What do you take away from this?
 

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o...0064326067.gif

Same idea, but animated
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...2831&hl=en

Powers of ten
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKe3H...ed&search=

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Nothing, really. Some of those stars had cool colors.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

I'm hoping to personally visit some of these eventually -- maybe not for while, but eventually.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Stars are big.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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VY Canis Majoris This star is likely to undergo a hypernova stage by 3200. The distance from Earth to VY CMa is about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years).

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Wait, what? time to start running...

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

We are tiny.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

It actually lost allot of it's impact as it went on, about half way through I was at my most receptive to revelation.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Kinda what I had in mind with my "what about everything else?" post. It seems inconceivable to me that we are some main character in the universe.

That power of 10 clip was fantastic! Wish I understood German.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Kinda what I had in mind with my "what about everything else?" post. It seems inconceivable to me that we are some main character in the universe.

That power of 10 clip was fantastic! Wish I understood German.

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I couldn't find the original English version on youtube, prob because of copyright issues.

Here is the website: http://www.powersof10.com/ .

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Nothing, really. Some of those stars had cool colors.

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I like turtles.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

They should really rename Uranus.

That and, I'm glad my planet has water. But it is crazy to think that Earth is just a tiny little speck on the universe. I find it fun that there is just seemingly no end to things that we could potentially learn about the universe.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
VY Canis Majoris This star is likely to undergo a hypernova stage by 3200. The distance from Earth to VY CMa is about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years).

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, what? time to start running...

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Uh, yeah. How can something like that be predicted with that level of granularity? 1200 years in a star life cycle is a flash in the pan; wouldn't this be like predicting the time, down to the second, at which I will die?

And assumuing that this 1200 year span is subject to huge error, it's almost certainly possible that this thing has already blowed up 4,999 years ago and we're going to find out Real Soon. Is 5,000 light years far enough away to avoid getting seriously [censored] up from this?

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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VY Canis Majoris This star is likely to undergo a hypernova stage by 3200. The distance from Earth to VY CMa is about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years).

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, what? time to start running...

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, yeah. How can something like that be predicted with that level of granularity? 1200 years in a star life cycle is a flash in the pan; wouldn't this be like predicting the time, down to the second, at which I will die?


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To use your own methodology, I would think that most competent doctors (With the correct instruments) could detect the second you were going to die, if it was only one second away.

If we could slow down time so that doctors had years to analise the information your body was giving off one second before you died, I suspect it would be trivially easy for them.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

I would guess that the "before 3200" bit is based on something like a theoretical result that says the current stage of Canis Majoris's life-cycle is normally several hundred to a few thousand years long, and on this basis they can assign some probability to its explosion in the near future. The cutoff at 3200 is presumably someone's assertion that 1200 years is the mean or median time left for the star, according to somebody's model.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
VY Canis Majoris This star is likely to undergo a hypernova stage by 3200. The distance from Earth to VY CMa is about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years).

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, what? time to start running...

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, yeah. How can something like that be predicted with that level of granularity? 1200 years in a star life cycle is a flash in the pan; wouldn't this be like predicting the time, down to the second, at which I will die?

And assumuing that this 1200 year span is subject to huge error, it's almost certainly possible that this thing has already blowed up 4,999 years ago and we're going to find out Real Soon. Is 5,000 light years far enough away to avoid getting seriously [censored] up from this?

[/ QUOTE ]

From what I can find, it appears that it has entered it's final phase of life and that's thought to last roughly that long. Bear in mind that that's an observer-date, so if it's correct then it means the star blew up 3,800 years ago and we will see the results in 3200AD. There is bound to be a large margin for error here, yes.

This analyses the potential effects of a nearby supernova explosion, but a hypernova is much more luminous than a supernova. Looks like it will kill you quite easily without any shielding. Fortunately we have about 10 tonnes/m^2 of atmosphere above us, which is pretty decent as radiation shields go. This thing is way to close for comfort, though.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Either we run really good or the deck is rigged

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Its pretty sick that so few atoms (our brain) can comprehend so many atoms.

I know this probaly doesnt make sense but i just think its nuts how small our brain is yet it is aware of so much

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Either we run really good or the deck is rigged

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lololol

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

i learned that we has a moon

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

This makes me feel very small.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
VY Canis Majoris This star is likely to undergo a hypernova stage by 3200. The distance from Earth to VY CMa is about 1.5 kiloparsecs (or 5,000 light-years).

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, what? time to start running...

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, yeah. How can something like that be predicted with that level of granularity? 1200 years in a star life cycle is a flash in the pan; wouldn't this be like predicting the time, down to the second, at which I will die?

And assumuing that this 1200 year span is subject to huge error, it's almost certainly possible that this thing has already blowed up 4,999 years ago and we're going to find out Real Soon. Is 5,000 light years far enough away to avoid getting seriously [censored] up from this?

[/ QUOTE ]

From what I can find, it appears that it has entered it's final phase of life and that's thought to last roughly that long. Bear in mind that that's an observer-date, so if it's correct then it means the star blew up 3,800 years ago and we will see the results in 3200AD. There is bound to be a large margin for error here, yes.

This analyses the potential effects of a nearby supernova explosion, but a hypernova is much more luminous than a supernova. Looks like it will kill you quite easily without any shielding. Fortunately we have about 10 tonnes/m^2 of atmosphere above us, which is pretty decent as radiation shields go. This thing is way to close for comfort, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW, the 3200 date has been removed from the article. There's some discussion of it on the talk page, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:VY...Hypernova_3200

No citations. I googled around and couldn't find anything corroborating that prediction that didn't trace back to the wikipedia article. I'll sleep a little better tonight.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

I no longer think of my manhood as "gargantuan". Though it is still mighty and imposing.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Stars are big.

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Re: What do you take away from this?
 

It kind of frightens me.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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They should really rename Uranus.

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To paraphrase John Varley:
There are two ways to pronounce Uranus: your-anus and urine-us, and both ways stink.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

awesome

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

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yet.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

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yet.

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Indeed.

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

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yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed.

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Is this mentioned anywhere or is it going to be a surprise?

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

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Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

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yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed.

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Is this mentioned anywhere or is it going to be a surprise?

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I'm an athiest, and not trying to say that I believe the 'yet' I posted. I was just trying to offer the objective counter arguement to (what I thought was) the point you were making.

I tried to do it without inflaming this thread into another Athiest vs Thiest thread. I thought it would work.

So, no, there's no big point to my response. Don't tazer me bro'. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: What do you take away from this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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Why did God make all that other stuff if it doesn't do anything for us?

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yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is this mentioned anywhere or is it going to be a surprise?

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/...ingularity.jpg