6 ms·

WOW, that is amazing. I'm always blown away by stuff like this, where you can actually get a sense of how small we all are and how distant even the closest neig

WOW, that is amazing. I'm always blown away by stuff like this, where you can actually get a sense of how small we all are and how distant even the closest neighbor stars are. I just close my eyes for a minute and think (or try to), what would it be like for those people that are finally able to reach, say, Vega (I know it's not the closest). Sure, this is not a big deal in sci-fi, but for reality, it's pretty mind blowing. This is 100% why I seriously want to live for a few hundred years: to have an opportunity to see the first time we actually go to the nearest star. In the meantime, I guess this will have to suffice. I also love this image that is not interactive like this, but still mind blowing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earths_Location_in_the_Universe_(JPEG).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earths_Location_in_the_Uni...

taigeair 14y ago
yeah makes us feel small.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Life on Earth has existed for about 26% of the age of the Universe. Feel any bigger? (3.6 billion years / 13.75 billion years)
  - brazzy 14y ago
    Indeed that was a bit of an epiphany for me recently whe I read a site that listed major astronomical and terrestrian events in parralel. Despite knowing many of the numbers, somehow my gut feeling had always been that since Earth is so tiny in size compared to the universe at large, the same must be true about timescales.
  - scoot 14y ago
    Hmmm... but what about intelligent life? Or technologically sophisticated (relatively speaking) intelligent life. Still feeling small here.
  - elliott34 14y ago
    Then if you imagine how long the Internet has existed compared to the universe, all of this hullabaloo on HN becomes even funnier .
incision 14y ago
>WOW, that is amazing. I'm always blown away by stuff like this, where you can actually get a sense of how small we all are and how distant even the closest neighbor stars are. Same. If you don't already own a pair, I'd recommend getting a basic pair of binoculars and doing some backyard astronomy. You'd be amazed how much more you can see with even a basic 10x50 pair, even in thoroughly light-polluted skies. Also SpaceRip [1] collects hundreds of interesting, easily digestible and pretty timely videos. 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip
- alwaysinshade 14y ago
  > I'd recommend getting a basic pair of binoculars and doing some backyard astronomy If you've got the spare cash, get image stabilized ones. I could clearly see the moons around Jupiter with my Canon 12x36 IS binos the other night despite my hand tremors. The real party trick is handing them to a friend and telling them to look at the moon. Blows them away every time - to most people it's just a yellowish glowing thing in the sky, rather than a scarred rocky globe.
- keemoboy 14y ago
  Yes, this is great
- RobMcCullough 14y ago
  Be sure to check out the middle "star" in Orion's sword.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
abrichr 14y ago
Working link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_Location_in_the_Universe_(JPEG).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_Location_in_the_...
- no_news_is 14y ago
  Pannable version, that file was too big for me & I remembered this tool from another HN post: http://hugepic.io/7c2aaf4a6 http://hugepic.io/7c2aaf4a6
scott_s 14y ago
Obligatory buzz-kill, Charles Stross on why we're unlikely to leave the solar system: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456
- kaffiene 14y ago
  Obligatory response: history is littered with people who have said that things are impossible which have since been done. I don't believe that the realm of the possible has just stopped expanding right now. Do you?
- adastra 14y ago
  He's wrong. For starters, there's this assertion: "The far-fetched version is to use back holes as power sources [1] as this is, as far as I've read anyway, the only remotely viable method of providing propulsion without reaction mass to speak of and reaction mass is the death of any form of interstellar propulsion." Not true. We can definitely build something with today's technology that allows for propulsion without reaction mass: light-sails pushed by lasers[1]. I can address some of his other points but it's not necessary. If you crunch the numbers, it should be doable to travel to another star in about 150 years. [1] See Humble's canonical text on space propulsion design: http://www.amazon.com/Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Ronald-Humble/dp/0070313202 http://www.amazon.com/Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Ronald-Humb...
  - pja 14y ago
    So you're suggesting two almost completely undeveloped technologies (light sails and extremely high-powered lasers in space) and telling us that interstellar propulsion is a solved problem? That's a tad optimistic :) Btw, if you'd read 'Accelerando' you'd know that Charlie is fully aware of the possibilities offered by laser powered light sails.
    - adastra 14y ago
      Stross and cletus both say we will never leave the solar system and travel to another star. Never! I'm trying to show that notion is dead wrong. I didn't say it was a solved problem, if you mean in the sense of the engineering is basically done and we're launching something tomorrow. But certainly it is very reasonable to think that within with 150 years we will have both the technological and economic advancement to do a mission to another star. We know how we'd do it, and it uses real physics and engineering, materials, etc. that already exist. The main reason Stross is wrong though, is he says we'd need free energy to do it. He's right that the limiting factor is the cost of energy, but he's overlooking what you get for 150 years of economic growth. World GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 3.5% over the last 100 years. World GDP is currently at about $80 trillion. If it grows at 3.5% for another 150 years, it will be $14,000 trillion. You can buy a lot of energy with that. And a lot of spaceships.
mtgx 14y ago
Same here, but I doubt we'll ever be able to do that without some serious genetic enhacements to the point where we might not be recognizable as humans, or an even better solution, transferring our minds to machines, and then being able to live thousands of years or more and make it more possible for us to travel there. But it seems a lot more likely that we'll just send some strong AI robots to send us back the data until then. EDIT: I suggest checking out Space Engine. It seems to cover more than one galaxy and being able to change the viewing/moving speed feels like being in a Star Trek starship. Going through space like that feels a bit unsettling: http://en.spaceengine.org http://en.spaceengine.org
grn 14y ago
You could also take a look at http://htwins.net/scale2/ http://htwins.net/scale2/. It's also a very nice demonstration of the scale of the universe from the smallest to the largest objects.

