Space can be dangerous

[Ka-El]

A Black Hole Is ‘Almost on Our Doorstep’

Astronomers have discovered a black hole in one of the constellations, the suitably named Telescopium. At just 1,000 light-years away, the black hole is closer to our solar system than any other that astronomers have found to date. A thousand light-years might sound distant to us, but in cosmic proportions, it’s very close.

<snip>

Don’t worry: Despite its proximity to Earth, the black hole is no danger to us. It’s a blip compared to the one at the center of our own galaxy, which has a mass 4 million times that of our sun. And, as far as humanity is concerned, it’s not close enough to pose any kind of threat. “One has to be very close to it to be sucked in,” …

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technolo ... li=AAggNb9

[Jlabute]

Space has become a lot more glamorized lately. Especially after the Mars One expedition was announced. I can't think of anything in space beneficial to people, yet. Anywhere in space you travel there will be:

1) More radiation
2) No air, no pressure
3) No gravity
4) Too much gravity
5) Motion sickness
6) Health issues
7) Really cold
8) Really hot
9) Micro-meteorites
10) Mega-meteorites
11) Black holes and any other type of hole
11) etc

[Ka-El]

Let's put that into perspective....If our solar system was shrunk down to the size of a nickel with the center of the coin being the sun and the edge of the coin being the orbit of Neptune...the black hole is over 11 miles away.

Yes, I think that is already alluded to in the article.

[Ka-El]

I can't think of anything in space beneficial to people, …

Benefits of Space Exploration

Space exploration involves taking informative trips into space for carrying out research. This kind of exploration offers numerous benefits to the whole world. Read on if you really want to find out the various benefits that can be realized through space exploration.

1. Encourages new technology

Since its inception, the technology used in various space programs has led to the creation of numerous commercial products. Examples of these products include water purification appliances for developing nations, satellite and digital television, satellite radio, cordless tools, cell phones, GPS navigation systems and various cordless tools. Most of these appliances were first used in space exploration and then later modified to benefit other people.

2. Better medical equipment

Space exploration has led to the creation of new and improved medical equipment such as cancer detection devices, small heart pumps and laser eye surgery among others. In addition, it has resulted in the creation of various safety devices like fire-resistant clothes and seats as well as the popular smoke detectors.

3. Environmental benefits

A chief benefit of space exploration is that it helps to teach people more about earth and the best methods of preserving it because of improved imaging and software first developed to assist space explorers. Actually, space exploration technology is accountable for the creation of very many environmentally friendly items like rainwater purification appliances.

4. Discovers new places

Space exploration provides an opportunity for discovering the mysterious facts concerning space. Through engaging in space exploration, most of the mysteries of space can be uncovered. Furthermore, it helps mankind to find new precious metals and other minerals. The exploration of space could possibly assist us to locate another habitable planet that can be used if our planet becomes inhabitable.

more ...
https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/about/everyda ... efault.asp
https://www.universetoday.com/37079/ben ... ploration/
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/library ... ploration/
http://benefitof.net/benefits-of-space-exploration/

[Ka-El]

Dangerous or not, it is inevitable that we one day leave this solar system.

Astronomers Make Incredibly Rare Detection of Earth-Like Planet 25,000 Light-Years Away

There may be multitudes of Earth-like planets sprinkled throughout the Milky Way galaxy, but they are not so easy to find. To date, only around a third of the over 4,000 exoplanets found and confirmed are rocky - and most of those are within a few thousand light-years of Earth.

So the announcement of a new rocky exoplanet is always exciting - but this particular newly discovered rocky exoplanet is even more exciting yet.

It belongs to the much smaller subset of rocky exoplanets that orbit at an Earth-like distance from its star. And it's a whopping 24,722.65 light-years away from us - which could make it the most distant Milky Way exoplanet discovered yet.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technolo ... li=AAggFp4

One day, long after the final fall of capitalism we will have discovered different forms of energy and different ways of travelling through space (assuming we haven’t blown ourselves back to the time of tribes). In addition to light sails, scientists are also now exploring the potential of using gravity waves to travel through space. Yes, some of this stuff is right out there, but think of just how far we have advanced in the last ten thousand years, and how much that rate of change has accelerated in the last couple of decades. I’m going to suggest we will be travelling to explore other planets sometime within the next hundred years. I sure wish I could be around to see it.

[GordonH]

Things to be concerned about (in no order):
Covid 19
Flooding
Forestfire season
giant hornets
work
etc... etc
Oh yes a black hole
lol

[Sonny Taylor]

Let's put that into perspective....If our solar system was shrunk down to the size of a nickel with the center of the coin being the sun and the edge of the coin being the orbit of Neptune...the black hole is over 11 miles away.

Or perhaps another perspective...

If the 3 stars in the Alpha Centauri system (closest to the Solar system at only 4.3 light years) were a single 4 solar mass black hole, the only effect on us would be one less visible star to the naked eye (3 less to telescopes) in the part of the sky that's visible south of 29 degrees north latitude.

The following is impossible of course; but if our Sun became a black hole (with the same mass as the Sun); Earth and other planets still would continue to orbit it as before and not get sucked in. This entire system would continue on it's way orbiting the centre of the galaxy. Of course, likely all life on Earth would perish in extreme cold and darkness without sunlight.

Interesting theoretical question about that too... What would happen to the atmospheres of the giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) besides darkness? All of them radiate more energy than they receive from the Sun.

[Jlabute]

That got me thinking about what we would look like from a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. We would be the 2nd brightest star somewhere near the constellation of Cassiopeia...I think?.

Good question. I think a piece of software like "Universe Sandbox" could answer such questions easily. I've considered getting it. I think it is the tool 'Anton Petrov' and others on youtube use.

Example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6vzu2AGI-8

[Sonny Taylor]

I downloaded Universe Sandbox.

I have yet to come to any conclusions about how good it is because I haven't spent a great deal of time with it, but what I can say so far is this:

It needs a far more powerful GPU than is built into my laptop. It saturates my GPU both in processor usage and memory; and runs quite sluggish. I did however anticipate that possibility before going into this look-see. It's usable on this machine, but quite slow to respond. CPU and RAM wise, it seems not too bad. I never saw it go over 60% CPU utilization and the max memory working set I saw was about 1.5 GB.

So far I've found the user interface to be confusing and not very intuitive. That doesn't (at least yet) mean I'm saying it's no good; but it doesn't come across as easy to use. Perhaps I just need to play with it more and perhaps find some pages online to help me sort it out. I'm sure in the end that it won't be any more complicated than flying big planes in MS flight simulator which I do often and that had a big learning curve too.

I'll update when I've spent more time with it.