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Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

nytimes.com

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Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#11

Post by blightful »

im3w1l wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

Very doubtful when you really dig into what is involved. We probably will never make it out of the solar system. To another star is a pipe dream. We will wreck our planet soon enough and the likely outcome is our species will go extinct. This will probably happen in the next few thousand years or sooner.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#12

Post by kibwen »

im3w1l wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

If by "children" you mean self-replicating viral robot swarms, then maybe. Nothing biologically descended from humans will ever leave the heliosphere in any form that could be considered living.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#13

Post by excalibur »

im3w1l wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

Our kids can't change a tire.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#14

Post by eth0up »

excalibur wrote: post #13
im3w1l wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

Our kids can't change a tire.

Oh come on man. That's just because they know we should be hovering by now ;)

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#15

Post by bellowsgulch »

owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

> A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme.

I don't like that our culture has developed statements like this.

Every single action you make on planet Earth is more consequential and impactful than the countless parsecs of worthless unobtainable space dust that astrophysicists and science promoters like to glaze over.

Space is nothing compared to the unfathomable amount of synaptic connections in your brain, or the impact you can have on someone's life by hugging them.

Let's piss away all the small blue dot sentiments. They're old and pointless.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#16

Post by stouset »

im3w1l wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

I suppose zero is a pretty significant number.

Without new physics that isn’t even remotely visible on the horizon and that utterly contradicts most of what we believe to be true, this isn’t going to happen. Robotic AI probes sent to other star systems to send back telemetry? Sure, fine. Flesh bags sent to self-replicate on terraformed worlds out in the stars? Not a whisper of a microscopic chance.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#17

Post by jmyeet »

owlninja wrote: post #7

I love stories like this. A subtle reminder how inconsequential our actions are on this planet in the grand, unplanned scheme. I look forward to reading HN with my breakfast each morning then going to a job that helps me raise a family and have fun on the weekends. I read stories of war, corruption, sadistic leaders, and great suffering. I've learned to appreciate the joys of life and have come to terms that we are n…

One of the first gravitational wave detections by LIGO was I think the merger of two black holes or maybe a black hole and a neutron star. It was over a billion light years away I think but was so energetic that it conveted approximately 5 Solar masses into energy in about one second. That's ~10^48 Joules. In 1 second that is ~10^48 Watts.

For comparison, the Milky Way has an estimate of 5x10^36 Watts so we're talking about the energy output, very briefly, of roughly a trillion Milky Way galaxies.

The other that gets me is amgnetars. These are neutron stars with an insane magnetic field. The strongest detected exceeds 1 billion Tesla, making is 30 trillion times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. Get too close and it would flatten atoms and ultimately break molecular bonds and rip electrons out of your body. Google seems to think that happens at ~1000km, which is pretty close to get to a neutron star but still, that's a magnetic field.

These things are quite rare and quite unstable. If you think about it, they must have a lot of protons to generate a field so strong, which means that the gravity is overcoming the strong nuclear force but also the electric repulsion.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#18

Post by Bender »

blightful wrote: post #11
im3w1l wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

Very doubtful when you really dig into what is involved. We probably will never make it out of the solar system. To another star is a pipe dream. We will wreck our planet soon enough and the likely outcome is our species will go extinct. This will probably happen in the next few thousand years or sooner.

I think the planet will do just fine without us but we will likely hit one of many great filters long before we colonize anything outside of Earth. The list of dumb things we do as a civilization are too long to list on HN. I am honestly very surprised we still exist and can still reproduce.

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#19

Post by crypttales »

gchamonlive wrote: post #6
opengrass wrote: post #4

We must prevent our sun from doing this by eating less meat and paying more taxes.

While the sun has nothing to the with the rest, >500g a week of red meat is linked to intestinal cancer[1][2] and the billionaires should be paying more taxes if you asked me [1] https://www.wcrf.org/preventing-cancer/topics/meat-and-cance... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03088...

[dead]

Re: Star Just Ate a Planet, and It's Not Done Yet

#20

Post by samplatt »

excalibur wrote: post #13
im3w1l wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty significant chance that ours will be a starfaring civilization and that our children will reshape the very heavens.

Our kids can't change a tire.

My ex wife's parents couldn't change a tire. I had to do it for them, once.
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