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SoldierHawk
Moderator
Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 6108
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Alright, so it's probably not a shock to anyone here if I say that planets, and stars and stuff are really big. But I just came across this link, which really put it into a little more visual perspective (for me at least):
http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/
Not sure if that's awesome, or just plain scary. Either way, 
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| William Shakespeare wrote: |
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Teralyx
Title: Master Exploder
Joined: Jun 04 2008
Location: Goldenrod City
Posts: 1419
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One of those stars was named Betelgeuse.
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<TheFlamingSchnitzel> Didn't your mom teach you not to punch girls?
<FigNewton> I was too busy /punchin' her/ |
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Hacker
Banned
Joined: Sep 13 2008
Posts: 3129
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holy......shit....that is freaky
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SoldierHawk
Moderator
Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 6108
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| ThatGuy wrote: |
| One of those stars was named Betelgeuse. |
Sure is. Not the kind of Betelgeuse whose name you have to worry about saying, though. 
I don't know where the name came from. It sounds partially like the Arabic word for "center" or "central," but I don't know why it would be called that, since the star's located in Orion's right shoulder, and not really central to anything in the constellation.
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| William Shakespeare wrote: |
| Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. |
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Dii Infer
Title: Boobie Engineer
Joined: Jun 01 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 653
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I saw that years ago. Really fascinating to me, although others may think it's scary. It makes me feel really tiny, for sure!
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IceWarm
Joined: Dec 22 2008
Location: Breckenridge, Colorado
Posts: 1691
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Reminds me of a Foxtrot comic...shows all of our planets and the final frame says "The Death Star ows them all."
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"Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it."
"Fighting in a basement offers a lot of difficulties, number one being, you're fighting in a basement."
"You're Not So Tough Without Your Veggie!" |
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JStrangiato
Title: El Hombre Strangiato
Joined: Jun 12 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 1291
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I had to turn it off after Cygni, it just got too mind-bending. I can barely even fathom anything that gargantuan (that's what she said), and it really does make you realize just how insignificant we may be in the grand scheme of things.
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My music/humor blog (R.I.P.): http://lavidastrangiato.blogspot.com/
| Chondra "Mrs. Claudio" Sanchez on Enshin a.k.a. Jake Strangiato wrote: |
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IceWarm
Joined: Dec 22 2008
Location: Breckenridge, Colorado
Posts: 1691
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They need to bring Star Trek back and go to these stars/planets.
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"Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it."
"Fighting in a basement offers a lot of difficulties, number one being, you're fighting in a basement."
"You're Not So Tough Without Your Veggie!" |
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Blackout
Title: Captain Oblivious
Joined: Sep 01 2007
Location: That Rainy State
Posts: 10376
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Pandajuice
Title: The Power of Grayskull
Joined: Oct 30 2008
Location: US and UK
Posts: 2649
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Yea, it's definitely one of the most sobering realizations any human can have when they truly understand the size and scope of the universe. It's hard to get angry at stupid shit for a little while when you consider just how small and insignificant our little, silly planet is and how our stupid problems are even more insignificant.
Some of those stars were in the red giant phase of their lives, which our sun will go through too in about 5 billion years, which will envelope half of the solar system, including Earth. But don't worry, we'll all be dead long before that because of the sun's constantly rising temperature making the surface too hot for liquid water to exist (about 1 billion years from now).
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SevereFlame
Title: Superpowered President
Joined: Dec 07 2008
Location: White House In The Sky
Posts: 529
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Fucking scary to know that there's a star out there that's 7582451221618000000000000000 km3 out there (roughly 6462 times the size of Earth).
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Tyop
Title: Grammar Nazi
Joined: May 04 2008
Location: Sauerkrautland
Posts: 1414
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GPFontaine
Joined: Dec 06 2007
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 11244
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Ross Rifle
Title: Rock N Roll God
Joined: Oct 29 2006
Location: Chilliwack, BC
Posts: 4844
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I'm listening to 'The End' by The Doors right now, it's very suiting.
Thanks for posting this Hawk, I'm obsessed with stars and constellations 
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SoldierHawk
Moderator
Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 6108
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Both of those are total win, Tyop. As funny as it sounds, I actually felt a lot of *relief* while watching that first one, when the course reversed and I could finally see Earth again. Weird since I obviously never LEFT the Earth at all, but... *shrug*.
Btw, for Ross (and anyone else interested in this stuff), check out this program if you've got a decent computer. It's called World Wide Telescope, and it rocks: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/WhatIs/WhatisWWT.aspx
It's pretty awesome, It's sort of like an interactive googlemaps, but its of the entire known galaxy. Lets you zoom in and out and look stuff up to get more information. Quite awesome. I play around with it all the time.
