This Image from Hubble Telescope Is Absolutely Mind Blowing

Started by Unbeliever, May 13, 2019, 07:53:47 PM

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Unbeliever

This is the best Hubble image ever made!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EKl9aF4NnM



This is called the Hubble Legacy Field, and
you can find the image here:
http://hubblesite.org/image/4492/news
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Shiranu

Quote from: Unbeliever on May 13, 2019, 07:53:47 PM
This is the best Hubble image ever made!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EKl9aF4NnM



This is called the Hubble Legacy Field, and
you can find the image here:
http://hubblesite.org/image/4492/news

I find it baffling that anyone can see this and then think we are the only life in the universe... and assuming there are multiverses, the only life in all of those as well.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

drunkenshoe

"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Unbeliever

Quote from: Shiranu on May 14, 2019, 01:52:13 AM
I find it baffling that anyone can see this and then think we are the only life in the universe... and assuming there are multiverses, the only life in all of those as well.
Max Tegmark, in his book Our Mathematical Universe, gives an interesting argument for no other life besides ours, based on something called a uniform logarithmic prior. I don't have the book in front of me, so let's see if I can do justice to the argument.

Since we don't know how near is the nearest other intelligent life, then it could be anywhere from 10^21 meters (in our galaxy) 0r 10^100, or 10^1000, or any other order of magnitude, and they are all, a priori, equally likely. Since our observable universe is 10^26 meters, it's unlikely that the correct number is between the 10^21 meters and 10^26 meters, since such a small range is too small to be statistically likely, as any larger order of magnitude is equally likely.

I hope that's clear, if not I can find the book and give it in Tegmark's words.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

drunkenshoe

"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

trdsf

Quote from: Unbeliever on May 14, 2019, 01:34:36 PM
Max Tegmark, in his book Our Mathematical Universe, gives an interesting argument for no other life besides ours, based on something called a uniform logarithmic prior. I don't have the book in front of me, so let's see if I can do justice to the argument.

Since we don't know how near is the nearest other intelligent life, then it could be anywhere from 10^21 meters (in our galaxy) 0r 10^100, or 10^1000, or any other order of magnitude, and they are all, a priori, equally likely. Since our observable universe is 10^26 meters, it's unlikely that the correct number is between the 10^21 meters and 10^26 meters, since such a small range is too small to be statistically likely, as any larger order of magnitude is equally likely.

I hope that's clear, if not I can find the book and give it in Tegmark's words.
I have that book, and I don't care for his reasoning.  The implicit assumption here is that intelligent life is exceedingly rare.

Well, it might be.  Or, it might not be.

We don't know because we only have one data point to draw on: ourselves.  Trying to make assumptions based off of that is mathematically unwise.

What we observe is that at least one intelligent life form can arise in an area containing one hundred to four hundred billion stars because a) we are here and b) that's how many stars are around us, in our galaxy.  Call it an average of one in a quarter trillion, or 2.5x1011.

There are something on the order of 1023 stars in the universe.  So if it's an average of one intelligent life form per quarter trillion stars, and there are a hundred billion trillion stars, I come out of that with an average of four trillion intelligent life forms in the universe -- which, because of the vast nature of intergalactic distances, will probably never be in contact with each other.

Tegmark's mistake is assuming we're on the tapering end of the bell curve, when he should be assuming we're in the middle of it.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Sal1981




The variables in the Drake equation isn't based on anything tangible, as we have no data points to any of them other than just our own.

Unbeliever

I don't have an equation, but I suspect there are none other than us, at least in our galaxy. I await observations, something better than Tabby's star.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Unbeliever on July 16, 2019, 07:52:19 PM
I don't have an equation, but I suspect there are none other than us, at least in our galaxy. I await observations, something better than Tabby's star.
You are just as right/wrong as anybody else making a SWAG.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Minimalist

The first radio broadcasts were in the early 20th century.  Prior to that how would anyone have known we were here even if they were listening?  Even now, the earliest weak radio signals can be no more than 110 light years from earth which means anyone outside that range has no chance of knowing we are here. 

Assuming that evolution follows the same basic path ( a rather large assumption!) that means that any society we could hope to contact would have to have reached roughly the same technological level as us at about the same time ( +/- 100 years.)  That's asking a lot.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

trdsf

Quote from: Minimalist on July 16, 2019, 10:09:37 PM
The first radio broadcasts were in the early 20th century.  Prior to that how would anyone have known we were here even if they were listening?  Even now, the earliest weak radio signals can be no more than 110 light years from earth which means anyone outside that range has no chance of knowing we are here. 

Assuming that evolution follows the same basic path ( a rather large assumption!) that means that any society we could hope to contact would have to have reached roughly the same technological level as us at about the same time ( +/- 100 years.)  That's asking a lot.
Actually, assuming a technology capable of resolving Earth independently of our sun (perfectly plausible, we're very nearly to that point ourselves), the presence of a technological civilization here could be inferred out to a radius of about 200ly, give or take.  Spectrographic analysis would reveal pollutants in the atmosphere as the Industrial Revolution got going, and any ETI would be able to observe their growing concentration over time.

Few things in planetary astronomy say "Hey, something hinky's going on over here" as clearly as an unstable atmosphere does.  Chemistry is the same here, there and everywhere: there are no (known) plausible processes for maintaining a stable oxygen-rich atmosphere, nor do industrial pollutants resemble volcanic activity.

Of course, a 200ly radius sphere is a spit in the ocean compared to the size of this galaxy, and the odds of finding another intelligence within that radius are even more vanishingly small than the odds of finding another intelligence period.  There would need to be about five million ETIs in this galaxy to make that a 50/50 proposition, and I'd be surprised if the number is as high as five.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Gawdzilla Sama

The 19th C. "industrial pollutants" were wood and coal smoke. Nothing technological about that, both had been around for a good long while.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Baruch

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 17, 2019, 03:56:36 PM
The 19th C. "industrial pollutants" were wood and coal smoke. Nothing technological about that, both had been around for a good long while.

Downtown Denver 109 years ago, due to coal burning, was a lot dirtier than today.  But now Denver covers a much larger area.  The initial objection to coal burning (which came about because of a shortage of wood to burn) was all the soot it produced.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hydra009

Quote from: trdsf on July 17, 2019, 04:11:18 AM
Actually, assuming a technology capable of resolving Earth independently of our sun (perfectly plausible, we're very nearly to that point ourselves), the presence of a technological civilization here could be inferred out to a radius of about 200ly, give or take.  Spectrographic analysis would reveal pollutants in the atmosphere as the Industrial Revolution got going, and any ETI would be able to observe their growing concentration over time.
True, but would they even necessarily know that much about the Earth?  Take our fairly recently-assembled catalogue of exoplanets.  How much do we know about any given planet?  Not a whole lot.  We know the star, the size of the planet, the number/size of its moons, maybe some tantalizing glimpses into its composition and habitability, that's pretty much it.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't know details like atmospheric carbon ppm.

Hell, one of our catalogued exoplanets could house a technologically advanced civilization and we might not have a clue about that yet.  Flip that picture, and that's where our alien observers might be at - looking at the Sol system, not really seeing anything too interesting, and looking elsewhere.

In a quasi catch-22, they're only likely to look closely if they know that there's something important here and they'd only know that if they already looked more closely.