No."

"Don't worry, that's OK Linda, don't worry about it".


I think it's a little disrespectful actually. Pretending you're in touch with someone else's dead relatives in order to make money.

He got kicked off Most Haunted for lying. They suspected he was a fraud so they secretly left clues around some house, making him think that only he had seen this info. Then during filming he announced the presence of Kreed Kafer, some South African ghost or whatever, although Kreed Kafer was an anagram of Derek Faker... Oops.

[ger_ryan22]

I thought I was seeing things when I kopped eyes on this thread again. One of the best.

[biglol]

This image is completely mind blowingly off the chart for me.

4607

Several hundred never before seen galaxies are visible in this "deepest-ever" view of the universe, called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), made with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Besides the classical spiral and elliptical shaped galaxies, there is a bewildering variety of other galaxy shapes and colors that are important clues to understanding the evolution of the universe. Some of the galaxies may have formed less that one billion years after the Big Bang.

Representing a narrow "keyhole" view all the way to the visible horizon of the universe, the HDF image covers a speck of sky 1/30th the diameter of the full Moon (about 25% of the entire HDF is shown here). This is so narrow, just a few foreground stars in our Milky Way galaxy are visible and are vastly outnumbered by the menagerie of far more distant galaxies, some nearly as faint as 30th magnitude, or nearly four billion times fainter than the limits of human vision. (The relatively bright object with diffraction spikes just left of center may be a 20th magnitude star.) Though the field is a very small sample of sky area it is considered representative of the typical distribution of galaxies in space because the universe, statistically, looks the same in all directions.

The image was assembled from many separate exposures (342 frames total were taken, 276 have been fully processed to date and used for this picture) with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), for ten consecutive days between December 18 to 28, 1995. This picture is from one of three wide-field CCD (Charged Coupled Device) detectors on the WFPC2.

This "true-color" view was assembled from separate images were taken in blue, red, and infrared light. By combining these separate images into a single color picture, astronomers will be able to infer — at least statistically — the distance, age, and composition of galaxies in the field. Bluer objects contain young stars and/or are relatively close, while redder objects contain older stellar populations and/or farther away.

This material was presented to the 187th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Antonio, Texas on January 15, 1996.

[lfcalltheway]

http://forums.lfconline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4607&d=1219153646


That's amazing :eek:

[Vv6]

I always hoped that humans early space travel might get intercepted by some alien life form.

Those crafts that had animals onboard in order to determine life expectancy and so on --- or that had no way of return.

Lika --- the first dog that went up gets intercepted by some supreme alien race.

Mmmm this species chases its tail, licks its own ar*e has sex with furniture yet has mastered inter stella travel.

Maybee we are not as smart as we think we are

[Vv6]

Derek Acorah at his finest


oEP0usvErRI

[ger_ryan22]

Mary loves Dick. That one is a classic. How can they keep straight faces. Cocks.

[isaac_hunt]

Lika --- the first dog that went up gets intercepted by some supreme alien race.


It was Laika.

[Vv6]

It was Laika.

Send my appologies to the dog

[isaac_hunt]

Send my appologies to the dog

It died not long after launch, so unfortunately thats not possible.

[Psychoticmonkey]

Loved this thread.

Karl, do you know anything about the Ultraviolet Catastrophe? I briefly had it explained to me a few weeks ago - sounded fascinating but I didn't really grasp it.

[Psychoticmonkey]

Oh, saw some fantastic meteors the other night as well. Must have been around the 11th or 12th - just lying outside on a beatiful clear night, and every now and again we'd see one flash across.

Breathtaking.

[Vv6]

It died not long after launch, so unfortunately thats not possible.

As I said in my first post

I do not bother with smileys, sarcasm is there form my enjoyment only.

[lfcalltheway]

I have allways been fascinated with NDE's (Near Death Experience) I don't know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. I have allways wanted to know what happens when we kick the bucket, I don't beilive in Heaven or Hell but do believe in divine spirit (or whatever its called)

Reading what the Prince said it makes me no longer scared of dying. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

[Lerpwl Am Byth]

He got kicked off Most Haunted for lying.
Surely lying has to be part of the job specification when applying for Most Haunted?

Bunch of charlatanic bullshitters.

[Lerpwl Am Byth]

By the way, is anyone off the China next July to see the solar eclipse? It's going to be the longest of the 21st century, peaking at over six and a half minutes somewhere over the North Pacific and over five minutes across China (normally they're in the two to three minute region). Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai will all experience totality.

I really want to go but I'm skint, and although it's still eleven months away you really have to plan well in advance for these things.

[The Prince]

I think I've missed it but there was a seven and a half minute one at the South Pole. That would be amazing, although I suspect some sort of scarf is in order.

[Taksin]

By the way, is anyone off the China next July to see the solar eclipse? It's going to be the longest of the 21st century, peaking at over six and a half minutes somewhere over the North Pacific and over five minutes across China (normally they're in the two to three minute region). Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai will all experience totality.




Didn't know about that.. Chengdu is an ongoing destination of mine, being the home of one of my teachers. Will look into timing the next trip to coincide. thanks

[Evs]

.....Put BBC4 on now!

