[lper100km]

It is actually what is beyond the solar system that is truely amazing. There are stars 100 billion times brighter than the sun. Massive back holes that could swallow up even the hottest and bright stars and cover them in darkness. Binary star systems with two suns. Pulsars, Quasars, Neutron stars. Billions of Galaxies with billions of stars in each galaxy. Diamonds the size of North America.

Maybe dragons....?

[Sixstrings]

It is actually what is beyond the solar system that is truely amazing. There are stars 100 billion times brighter than the sun.

And then there's what's beyond what's beyond the solar system.. as in the multiverse (parallel universes). I saw an article somewhere that mentioned our universe may be part of a wormhole, accounting for the oddities of gravity that can't otherwise be unified with the other theories.

It's certainly all above my head, but you can't help but wonder.. what was there before the big bang? Who or what started it all? The human brain wants to think everything MUST have a beginning, but then you get caught up in that infinite loop of who created the creator. And yet I still wonder, how can a universe exist without something to create it?

[Tanada]

I like the Solar System a lot, but check out this short film, if it does not make you understand how insignificant we all are nothing will.

http://www.flixxy.com/hubble-ultra-deep-field-3d.htm

[GoghGoner]

And yet I still wonder, how can a universe exist without something to create it?

If you figure that out, please let me know -- I have found that line of thought to be the only meaningful knowledge in life. I would guess that nothing created our universe, it just happens, and that time as we know doesn't exist without our universe. It is interesting that time, which we base our entire lives on, is completely illusory.

[Sixstrings]

I would guess that nothing created our universe, it just happens, and that time as we know doesn't exist without our universe. It is interesting that time, which we base our entire lives on, is completely illusory.

Well, our best current understanding is that the universe is a cycle. Last I heard, the theory was that after the big bang the universe kept expanding, and will keep expanding, until at some point it will begin contracting right on down to the finite point again (the singularity) and then you have another big bang and the whole show starts all over again.

But then I seem to remember reading something more recent that suggests the universe will just keep expanding, eventually tearing itself to shreds. The cyclical theory makes more sense to me, seeing as how nature is really all about cycles. But if it is a cycle, I keep wondering what started it and then even if you find a "creator" then who created the creator and on it goes to infinity -- so no matter how you slice it, everything must be a cycle with no beginning and no end, as hard as that is for us to comprehend.

As for time, it's not so much that our individual lives are an illusion, it's more like we just experience one possible life among countless lives we're living simultaneously (but are unaware of). According to quantum theory, every possible outcome exists simultaneously. So if in this universe a person dies, there is another universe where they continue to live. Every time you make a decision, you in effect create another parallel universe.

It's intriguing that so much of quantum theory meshes perfectly with buddhist teachings (which predate Christ by 500 years). Quantum entanglement is very familiar to Buddhists. As the old koan goes, does a dog have Buddha-nature? According to Buddhism, the answer is yes since all things are connected. And according to quantum entanglement theory, all particles were entangled at the moment of the Big Bang, and they remain entangled no matter how far apart they may be.

But I'm getting pretty far off track here as far as the original post goes. There's so much that's fascinating about just our solar system.. assuming no peak oil collapse, within our lifetime we'll find out whether there are oceans on some of those gas giant moons (I forget which ones they suspect has water under the ice, is Europa one of them or is it Titan?). And where there's water, our experience on Earth tells us there will be life so who knows what we'll find.

[Novus]

One of the newer theories I really like is the infinite universe theory. The answers to the supremely gigantic can be found in the vast inner space of the very small. Beyond the atom are sub-atomic particles such as neutrons, protons, and electrons. Smaller beyond those are quarks and the quarks are in turn made of strings and the strings are made up of other things. The kicker here is that it is all mostly empty space. If a proton were scaled up to the size of a grain of sand then its nearest electron would be a mile away. That is very similar in scale to the distance between stars and galaxies.

Relativity explains it in the sense that glass is not really a solid. Glass is actually a very slow moving liquid. To humans which experience time slowly we don't notice the glass as liquid but perceive it as a solid in our time scales. But if you place a wine glass in a vacuum for 10,000 years it will melt into a puddle. If you were to experience time at a rate of 10,000 years condensed into one second all glass would be like water.

Another aspect of relativity is relativity of scale. If you were to take one teaspoon of water and add it to the ocean and then came back a thousand years later after all the water was evenly dispersed and took another teaspoon worth of ocean water you would pick up some same molecules of water that were present in original teaspoon of water. Is what this shows is that there are more molecules in a single teaspoon of water than there are teaspoons in of water in the ocean. A teaspoon of molecules is in relative scale greater than an ocean of teaspoons.

