Star Trails

[harrygunner]

Long exposures of stars as viewed from the International Space Station.
   
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726792248/with/7216881066/
   
A nice example:


When I was a kid, I hoped I'd live to be in the "Space Age". Think I made it.

[The_Shadow]

Some of the views of space from Huble, other telescopes and other probes have been absolutely stunning!
We talk about the speeds of bullets but the speed of light and how far it travels in a year are how we measure the distance of stars.  To imagine we are looking at a view of stars and galaxies that the light left so many years ago...to which some may not exist yet we still see the light.  Then some require special telescopes which view in spectrums not normally visible to the human eye...Amazing Star gazing!

[harrygunner]

Is cool. I've been interested in outer space since I was a kid. Today, we can see images  of surfaces of other planets that have never been seen before in human history.

Appears you know about this site:  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Added it in case others want to look.

[The_Shadow]

I gained some interest in space messing around with model rockets (still do showing kids rockets), got to see the test firing of the Saturn V first stage in early 60's in nearby Mississippi.  I often look in the early morning and evening sky for the space station as it passes by.  Its a shame that the NASA funding got pulled by the current administration for the Shuttle program.

[harrygunner]

A deep space image showing thousands of galaxies and clusters.



Each of those other galaxies are tens of thousands of light-years wide, filled with billions of stars and planets. This image is of a small segment of the full 4 PI radians of space. There are an estimated 90+ billion galaxies in our universe. 

Considering the possibility of other life out there seems reasonable.   

[The_Shadow]

It does add dimention to are we alone?

[sqlbullet]

There are an estimated 90+ billion galaxies in our universe. 

Considering the possibility of other life out there seems reasonable.   

That number is out of date.  Current estimates are 170 billion+ galaxies in our universe.  And there is growing evidence to support the existence of other universes that make up a big multi-verse.  Problem is they can't be seen because the edge of our universe acts like an event horizon of a black hole.

Event within our own universe the odds against there being another star with a planet with life are unfathomable. Like 34,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.

Mathematically, there is almost certainly someone out there.

[harrygunner]

Thought I'd share that since my daughter thought is was amazing. She's smart, but not a nerd and tolerates my fascination with science. As a child, I took her to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ and the Kitt Peak Observatory in southern Arizona. She actually liked those trips.

It's been suggested we live within the results of matter previously entering a black hole. Due to instabilities within the black hole, our universe and the matter/energy within it came to be. Gravitational theory has been frustrating, not fully integrated into any other theories. Hasn't been quantized and relativistic quantum theories only include Special Relativity, not General. Of course, the math is hard. The equations as usually presented, is deceptive, becoming its true self once the curvature, metric and stress-energy tensors are expanded.

The Schwarzschild Radius for non-rotating black holes is relatively easy to derive. As a summer special session, I had an undergraduate student derive it.

He wasn't doing well in my physics class, but seemed bright, so I gave him something to do that he considered beyond his capabilities. Starting from Einstein's equations, he completed the derivation within the two months of the summer session. His grades improved significantly in all his subjects after that.