There its a long post in Apologetics Press on the Big Bang theory and its evolution. Worth reading.
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There its a long post in Apologetics Press on the Big Bang theory and its evolution. Worth reading.
I have little interest in astronomy, nor do I pay much attention to videos about aliens and other juvenile concepts such as those that appear on YouTube where conspiracy theories abound.
There's a lot of uninformed chatter about the moon landings for example and then there's this:
https://youtu.be/tHJUVDL68iw
Edit: with apologies for the juvenile comments that are also a major feature of YouTube.
I find it hard to believe that the Apollo missions to the Moon were manned. I loved the juvenile comments in the video.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Why do we need to send humans that far into space anyway? Isn't that what "artificial intelligent" robots are for? I suppose if we put advanced telescopes at a Lagrangian point which would be further than the Moon, we may need to have a human be able to make repairs.
Much of this is confirmed by Peter Coles' "Cosmology A Very Short Introduction" that I am also reading to get an overview. I liked this Berlinski quote from the link:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
Contemporary cosmologists feel free to say anything that pops into their heads.
I agree with this (and Emil). All the dithering over 'going to Mars' is unnecessary, and I don't think it will happen. As YesNo says, This is exactly what "artificial intelligent" robots are for, and we can see the results on Mars very well from that. They take samples, analyse them, and range pretty freely across the planet, filming as they go.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
There is an astronomical radio source at the center of our galaxy called Sagittarius A* which some believe to be a black hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagitt...cretion_course
There was also supposed to be an event where a gas cloud, G2, was to collide with this alleged black hole last year. However, G2 survived the encounter with the black hole. Does that mean the radio source Sgr A* is not the location of a black hole?
Perhaps when we get more reliable information about the astronomical radio source at the centre of our galaxy called Sagittarius A* we may be in a position to draw conclusions?
Yes, Sagittarius A* does represent something so far unknown. Only a few days ago, I thought black holes existed. Now, I am ready to doubt that they even can exist.
However, if I doubt that such singularities exist, then whatever the universe was at the Big Bang, it could not have been like a black hole. To remove the idea from my mind that there was a beginning some 14 billion years ago, one would have to find something in the universe older than 14 billion years.
Another dwarf planet has been found in the sun's orbit far out in the Kuiper Belt: http://www.space.com/31100-most-dist...net-found.html. Two or three time further out than Pluto (and smaller), it hasn't yet had its orbit plotted, as has been done for Eris.
In checking that link about the new dwarf planet, there was one about Vesta, the brightest asteroid: http://www.space.com/12097-vesta-ast...ar-system.html
There were two things I found interesting about it: (1) Supposedly Vesta can at times be seen without binoculars and (2) Gauss calculated its orbit in 10 hours without computers.
That second thing made me wonder how he did that? What were his input values and the formulas he used?
I think we still have not had the closet pass by Dawn to this asteroid. Or have we? This film sequence of a really close pass is quite stunning: http://www.space.com/17389-take-a-to...aft-video.html.
Gauss' work has a good page on this: https://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherli...999/weiss.html
The use of the cubesats in the coming mission sounds interesting: http://www.space.com/29489-marco-cub...ding-2016.html
Thanks for the link describing how Gauss found the orbit of Vesta. He only had a set of observations which contained time and two degree measurements to pinpoint the asteroid.
I had missed that, YesNo: cubesats in the next Mars lander. i am really glad that NASA is spending so much effort in exploring the next nearest neighbour to Earth (Venus beats Mars but is far more difficult to explore).
This post was a good way of trying to imagine the vast distances of space: http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essent...-a-light-year?
Discovery of the furthest known galaxy: http://earthsky.org/space/scientists...ant-galaxy-yet. 13.8 billion years old.
I think that would be about 13 billion years old with the universe itself at 13.8 billion years. It is interesting that these objects are so faint that spectroscopy may not work. It looks like we need bigger telescopes.