The Outer Space Thread

[Renegade7]

 

[mistertim]

On 5/12/2022 at 2:50 PM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

we aren’t the center of the universe…. Also we know the velocity of space objects. Where they were 13 billion years ago will give us an idea of where they are now, which is I think where estimated size of the universe is now comes from.

 

We are the center of the universe. Every point in space is the center of the universe.

 

 

[China]

 

[Bang]

I'm much more interested in the findings from the Abnormal University.

 

~Bang

[China]

Astronomer Says New Webb Space Telescope Images “Almost Brought Him to Tears”

 

The scientific and astronomical communities are eagerly waiting for Tuesday, July 12th, to come around. That is the day when NASA promises to release the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)! According to a previous statement by NASA, these images will include the deepest views of the Universe ever taken, as well as spectra obtained from an exoplanet atmosphere. In another statement from a recent press conference, it was stated that the images were so beautiful they almost brought Thomas Zarbuchen – Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) – to tears!

 

The evolution of infrared astronomy, from Spitzer to WISE to JWST. 

 

Since it launched on Christmas Day in 2021, the observatory has successfully unfolded, commissioned its science instruments, and reached the L2 Lagrange Point, where it will remain for its entire mission. It also successfully aligned all 18 of its segmented mirrors, which are arranged in a honeycomb configuration that measures 6.5 meters (more than 21 feet) in diameter – almost three times the size of Hubble’s primary mirror. Previously, NASA released test images the JWST took of a star 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major (HD 84406).

 

According to Zurbuchen, who saw the images during a Wednesday briefing with other NASA officials, the first-light images it has taken provide a “new worldview” into the cosmos. Addressing what it was like to see the first-light images at the Wednesday news conference, Zarbuchen said:

 

“The images are being taken right now. There is already some amazing science in the can, and some others are yet to be taken as we go forward. We are in the middle of getting the history-making data down. It’s really hard to not look at the Universe in a new light and not just have a moment that is deeply personal. It’s an emotional moment when you see nature suddenly releasing some of its secrets, and I would like you to imagine and look forward to that.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PokerPacker]

On 5/17/2022 at 5:45 PM, mistertim said:

 

We are the center of the universe. Every point in space is the center of the universe.

 

 

I don't believe that everywhere is the center of the universe.  The explanation I'd seen for that argument was basically that you could pick out any point in space and observe everything expanding away from it at the same pace as any other point, so any point could be equally considered the center.  I found a much more convincing argument that the center of the universe does not exist in our space.

 

Following the hypothesis that our universe is comprised of the known three spacial dimensions curved around a 4th dimension, we can visualize this by simplifying down to a two-dimensional space curved around a third dimension.  For this, use the surface of a balloon to represent this two-dimensional space.  The interior of the balloon is that third dimension that it is curved around.  You can draw little dots around the surface of the balloon to represent celestial bodies in this space.  And then inflate the balloon to simulate the expansion of the universe, you will observe these dots all expanding away from each other, no one of them the center of expansion.  Or all of them the center of expansion... if you consider it the same way some consider every point to be the center of the universe.  But we know that no point on the surface of the balloon is the center of the balloon, but it exists somewhere inside of the balloon, which is outside of that balloon-surface's space.  With the exception being at t=0 when this hypothetical balloon existed as a singularity.

[Jabbyrwock]

July 12th morning 10:30 am,  James Webb first images.

[China]

10 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

July 12th morning 10:30 am,  James Webb first images.

 

So is that all we'll be seeing on the APOD website for a while?

[Jabbyrwock]

43 minutes ago, China said:

 

So is that all we'll be seeing on the APOD website for a while?

I suspect one or two images might make their way over there 😉.

[Jabbyrwock]

[CousinsCowgirl84]

So the blue ones are moving toward us and the red ones are moving away, right?

[Jabbyrwock]

46 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

So the blue ones are moving toward us and the red ones are moving away, right?