It's 'Big Bang Night!'

[Jimmys Chippy]

.....Put BBC4 on now!

It's 'Big Bang Night!'

Now your talking.

*runs off with box of kleenex*

[Evs]

Now your talking.

*runs off with box of kleenex*

:D :D

My BBC 4 is on channel 116, not 946.

[Jimmys Chippy]

:D :D

My BBC 4 is on channel 116, not 946.

I guess I'll have to put it off until 10.00pm.

What a fucking let down.

[The Prince]

Bump!

[1984]

You beat me to it.

I gather a black hole has been found in our galaxy. Luckily our galaxy's a bit on the big side so we won't face bother for millions of years, or so I remember.

I also gather that scientists would like to study it, but cannot see the fucker as you cannot shine light at it, as it takes light.

Now that's a concept.

[candyman]

I think there are many black holes in our galaxy if I remember correctly. Recently they found a super massive black hole in the centre of our galaxy.

[AntonioLFC08]

I think there are many black holes in our galaxy if I remember correctly. Recently they found a super massive black hole in the centre of our galaxy.

Muse, was it?

[XabiAlonso]

Best thread since I've been on this forum!

[CODE RED]

I think there are many black holes in our galaxy if I remember correctly. Recently they found a super massive black hole in the centre of our galaxy.

I think the theory is that all galaxies have a super massive black hole in their centre which allows the galaxy to form that spinning swirly type formation in the Milky Way's case. Did you like my scientific description? :o

[Rushback]

I think the theory is that all galaxies have a super massive black hole in their centre which allows the galaxy to form that spinning swirly type formation in the Milky Way's case. Did you like my scientific description? :o

A gateway to other galaxies perhaps?

UkospV4Gya8&NR=1


2001 A Space Odyssey 1968
..... is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith here on earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well) Evolution then enabled man to reach the moon's surface where he finds yet another monolith, one which signals the monolith-placers that we have evolved that far. Now a race begins between computer (HAL) and man (Bowman) to reach the monolith-placers, the winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be


Maybe the Pyramids are the monoliths

Mars Pyramid
http://images.google.co.uk/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://uforc.com/images010306/MarsPyramidMGSImageM0701415.jpg&usg=AFQjCNHv14azcnGKsD8zcDzZVme4FPeuIQ

[ger_ryan22]

How weird, not been resurrected since a year to the day. Bizarre!

Anyway, this is good.

http://jmlynch.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/paleblue_custom.jpg?w=300&h=406

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

[Taksin]

This is good : a map of the universe, 3D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXrXTx94aFg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXrXTx94aFg

can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong with posting Youtube videos

[candyman]

How weird, not been resurrected since a year to the day. Bizarre!

Anyway, this is good.

http://jmlynch.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/paleblue_custom.jpg?w=300&h=406

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Funny, I was just listening to that Sagan quote on BBC4 yesterday.

[muse100]

Fascinating thread. Thanks for resurrecting it :)

It hurts my head to think of infinity. In fact it's hurting my head now so I'd better stop.

[moe1971]

How weird, not been resurrected since a year to the day. Bizarre!

Anyway, this is good.

http://jmlynch.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/paleblue_custom.jpg?w=300&h=406

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

what a load of shoite.



:p


Just kidding.

[ger_ryan22]

We're not alone... ooohhhh

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2010/05/14/1225866/804177-voyager.jpg

IT left Earth 33 years ago, now it's claimed the Voyager 2 spacecraft may have been hijacked by aliens after sending back data messages NASA scientists can't decode.

NASA installed a 12-inch disk containing music and greetings in 55 languages in case intelligent extraterrestrial life ever found it.

But now the spacecraft is sending back what sounds like an answer: Signals in an unknown data format!

The best scientific minds have so far not been able to decipher the strange information – is it a secret message?

Alien expert Hartwig Hausdorf said:"It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth" Read more in Bild

Engineers are working to solve the data transmissions from the Voyager 2 spacecraft near the edge of the solar system, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said today.

The spacecraft late last month began sending science data 8.6 billion miles to Earth in a changed format that mission managers could not decode.

Engineers have since instructed Voyager 2 to only transmit data on its own health and status while they work on the problem.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, explored the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and kept on going. Nearly 33 years later, they are the most distant human-made objects.

Voyager 1 is 10.5 billion miles from Earth and in about five years is expected to pass through the heliosphere, a bubble the sun creates around the solar system, and enter interstellar space.

Voyager 2 will follow after that.

[Mick R]

How weird, not been resurrected since a year to the day. Bizarre!

Anyway, this is good.

http://jmlynch.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/paleblue_custom.jpg?w=300&h=406

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Superb mate, thanks for posting that. Stunning...

[Mick R]

We're not alone... ooohhhh

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2010/05/14/1225866/804177-voyager.jpg

The thought occurs that it's broken ;) It's well outside it's gurantee - 33 years?

Amazing if it was a message being sent back to us.

