Triangulum Galaxy

[Krischan]

Oh, another galaxy image? *yawn* But this is a new jaw-dropping image of the Hubble Space Telescope and I love news like that: one of our neighbours, the third largest galaxy in the local group, after the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way: the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) in 664 Megapixels. Even if you think that you can see a lot of single stars in this image, the resolution is still so "bad" that about 60 stars share one pixel (only a rough mathematical estimate). Wow - a great image from a 30 year old telescope.

The Triangulum Galaxy has about 40 Billion Stars which is only 10% of the number of stars in the Milkyway or 4% of the Andromeda Galaxy. This reminds me of my latest tech demo with only 6.2 Million Stars but I don't think I can simulate this, damn.

Hubble takes gigantic image of the Triangulum Galaxy (Zoomable Version)

and if you missed this: The Andromeda Galaxy Gigapixel Panorama (Zoomable Version)

[GrindalfGames]

Seeing things like this makes me want to restart my wing commander style project

[therevills]

Great shot, thanks for posting it!

Did you see the "Orion's Dragon" GIF?

https://giphy.com/gifs/8qrkcabJyK01gsnMJX

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/01/orions-dragon-revealed-in-3d-by-nasas-airborne-observatory

[Krischan]

Nope, thanks for mentioning it. SOFIA is a very interesting telescope, too. Mounted in a Boeing 747SP it is a unique category of telescopes and so far the only one of this kind. Another find of the day, if you're interested in astrophysics: what to do with a failed satellite launch project to check if Einstein is still right (and he is still right, damn).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKwJayXTZUs

Oh and the GIF reminds me of this, which is a 3D Animation only but very cool (I'd like to create something similar in realtime someday):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEEz1kdNR4

[3DzForMe]

Wow, flying into the nebula, so well done 

[meems]

as far as galaxies go, its a bit fat and shapeless. Its electric and magnetic aspects aren't shaping it as much other galaxies.

[Rick Nasher]

Very nice sim. Those gassy clouds look awesome, but always make me wonder is that really dust and if so how large are the 'particles' really(atomic elements or planet sized) and how much space is in between them?

Seems somewhat counter intuitive that these wouldn't cling onto each other very quickly and form new stuff, like planets etc. Perhaps takes much longer than in my imagination.
Would they need to be very far apart from each other to stay like that?

Didn't check the distance, but probably this is just imagery(light) from a very long-long time ago, when it was just forming, only reaching us now and by now would be looking completely different in reality.


Then 'they' (if any) would see a similar thing looking at us using conventional telescopes. Weird idea that we cannot see the present reality as is. We're always looking into the past.

Biggest question is: say we develop warp capability, how would you know where to go safely or even where is interesting to go, for we would basically be flying sort of blindly??

[Matty]

Re Warp Tech Rick...this is how I see it...regarding your questions....

decades/hundreds of years of analysis of stars etc surrounding could be modelled accurately to see where they ought to be in a certain amount of time. That's the big objects.

Same with some of the smaller objects.

You would need to map the area you wish to go in for a very long time to capture every significant object you wish to either avoid or go to and predict its path.

This still means there are huge numbers of 'smaller' objects. But the space is mostly empty, mostly empty, pretty much a perfect vacuum for as far as possible you can imagine in many cases (molecules do float through space though, and hydrogen and helium).

Warp tech - faster than light? In some weird sense if it is possible, if it is at all possible - my head can't even get around the idea of approaching a signficant percentage of light speed let alone surpassing it.  Too much weird stuff with relativity once you get anywhere near light speed.

But....for the case of argument if light speed wasn't a barrier - and newtonian physics could be used to approximate still in some weird way - then you'd have to say that only by predicting all the large bodies and taking short jumps with more analysis...which means you'd still be kind of restricted...

I just can't see it happening...unless you were a gambler who didn't care about colliding with stuff smaller than a planet or asteroid.

[Krischan]

Well, the closer you get to the speed of light, the more the wavelengths of light you "see" shift in the direction of microwaves or X-rays towards you - not healthy. And going to warp, you would actually see nothing. I think I once read that you don't even notice on warp that you are flying or have flown at all because the journey would be quasi "instant" within a microsecond and you'd be at every point in the whole universe at the same time! This is totally crazy and based on calculations, but we can only speculate how we would experience the effect ourselves.

