Tomorrow Dec 25th 2021, is a very big day! James Webb Scope is headed out.

[JSmith]

The day we actually communicate or get the tell-tale sign of an intelligent alien species or being

That would be nice, but a dream surely considering it was only around 1900 humans transmitted the first radio waves which would only have reached 116 light years by now, which in the grand scheme of things is not very far.


JSmith

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

As far as contact/communication is concerned, our best "hope" (or our "biggest concern" lol) is probably something like a Von Neumann probe...something that could in theory already be bouncing around our Solar System or even our planet.

 

[tomtoo]

If they would be say 10000LY away and with a JWST*1000 they could see a lot of oxygene in our atmosphere. Maybe they know since 10000 year, that live is on earth. Just need some time to build the invasion ship and give us a visit?

 

[JSmith]

Von Neumann probe

Life on Earth is self replicating... maybe we are the probe.

The fermi paradox surely is a paradox... some interesting "deep thought" in relation to the rise and fall of civilisations in relation to same;

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2022.0029#d1e1107

JSmith

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Life on Earth is self replicating... maybe we are the probe.

The fermi paradox surely is a paradox... some interesting "deep thought" in relation to the rise and fall of civilisations in relation to same;

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2022.0029#d1e1107

JSmith

the possibilities are endless.

 

[Zaireeka]

Here is a super interesting article about the Fermi paradox and the great filters:

The Fermi Paradox - Wait But Why

The Fermi Paradox: There should be 100,000 intelligent alien civilizations in our galaxy — so why haven't we found any of them?

waitbutwhy.com

Long but definitely worth the read!

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Oh The Fermi Paradox...blah blah blah. I mean yeah...it's a problem to be solved but (as the article above articulates) there ARE possible explanations for why we haven't found evidence yet. Some of them are unpleasant but not all of them. We're only a little over a century from horse and buggy days - we have barely scratched the surface of all there is to learn out there. I don't particularly suffer from the "deep humbling" the author describes at the end of that article. It doesn't bother me that we are small and that we know so little. We are what we are and we are where we are. All we can do is keep searching and keep learning. If we're alone, we're alone...but we're a long long way away from confirming that.

 

[Plcamp]

Here is a thought that bends the mind.

Given a black hole’s event horizon stops time as seen by a remote observer, that implies if you stood at an event horizon, you would observe the entire future of the universe pass in an instant?

 

[Ken1951]

Kurzgesagt does a very nice short, 2 part, video on YouTube on the Fermi Paradox. As well as other very interesting topics. I'm a fan of this as well as Minute Physics.

 

[Zaireeka]

Kurzgesagt does a very nice short, 2 part, video on YouTube on the Fermi Paradox. As well as other very interesting topics. I'm a fan of this as well as Minute Physics.

Their video on gamma ray bursts is pretty terrifying tbh.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I like this guy's channel..

Lots more here...

https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier/videos

 

[JSmith]

This is great... gives a good distance understanding and how much further/clearer we are seeing the universe now;

JSmith

 

[phoenixdogfan]

If they would be say 10000LY away and with a JWST*1000 they could see a lot of oxygene in our atmosphere. Maybe they know since 10000 year, that live is on earth. Just need some time to build the invasion ship and give us a visit?

Maybe they'll just do a pass by on a grand tour of the galactic arm and toss something out the trash chute that flattens us into two dimensions, cuz why not?

 

[Doodski]

Maybe they'll just do a pass by on a grand tour of the galactic arm and toss something out the trash chute that flattens us into two dimensions, cuz why not?

Maybe they are waiting till our numbers are high enough and then they will harvest the human flesh and eat it! om nom nom...

 

[JSmith]

Maybe they are waiting till our numbers are high enough and then they will harvest the human flesh and eat it! om nom nom...

I'd be more concerned if the Vogon's turn up and start reading their poetry to us...


JSmith

 

[Doodski]

I'd be more concerned if the Vogon's turn up and start reading their poetry to us...


JSmith

Or the Vortigaunts from Half Life 2 arrive and save us from certain peril from other alien beings bent on harvesting our inner energy and leaving the corpses to rot.

 

[tomtoo]

Maybe they are waiting till our numbers are high enough and then they will harvest the human flesh and eat it! om nom nom...

Thats so full of PCB's, micro plastic and other shiiit, they wont do them a favor.

 

[JSmith]

alien beings bent on harvesting

We'll probably end up doing something similar ourselves without alien assistance;

JSmith

 

[JSmith]

I thought it was worth pointing out the differences between Hubble and JWST as some thought JWST was a replacement for Hubble, which is not the case.

Hubble will still continue to be a force in space research... it's not a replacement as such;

Webb often gets called the replacement for Hubble, but we prefer to call it a successor. After all, Webb is the scientific successor to Hubble; its science goals were motivated by results from Hubble. Hubble's science pushed us to look to longer wavelengths to "go beyond" what Hubble has already done. In particular, more distant objects are more highly red-shifted, and their light is pushed from the UV and optical into the near-infrared. Thus observations of these distant objects (like the first galaxies formed in the Universe, for example) requires an infrared telescope.

This is the other reason that Webb is not a replacement for Hubble; its capabilities are not identical. Webb will primarily look at the Universe in the infrared, while Hubble studies it primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths (though it has some infrared capability). Webb also has a much bigger mirror than Hubble. This larger light collecting area means that Webb can peer farther back into time than Hubble is capable of doing. Hubble is in a very close orbit around the earth, while Webb will be 1.5 million kilometres (km) away at the second Lagrange (L2) point.

Comparison: Webb vs Hubble Telescope - Webb/NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called Webb or JWST) is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from...

www.jwst.nasa.gov

JSmith

 

[tomtoo]

I thought it was worth pointing out the differences between Hubble and JWST as some thought JWST was a replacement for Hubble, which is not the case.

Hubble will still continue to be a force in space research... it's not a replacement as such;

Comparison: Webb vs Hubble Telescope - Webb/NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called Webb or JWST) is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from...

www.jwst.nasa.gov

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JSmith

Hubble will always be in my heart. The hubble story is better than any blockbuster. Alone the repair mission was a crimi. And the deep field was just breath taking.