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| William Shakespeare wrote: |
| Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. |
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SevereFlame
Title: Superpowered President
Joined: Dec 07 2008
Location: White House In The Sky
Posts: 529
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The first video was good, Tyop, but the second video scared me. It was freaky.
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Cattivo
Joined: Apr 14 2006
Location: Lake Michigan
Posts: 3332
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Celestra is a similar program. I had it on my last computer before the hard drive crashed.
I always wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. Love space, and would have liked to travel around in it, visiting other worlds. Doesn't look like they'll have the technology to zoom around in space quickly in my lifetime, unfortunately....Not even in our own solar system.
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Ba'al
Title: Zerg Zergling
Joined: Mar 02 2008
Location: Uranus
Posts: 2286
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username
Title: owner of a lonely heart
Joined: Jul 06 2007
Location: phoenix, az usa
Posts: 16127
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| SoldierHawk wrote: |
Both of those are total win, Tyop. As funny as it sounds, I actually felt a lot of *relief* while watching that first one, when the course reversed and I could finally see Earth again. Weird since I obviously never LEFT the Earth at all, but... *shrug*.
Btw, for Ross (and anyone else interested in this stuff), check out this program if you've got a decent computer. It's called World Wide Telescope, and it rocks: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/WhatIs/WhatisWWT.aspx
It's pretty awesome, It's sort of like an interactive googlemaps, but its of the entire known galaxy. Lets you zoom in and out and look stuff up to get more information. Quite awesome. I play around with it all the time. |
pretty cool program SH. thanks for the link
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| Klimbatize wrote: |
| I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load |
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SoldierHawk
Moderator
Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 6108
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| username wrote: |
pretty cool program SH. thanks for the link |
Np, I highly recommend the "guided tours," too, if you want to go deeper. Awesome ways to discover things in there you'd never stumble across by accident.
Ba'al, that was awesome, and also made me lol.
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| William Shakespeare wrote: |
| Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. |
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Penguin_Doomsday
Title: The penguins are comin-
Joined: Oct 21 2008
Posts: 137
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Cool vids, they make me dizzy. :/
It makes me put things in perspective: If, however many years ago humans discovered that the earth was round for the first time, imagine how many peoples minds just blew out of their skull at that discovery.
What if one day we develop the technology in which we discover the next level of the universe? Is it even possible for us to perceive such a fact? What would happen if tomorrow you found on the news they made this discovery?
Space is awesome because we find new discoveries about this shit almost every day. Neat stuff. Sweet vids, thanks for the visual-kick-in-the-head 
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I don't have a signature. Sorry. Try again later.. probably not though. |
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username
Title: owner of a lonely heart
Joined: Jul 06 2007
Location: phoenix, az usa
Posts: 16127
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| Quote: |
Giant Mystery Blob Discovered Near Dawn of Time
A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced today.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
"I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance," said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. "It's kind of record-breaking."
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). An object 12.9 billion light-years away is seen as it existed 12.9 billion years ago, and the light is just now arriving.
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Himiko holds more than 10 times as much mass as the next largest object found in the early universe, or roughly the equivalent mass of 40 billion suns. At 55,000 light years across, it spans about half the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Lyman-Alpha blobs remain a mystery because existing telescopes have a hard time peering so far back to nearly the dawn of the universe. |
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090422-space-blob.html
or check current.com
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| Klimbatize wrote: |
| I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load |
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Ross Rifle
Title: Rock N Roll God
Joined: Oct 29 2006
Location: Chilliwack, BC
Posts: 4844
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Those numbers are...mind-boggling. Wow.
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SevereFlame
Title: Superpowered President
Joined: Dec 07 2008
Location: White House In The Sky
Posts: 529
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| Penguin_Doomsday wrote: |
What if one day we develop the technology in which we discover the next level of the universe? Is it even possible for us to perceive such a fact? What would happen if tomorrow you found on the news they made this discovery?
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| username wrote: |
| Quote: |
Giant Mystery Blob Discovered Near Dawn of Time
A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced today.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
"I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance," said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. "It's kind of record-breaking."
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). An object 12.9 billion light-years away is seen as it existed 12.9 billion years ago, and the light is just now arriving.
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Himiko holds more than 10 times as much mass as the next largest object found in the early universe, or roughly the equivalent mass of 40 billion suns. At 55,000 light years across, it spans about half the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Lyman-Alpha blobs remain a mystery because existing telescopes have a hard time peering so far back to nearly the dawn of the universe. |
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090422-space-blob.html
or check current.com |
Is it really a surprise? Our universe has tons of hidden stuff in it, we're bound to see something better and bigger eventually.
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SoldierHawk
Moderator
Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 6108
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Oh God, is this the part where humanity makes a rip in the universe and unleashes all the Elder Gods on us...?
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| William Shakespeare wrote: |
| Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. |
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