So Star Trek and my Tech Demos look cooler than the reality

[Henri]

Hi,

'traditional warp drive' (the one used in Start Trek) doesn't move objects faster than light. Actually, you wouldn't even feel acceleration because as far as I understand it, the object is not moving, but the space itself is moving.

But surely such thing is only science fiction right ?

Well, maybe not..

-Henri

[Krischan]

Well, a more recent view on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/science/space-travel-physics.html

But forget about warp, exotic matter or negative energy. The fastest realistic speed we could probably reach in near future is 20% of the speed of light, and the astronauts will be thousands of nano-sized microchips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjP40_TPtO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRFXV4Z6x8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoCm6vZDDiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR1mGvLmLOw

Sorry if I have to bring you back to reality

[Xerra]

Love the technology making this happen but, unless I missed it, there's no explanation on how they intend to slow the ship down once it actually reaches its destination. I'd assume they intend to try and use the gravity of one of the stars there but they're going to have to be pretty accurate with their calculations. I'm not smart enough to work out if it's actually possible to do that or not.

[Henri]

@Warp

I'm a realist myself, but to me, the fact that there is a theory to be tested, and that it's actually been tested, is exciting in itself.

-Henri

[Krischan]

Love the technology making this happen but, unless I missed it, there's no explanation on how they intend to slow the ship down once it actually reaches its destination. I'd assume they intend to try and use the gravity of one of the stars there but they're going to have to be pretty accurate with their calculations. I'm not smart enough to work out if it's actually possible to do that or not.

You can't stop them, even with star gravity, it's impossible. It is a very short system flyby like New Horizons with Pluto. The problem here is to get a sharp picture of a planet during this short time span (because of the very high speed), if there are any or the probes come close enough to one. Imagine driving a sports car at top speed through your hometown and taking pictures all the time in random directions with short shutter time. Most images will be blurry or useless, but maybe some will be quite good. And because there are many thousands of probes, the likelihood of seeing anything at all increases. So accuracy is not so important as it seems.

Well, you have to calculate gravitational deviations over the flight time in advance, but if they are heading in the right direction they will arrive there as well. But even with this incredible speed, most of us here won't live long enough to see the results, unfortunately. Quick calculation: 4,34 LY x 5 = 21,7 plus 4,34 for sending the data back to earth makes at least 26 years of mission time. Add 20 years for mission preparation = 45 years to wait. I'm nearly 90 then, so dead, demented or blind.

But the idea is brilliant.

[Rick Nasher]

- Warp
Last time I'd heard from NASA was that 'normal' warp would indeed need the equivalent energy mass of Jupiter, but with warp buble(in front and back of ship) energy needed would be reduced to size of a nuclear grapefruit and that they were having some weird unexpected breakthrough results in the lab, on mini scale prototype.

Dunno if any of this is true and never heard from since(was years back). Either was a failure or actually works which could be reason they do no longer value rocket propelled ships interesting enough to build those themselves anymore.

*Funny also that a lot of the ingredients mentioned to make it work come straight out of 60's sf. Seems they were either far ahead or we are now far behind (or left ignorant and in the dark about it).



- Startshot
The craft will indeed need to start breaking halfway otherwise will fly by at insane speed. So trip will still take way too long. And yes: *what* would it use to reduce it's speed? Perhaps the aliens(if any) can slow it down with their own lasers? Let's tell them we're coming- oh.. nogo. 



- FTL (im)possible?
There are indications that Faster Than Light effects are actually happening all over the universe if you look for instance at the chinese quantum entanglement experiment(link).
So instant spaceship's communication over vast distances(like in Startrek) appear to actually be feasible. If that's true then teleportation probably also, as well as faster than light travel.




- What if..?
What is completely disregarded in the first video(about FTL) is the possible advancements and rise of non-human scientists:
If AI get's some sort of self-awareness(which might be happening all-by-itself, due to attempts to understand speech context, very much as how we've learned to understand what 'self' actually is by evolution). For this enables you to reason about yourself in a less animalesque, rudimentary and non-instinctive way.

If it then finds out how to build ever more advanced versions of itself then might be peanuts for it to figure out this problem. Might not at all take that many scientists or a 100 years. Perhaps less than a split second. About the same time it needs to figure out how to exterminate us as we are redundant.