taigeair 14y ago

yeah makes us feel small.

cryptoz 14y ago
Life on Earth has existed for about 26% of the age of the Universe. Feel any bigger? (3.6 billion years / 13.75 billion years)
- brazzy 14y ago
  Indeed that was a bit of an epiphany for me recently whe I read a site that listed major astronomical and terrestrian events in parralel. Despite knowing many of the numbers, somehow my gut feeling had always been that since Earth is so tiny in size compared to the universe at large, the same must be true about timescales.
- scoot 14y ago
  Hmmm... but what about intelligent life? Or technologically sophisticated (relatively speaking) intelligent life. Still feeling small here.
- elliott34 14y ago
  Then if you imagine how long the Internet has existed compared to the universe, all of this hullabaloo on HN becomes even funnier .

incision 14y ago

>WOW, that is amazing. I'm always blown away by stuff like this, where you can actually get a sense of how small we all are and how distant even the closest neighbor stars are. Same. If you don't already own a pair, I'd recommend getting a basic pair of binoculars and doing some backyard astronomy. You'd be amazed how much more you can see with even a basic 10x50 pair, even in thoroughly light-polluted skies. Also SpaceRip [1] collects hundreds of interesting, easily digestible and pretty timely videos. 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip

alwaysinshade 14y ago
> I'd recommend getting a basic pair of binoculars and doing some backyard astronomy If you've got the spare cash, get image stabilized ones. I could clearly see the moons around Jupiter with my Canon 12x36 IS binos the other night despite my hand tremors. The real party trick is handing them to a friend and telling them to look at the moon. Blows them away every time - to most people it's just a yellowish glowing thing in the sky, rather than a scarred rocky globe.
keemoboy 14y ago
Yes, this is great
RobMcCullough 14y ago
Be sure to check out the middle "star" in Orion's sword.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

abrichr 14y ago

Working link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_Location_in_the_Universe_(JPEG).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_Location_in_the_...

no_news_is 14y ago
Pannable version, that file was too big for me & I remembered this tool from another HN post: http://hugepic.io/7c2aaf4a6 http://hugepic.io/7c2aaf4a6

scott_s 14y ago

Obligatory buzz-kill, Charles Stross on why we're unlikely to leave the solar system: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456

kaffiene 14y ago
Obligatory response: history is littered with people who have said that things are impossible which have since been done. I don't believe that the realm of the possible has just stopped expanding right now. Do you?
adastra 14y ago
He's wrong. For starters, there's this assertion: "The far-fetched version is to use back holes as power sources [1] as this is, as far as I've read anyway, the only remotely viable method of providing propulsion without reaction mass to speak of and reaction mass is the death of any form of interstellar propulsion." Not true. We can definitely build something with today's technology that allows for propulsion without reaction mass: light-sails pushed by lasers[1]. I can address some of his other points but it's not necessary. If you crunch the numbers, it should be doable to travel to another star in about 150 years. [1] See Humble's canonical text on space propulsion design: http://www.amazon.com/Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Ronald-Humble/dp/0070313202 http://www.amazon.com/Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Ronald-Humb...
- pja 14y ago
  So you're suggesting two almost completely undeveloped technologies (light sails and extremely high-powered lasers in space) and telling us that interstellar propulsion is a solved problem? That's a tad optimistic :) Btw, if you'd read 'Accelerando' you'd know that Charlie is fully aware of the possibilities offered by laser powered light sails.
  - adastra 14y ago
    Stross and cletus both say we will never leave the solar system and travel to another star. Never! I'm trying to show that notion is dead wrong. I didn't say it was a solved problem, if you mean in the sense of the engineering is basically done and we're launching something tomorrow. But certainly it is very reasonable to think that within with 150 years we will have both the technological and economic advancement to do a mission to another star. We know how we'd do it, and it uses real physics and engineering, materials, etc. that already exist. The main reason Stross is wrong though, is he says we'd need free energy to do it. He's right that the limiting factor is the cost of energy, but he's overlooking what you get for 150 years of economic growth. World GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 3.5% over the last 100 years. World GDP is currently at about $80 trillion. If it grows at 3.5% for another 150 years, it will be $14,000 trillion. You can buy a lot of energy with that. And a lot of spaceships.

mtgx 14y ago

Same here, but I doubt we'll ever be able to do that without some serious genetic enhacements to the point where we might not be recognizable as humans, or an even better solution, transferring our minds to machines, and then being able to live thousands of years or more and make it more possible for us to travel there. But it seems a lot more likely that we'll just send some strong AI robots to send us back the data until then. EDIT: I suggest checking out Space Engine. It seems to cover more than one galaxy and being able to change the viewing/moving speed feels like being in a Star Trek starship. Going through space like that feels a bit unsettling: http://en.spaceengine.org http://en.spaceengine.org

grn 14y ago

You could also take a look at http://htwins.net/scale2/ http://htwins.net/scale2/. It's also a very nice demonstration of the scale of the universe from the smallest to the largest objects.