Now using this definition relative space-time. The inner space perceived from the inside is another universe within a universe and it goes on infinitely in both directions. Our entire universe as we perceive it may only be a tiny spec in part of string that makes up part of a quark that makes part of a proton that makes part of a single atom a in whole other universe of atoms where if you had a million of these atoms it would not add up to a grain of sand.

[Sixstrings]

One of the newer theories I really like is the infinite universe theory. The answers to the supremely gigantic can be found in the vast inner space of the very small. Beyond the atom are sub-atomic particles such as neutrons, protons, and electrons. Smaller beyond those are quarks and the quarks are in turn made of strings and the strings are made up of other things. The kicker here is that it is all mostly empty space. If a proton were scaled up to the size of a grain of sand then its nearest electron would be a mile away. That is very similar in scale to the distance between stars and galaxies.

Yeah, it's interesting how everything seems to be an ecosystem. From our terrestrial ecosystem down to the ecosystem within our own bodies then on down to individual cells. So, us on planet earth wondering what the bigger picture is would be like a cell in your liver wondering what its universe is all about -- the liver cell would have no idea it's part of a much larger organism.

[deMolay]

Viking Lander Did Find Organics On Mars
New research shows that the Viking project did find organics on Mars surface. http://news.discovery.com/space/viking- ... iment.html

[Sixstrings]

The comments are interesting. This seems to be from someone on the original Viking project:

After 30+ years, those of us who worked on Viking and who thought that the data indicated organic molecules are vindicated.

We did it, we got there first, and because Viking was sterilized prior to launch, what we found is unquestionably indigenous to Mars; something later probes can never be certain of since probes after Viking were not sterilized.

[vision-master]

Is anyone out there.........

[vision-master]

Water on Mars......


"“We’re flabbergasted by this data,” said Sam Kounaves, the lead scientist for the wet chemistry experiment on the Phoenix spacecraft, which landed May 25 on Mars. “We’ve found nutrients that could support life” [emphasis added] ...."

"... you might be able to grow asparagus very well [on Mars],” Kounaves said [emphasis added].

[mos6507]

Is anyone out there.........

Not this again.

[vision-master]

How about this?

[vision-master]

Will Planet Earth suffer the same fate as Mars?

Ancient Ocean May Have Covered Third of Mars

ScienceDaily (June 14, 2010) — A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, according to a new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 181245.htm

[Graeme]

The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

Robert Zubrin— Fifteen years ago, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin published The Case for Mars, and issued a clarion call to his fellow scientists, and the people of Earth. We need to plan our Mars colony, and we need to do it now.

Today Zubrin has released an updated and revised version of his classic book, outlining the most realistic way to get ourselves to Mars and start setting up a human society there. Smart, idealistic, and pragmatic, this book is more important than ever. And we've got an excerpt from it.


Where there is no vision, the people perish.

The American people want and deserve a space program that really is going somewhere. But no goal can be sustained unless it can be backed up, and not by "rationales," but by reasons.

There are real and vital reasons why we should venture to Mars. It is the key to unlocking the secret of life in the universe. It is the challenge to adventure that will inspire millions of young people to enter science and engineering, and whose acceptance will reaffirm the nature of our society as a nation of pioneers. It is the door to an open future, a new frontier on a new world, a planet that can be settled, the beginning of humanity's career as a spacefaring species, with no limits to its resources or aspirations, as it continues to push outward into the infinite universe beyond.

For the science, for the challenge, for the future; that's why we should go to Mars.

io9

[peeker01]

maybe when we stumble upon another 500 billion, we can consider the case for mars.

[AgentR11]

China is worthy of such a venture.
We are not.
Our time of exploration ended when we insisted on a paradigm of "go there and safely return".

[ian807]

There's nothing on Mars that necessitates our going there. Near earth orbit habitats for large-scale solar power and communications. That makes sense. Zero-G manufacturing. Maybe, although I can't think of what requires it. Mining the asteroids for metal. Economically doubtful, but possible, depending on what we find.

Climbing out of one gravity well just to go down another for.... what? Curiosity? Glory? Not much money in that and research can be done by robots, if it needs done at all.

Personally, I think we'll be hard pressed to feed the people here on Earth over the course of this century, much less fantasize about going to Mars.

[AgentR11]

China has a long history of being willing to sacrifice hundred of thousands or millions of lives in order to construct massive, enduring projects; so millions starving will not stop China from such a project, if they decide it is worthwhile to do.

That said, I don't know *why* one would go to Mars either, but I do know that it is beyond stupid to contemplate getting a live human down onto another planet's surface alive, with the sole purpose of leaving a footprint and taking off again.

But us?? nah, we're done.