Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would a 25km resolution of earth look like
Enough to see cities
A more cautious civilization might take measures to prevent emissions. There's potentially great value in remaining unnoticed.
First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
201–210 of 330 posts
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just going to recycle this comment I made in reply to an almost identical comment as yours. I don't think you folks realize how big space actually is. The speed of light is 1079 252 848 km/h, the fastest space craft ever made was the Parker Solar probe (using a sling shot) clocking in at 692 000 km/h. So at that speed it would take, 1559 years to travel one light year. This planet sits at a distance of 48 light years…
If we’re talking about human technology available in a few hundred years, don’t discount far more exotic options. I’ve heard people talk of theoretical terrestrial lasers pushing on tiny probes. With an absolutely gigantic laser and magical material at the back of the probe that won’t instantly vaporize there’s enough energy to get something the size of a smartphone up to a reasonable proportion of the speed of light…
Note that you can't use these lasers to slow down the probe, which will dramatically limit the things the probe can do at the destination. I'm not even sure what kind of interesting things a probe the size of a smartphone could do, let alone phone home.
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s highly unlikely we’re ever getting FTL. We should become comfortable with that and let go our fantasies. Let theoretical physicists chug away at this, we should get underway with projects that are possible with known science.
The entire universe seems to be inside a giant black hole, anyway, and the more it goes, the more evidence is found to support that. Might as well find a black hole and visit other universes than explore our own.
The next known black hole is tens of thousands of light years away. Also, the universe does not seem to be inside a black hole.
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#204life does not exist on other planets (not considering contamination). I'll bet on it
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
cynicism and critique are comfortable positions imo. i appreciate the relatively newfound cultural shift back towards earnestness (although i can already feel the pendulum starting to swing back)
I generally see myself as an earnest person, but some kinds of earnestness read as cynical to me.
skimming your comment history, to me you seem very comfortable occupying the sociocultural critic position which is to some degree inherently cynical imo. i say that because i also recognize it in myself
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory we can then get 100 meter resolution on alien worlds. That would be insane.
According to AI, an equivalent would be roughly when Google maps shows you 10mi/20km reference scale. Turning off the labels, aliens would probably assume that the world is naturally full of green stuff that is dealing with some strange grey infestation.
> According to AI
But what is the actual source?
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
I wonder about all the extraterrestrial AI swarms that have already imaged earth. Surely it has happened. They must have all spotted our planet millions of years ago and must be watching us with a continuous high-resolution feed. They've seen our dinosaurs. Their interest will really be piqued when they finally see us invent electricity, though that might be some time in the future for them. Perhaps even gravitationa…
I doubt any new physics will be needed, just computational imaging, meta-optics, very long baselines (multi AU, or even light years).
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. We haven't really figured out how to do a good government that lasts more than 200 years. Maybe unless you think monarchy is good, in which case I still don't want to share a spaceship with you.
Tynwald, the Isle of Man's parliament, has operated continuously for over 1000 years
How much of that time did it spend fully sovereign over its territory? I'd love to learn otherwise, but my impression is that it has mostly been under the shadow of England, and the pressures of a government under those circumstances are not comparable to those for, frankly, one that's more responsible for its destiny as a starship crew would be. I bet you can find lots of long-running tiny local governments with very little power, both dominated and protected by a string of larger, more powerful, but more volatile governments.
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#209it's reportedly tidaly locked, which means that it's surface is frozen solid on the far side and the only gas that isn't frozen out on the dark side, is the detected helium, with the ultra low boiling point to keep it gasious
so if truely tidaly locked, it's a dead world in a very hard vacume
Re: First atmosphere found on Earth-like planet in habitable zone of distant star
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. We haven't really figured out how to do a good government that lasts more than 200 years. Maybe unless you think monarchy is good, in which case I still don't want to share a spaceship with you.
I have no doubt that even the most republican of cultures launched from Earth would end up thoroughly monarchistic by the time the generation ships arrived at their destination. At best monarchistic - who knows what savage new forms of society could evolve in that sort of context?
More optimistically, you might see some kind of "choosing a chief by consensus" type of situations that you see in some small hunter-gatherer societies (being careful with the word "savage", which is... usually misleading). It'll depend a lot on the size of the crew.