Correct, it's more unlikely, but we don't know much about dark energy and it's force expanding the universe so pretty much all theories are on the table.
True. Maybe it’s the optimist in me but I feel like at every point in our understanding of the universe, our assumptions have been too narrow. For us to think there’s only one universe as we think of it today and it’ll blink out after 20 billion years and this was the only universe ever just doesn’t seem plausible to me edit- I should add were obviously in a simulation anyway so why worry about it
My absolute favorite sci-fi author has a few short stories regarding the possibility of alternate universes/realities. Alastair Reynolds wrote Signal to Noise about the discovery and interactions of a few realities. The real mind-fuck one actually doesn't have a lick of sci-fi in it at all, it's called Everlasting. I've read his entire anthology, can't recommend him enough. He does realistic sci-fi, no FTL travel.
Well, the other bombshell in that article is the reactor in dying and gives 4 less watts per year and we are shutting systems down. They say we will be fine through 2025, but after that who knows.
Just mind boggling how unfathomably far that thing is. And how goddamn fast it’s moving - 10.5 miles per second (38,000 mph)
Space flight fun fact: from Earth it is apparently easier to fling a space craft out of the solar system than it is to shoot one at the sun, because in order to fall further into the gravity well you have to kill all of your tangential velocity, as opposed to reaching an escape velocity you just have to increase it a bit.
Old as hell? Check. Deteriorating rapidly? Check. Doesn't know which way it's pointed? Double-check. Spoiler
Is it because it’s solar powered and the further it gets the less power it can draw from the tiny sun? Or is it nuclear and the fuel is reaching its half life? Crazy to think about either way
It's just incredible that we got the resolution on the high-speed fly-by sharp enough to see mountains. Not only that, but you can see how tall they are proportionally compared to the curvature of the planet.
Happened to see one of the SpaceX barges go by while waiting for my cruise to leave port. Kinda thought it would have been bigger tbh
The bright star (at 9.3 magnitude) on the right hand edge is 2MASS 16235798+2826079. There are only a handful of stars in this image – distinguished by their diffraction spikes. The rest of the objects are thousands of faint galaxies, some in the nearby universe, but many, many more in the distant universe. Credit: NASA, CSA, and FGS team. From the NASA article ...the centers of bright stars appear black because they saturate Webb’s detectors, and the pointing of the telescope didn’t change over the exposures to capture the center from different pixels within the camera’s detectors ... The result – using 72 exposures over 32 hours – is among the deepest images of the universe ever taken, according to Webb scientists. When FGS’ aperture is open, it is not using color filters like the other science instruments – meaning it is impossible to study the age of the galaxies in this image with the rigor needed for scientific analysis. But even when capturing unplanned imagery during a test, FGS is capable of producing stunning views of the cosmos.
Webb's Fine Guidance Sensor, built by CSA: This is an image from the telescope itself that's not optimized for scientific observation. It's akin to snapping a picture with your cellphone compared the professional digital photos a high end camera can make. The guidance system does have it's own telescope, but all it does is focus on one star's position to keep the spacecraft aligned.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...id=359fe1139b2447b58b1e18b5ad44b1c4&PC=EMMX01 Cliffs: star passing by our solar system might screw with some planets orbit around the sun, potentially sending Mercury on a collision course for earth. (In 20 million years)
Less than a day to go gents!! In September 2002 the Next Generation Space Telescope project was renamed the James Webb Space Telescope. We have waited 7,253 days for this moment.