What amazes me, also, is how do we control something that far away? :eek:

[Kid of the Kop]

Amazing if it was a message being sent back to us.



"Sir we've managed to crack the code. It's a message from an Alien life form"

"What does it say officer?"

"It says 'FFS Parry!'."

[Mick R]

Nice one... :D

[ger_ryan22]

NASA recently released pictures of this strange object in space. NASA claims that this is the result of an asteroid collision.

http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2010/images/strang99.jpg

They can't lie to us. We all know the truth.

http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2010/images/strang1.jpg

The truth is, we're fucked.

[Kopacabana]

Spolier alert! ***Forgive my ignorance***

I've been watching that programme fronted by the former keyboardist of D:Ream.

I have to say that while I'm completely baffled by it I also find it overwhelmingly fascinating.

One thing troubles me though, and that's physics. I have never understood the plain and simple logic of it. If this happens, then that will happen, causing that to happen. And so on. Will it? Why?

The answer to 'Why?' is usually 'physics tells us it is so'.

My real problem is that physics appears to be at least 99% theory. OK, theories may be 'proven' here on Earth under the physical conditions that we understand, but what about everywhere else in the universe?

For the physical theory to be correct then we have to assume that all conditions elsewhere in the universe match those on Earth. I know things like gravity and so on change but ultimately it is assumed that the principle is the same.

But how can we be 100% sure that our theories are correct? I'm a kind of 'seeing is believing' guy. Unless I actually see it happen, or am given overwhelming evidence that it can, does, and has happened, then I won't truly believe it can.

If I stand on Earth and drop an egg from 3 feet it will break and the goo will run out all over the floor. What if I do the same on Jupiter? Io? Pluto? Putting all obvious geological and atmospheric differences aside, how do we know that the same basic laws apply?

Who's to say that if I dropped an egg from 3 feet while standing on Neptune it won't stop halfway, rise up 20 feet, morph into a completely different object, and then explode?

I just don't get it. :confused:

[Rushback]

Planet X

I'd never heard of it until a few years ago, maybe it's all made up to boost the ratings of certain films and the conspiricy theorists have grabbed it by the balls but here's the gist..

Planet X is said to be a huge planet-like solid mass that moves within the solar system and reaches just a few hundred thousand miles away from the earth. The path it takes has been recorded to be somewhat leading to the direction of our planet, moving closer as it approaches in a definite speed. With this, the calculations made by certain astronomers found that it might be close enough to the Earth. Its orbit is depicted to move at a tangential state relative to the Earth, but in two years time it would tilt on an angle and move directly towards us.

All theories of course

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3h1Q7NwHxqQ/SMKT6Shb77I/AAAAAAAAAqM/xiHcLnWOy14/s400/Orbit+of+PLanet+X.jpg



Considering this, a massive heavenly body like Nibiru reaching our planet can imply various things, one of which is that the Earth would experience abnormalities in its climate upon its approach. But a more disturbing fact is that if Planet X hits the Earth, it will cause untold damage to it upon impact. Before this happens, a great effect on radio and satellite communications and other systems and processes might be experienced, and these could be interruptions that will be totally destructive.

Since the Earth has forces intrinsic to it, the forces acting on Planet X that also holds it in its orbit can cause a sort of 'interference' to the geomagnetic forces. In which case, the Earth could also possibly tilt on its orbit. The existence of Planet X Orbit 2012 would only mean a catastrophe that could include intense solar flares, meteorite storms, and many other devastating events including the Earths crust moving within a matter of weeks.


http://www.december212012.com/articles/PlanetX_Nibiru/images/NASA_AND_PLANET_X-3.gif

http://www.yowusa.com/planetx/2008/planetx-2008-03a/images/orbits/planetx-with-satellites.jpg

nyPy-a7HrnE&feature=related

XAtgPaggeTM&feature=related

we'll see

[isaac_hunt]

I've been watching that programme fronted by the former keyboardist of D:Ream.



What?

[mikeiom]

I have just read all 17 pages of this thread and it has to be the best thread on this site (excluding Babe of the week). Now to buy some astronomy books.

[kemlynreds]

How pissed off would you be if you had travelled all the way to Neptune with an egg, the only ever egg to get there and you dropped it.

[Kopacabana]

What?

BBC1 - Secrets of the Solar System

Presented by Professor Brian Cox (former member of D:Ream)

[ger_ryan22]

Photo of the day!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1005/venusmoon_eder_big.jpg

Explanation: There's something behind these clouds. Those faint graceful arcs, upon inspection, are actually far, far in the distance. They are the Earth's Moon and the planet Venus. Both the Moon and Venus are bright enough to be seen during the day, and both are quite capable of showing a crescent phase. To see Venus, which appears quite small, in a crescent phase requires binoculars or a telescope. In the above dramatic daytime image taken from Budapest, Hungary in 2004, the Moon and Venus shared a similar crescent phase a few minutes before the Moon eclipsed the larger but more distant world. Similarly, visible today in parts of Africa and Asia, a crescent Moon will again eclipse Venus during the day. About an hour after the above image was taken, Venus reappeared.