... in a lightbox!
9 Gigapixel Image of the Milky Way
31–33 of 33 posts
Re: 9 Gigapixel Image of the Milky Way
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also foolish (no pun intended) to think that the Universe was meant to have life. We tend to believe that life is what gives meaning to all that vastness but Cosmos doesn’t need a reason for its existence, it’s just there. Furthermore it’s not about just life but intelligent life. Life in form of microbes could be all around the Universe. But intelligent life could be extremely rare or it could be just too early…
It is also foolish to take Drake equation seriously or assume that we know what intelligent life is. Drake equation should be used for demonstration purposes only. As a side not, it is good to keep in mind that all we did for ETI search was looking out for a human-like radio signal with a narrow bandwidth, which is probably not the best way to transmit information through the Universe.
If you read the link I gave for the Fermi paradox you'll see that this is one of the dozen explanations on why we haven't been contacted yet by an alien civilization. So, yes, we might be trying to contact the wrong way.
Actually though it's not exactly wrong, we managed to capture once a significant signal that could be of alien origin. It's called the wow signal and you can find more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_signal
The basis of the Fermi paradox though isn't about what we did/do to contact alien civilizations but the fact that even if one advanced existed in our galaxy they should have already found us even if we weren't looking for them. Which brings us back to the conclusion that there might not be advanced civilizations around and life could very well be in the beginning.
As for the Drake equation it's not a law of physics. It is just a way to estimate the number of habitable planets in the galaxy and from there to make an assumption of the number of alien civilizations able to make interstellar contact.
Re: 9 Gigapixel Image of the Milky Way
#33If you zoom all the way in, it's blurry (I know, I waited for the tiles to load). There's no single-pixel detail. That means it's not really a 9-gigapixel image, you can easily reduce it by 2x2, and make it a 2.3-gigapixel images. Save space, bandwidth and time for everyone.
I found the same thing, but see chaosmachine's reply above. The unofficial version actually works.