 

Im not sure how they are producing the "full color" images, but as I understand it these were captured with the NIRCam, which is sensitive to something like 0.5-5 micron.  So all of the galaxies in the image are red shifted and moving away.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

I read that if you held a grain of sand at arm’s length, that image is the size of the area of the sky it would cover up. You know how many billions of stars are in that picture? Multiply that by the number of grains of sand it would take to cover up the entire sky.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

16 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

I read that if you held a grain of sand at arm’s length, that image is the size of the area of the sky it would cover up. You know how many billions of stars are in that picture? Multiply that by the number of grains of sand it would take to cover up the entire sky.

And eventually it will all be ripped into nothingness.

[Jabbyrwock]

40 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

And eventually it will all be ripped into nothingness.

 

Wow...kill the mood.  We're looking at the universes baby pictures and you walk in with "she'll die one day ya know".

[China]

There looks to be some curves on some of the galaxies like rotational streaking.  Was the telescope not steady?

 

Still crazy to see that level of detail at that distance.

[Jabbyrwock]

3 minutes ago, China said:

There looks to be some curves on some of the galaxies like rotational streaking.  Was the telescope not steady?

 

Still crazy to see that level of detail at that distance.

 

Gravitational lensing.  You're seeing the bending of spacetime.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

25 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

 

Wow...kill the mood.  We're looking at the universes baby pictures and you walk in with "she'll die one day ya know".

🤷‍♀️

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe

After all the black holes have evaporated (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, baryons, neutrinos, electrons, and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other.

 

 

but, all hope is not lost!!!

 

The universe could possibly avoid eternal heat death through random quantum tunneling and quantum fluctuations, given the non-zero probability of producing a new Big Bang in roughly 10¹⁰¹⁰⁵⁶ years.^[53]

Edited July 12, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[China]

NASA’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final ‘Performance’ in Fine Detail

 

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed details of the Southern Ring planetary nebula that were previously hidden from astronomers. Planetary nebulae are the shells of gas and dust ejected from dying stars.
• Webb’s powerful infrared view brings this nebula’s second star into full view, along with exceptional structures created as the stars shape the gas and dust around them.
• New details like these, from the late stages of a star’s life, will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments.
• These images also reveal a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-colored points of light seen here are galaxies – not stars.

[mistertim]

13 hours ago, Jabbyrwock said:

 

Gravitational lensing.  You're seeing the bending of spacetime.

 

My math game isn't even close to strong enough to figure this out myself. Is it true that the equations in Relativity say that it's actually time dilation that causes gravity and not vice-versa, since in most of the universe the vast majority of what mass "curves" is time and not space?

 

So gravity isn't actually a force or a result of curvature of space, but the result of time being different at different points of any object, especially one near a massive object?

Edited July 12, 2022 by mistertim

[Renegade7]

15 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

So the blue ones are moving toward us and the red ones are moving away, right?

 

More likely the red ones are red dwarfs and blue ones are blue super giants.  Red shift and Blue shift aren't that obvious from my understanding and need help to tell (anyone can correct me on that), the light emitted from stars doesn't need any extra help through extra work or spectrums (a lot of nebula pictures are overlays of the same nebula in more then one spectrum, like infrared, so we can see more of the stars hidden in the dust and gas clouds)

14 hours ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

I read that if you held a grain of sand at arm’s length, that image is the size of the area of the sky it would cover up. You know how many billions of stars are in that picture? Multiply that by the number of grains of sand it would take to cover up the entire sky.

 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Renegade7

[PleaseBlitz]

I don't know what any of this is or means, but it sure is pretty.

 

[China]

7 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

I don't know what any of this is or means, but it sure is pretty.

 

 

Looks like a galactic haboob.

[Destino]

20 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

So the blue ones are moving toward us and the red ones are moving away, right?

I’m not a scientist, but I’m confident the blue ones are Jedi and red ones are Sith.  

[China]

4 hours ago, China said:

NASA’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final ‘Performance’ in Fine Detail

 

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed details of the Southern Ring planetary nebula that were previously hidden from astronomers. Planetary nebulae are the shells of gas and dust ejected from dying stars.
• Webb’s powerful infrared view brings this nebula’s second star into full view, along with exceptional structures created as the stars shape the gas and dust around them.
• New details like these, from the late stages of a star’s life, will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments.
• These images also reveal a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-colored points of light seen here are galaxies – not stars.

 

Are we sure that's not The Space Amoeba from Star Trek?