Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

astroanarchy.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#11

Post by zokier »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #7
ginko wrote: post #2

A professional large photo plot of this would probably look seriously impressive.

Even at 200 dpi this would be 15 meters wide and 2.25 meters tall. Imagine that in a museum, just a massive wall with 100 billion stars. It would be ridiculously cool.

Realistically, that seems pretty achievable goal for a Kickstarter? Rent some smallish exhibit space (500-1000sqft old warehouse or something?) in the valley/bay area outskirts for a few months, find a large format printer service, print out in strips, and figure out physical installation. How much can that really cost? $10-20k total? Somehow I feel its not far fetched that there would be a thousand geeks willing to chip in $10-$20 bucks for this sort of thing

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#12

Post by Nition »

Is there a higher resolution image of this available anywhere? The 7000 x 1150 one is nice, but I couldn't find a link to anything larger. It says the original is 120,000 x 18,000 so it was a little disappointing to have the available version not even fill the vertical resolution of my monitor.

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#13

Post by p1necone »

zokier wrote: post #9
yumraj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Even at 1 in every 1 million systems, that could be 100,000 systems with life. Or, even at 1 in every 10 million, that could be 10,000 systems with life. In a way I hate these photos. It's like showing a kid an ultra delicious looking candy, but telling them that they will not be able to taste it in their lifetime.

But for all we know the odds could be 1 in every 100 billion; we have no way of knowing, almost any guess you'd make is equally unfounded.

It's like the one tank variant of the German tank problem[0], except the tanks aren't even numbered.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#14

Post by micromacrofoot »

yumraj wrote: post #8
kerblang wrote: post #4

Apparently 100 billion stars in there. That is nuts.

Yup. Even at 1 in every 1 million systems, that could be 100,000 systems with life. Or, even at 1 in every 10 million, that could be 10,000 systems with life. In a way I hate these photos. It's like showing a kid an ultra delicious looking candy, but telling them that they will not be able to taste it in their lifetime.

the candy might also be filled with razors and end all life on our planet though

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#15

Post by sen »

Nition wrote: post #12

Is there a higher resolution image of this available anywhere? The 7000 x 1150 one is nice, but I couldn't find a link to anything larger. It says the original is 120,000 x 18,000 so it was a little disappointing to have the available version not even fill the vertical resolution of my monitor.

Yeah I'd pay for a full resolution version so I can get this printed across my entire wall. Despite the "high" resolution of many of the pictures on the page, not a single one is high enough resolution to print much larger than A3 or so while still seeing the stars/details.

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#17

Post by mensetmanusman »

zokier wrote: post #11
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at 200 dpi this would be 15 meters wide and 2.25 meters tall. Imagine that in a museum, just a massive wall with 100 billion stars. It would be ridiculously cool.

Realistically, that seems pretty achievable goal for a Kickstarter? Rent some smallish exhibit space (500-1000sqft old warehouse or something?) in the valley/bay area outskirts for a few months, find a large format printer service, print out in strips, and figure out physical installation. How much can that really cost? $10-20k total? Somehow I feel its not far fetched that there would be a thousand geeks willing to…

Might be even less.

Japan is huge on making very large graphics from printing on sheets of white adhesive: https://youtu.be/ioyMec7YU0Y

If they added it to the ground it cheaper to install and then kids could run on it in the gym (could easily cover an entire Gym, lol): https://youtu.be/mBjSM783Tug

Would be fun with the retroreflectors added like in the latter video, as with the lights off and only head lamps on you could see stars below your feet.

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#18

Post by mensetmanusman »

zokier wrote: post #9
yumraj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Even at 1 in every 1 million systems, that could be 100,000 systems with life. Or, even at 1 in every 10 million, that could be 10,000 systems with life. In a way I hate these photos. It's like showing a kid an ultra delicious looking candy, but telling them that they will not be able to taste it in their lifetime.

But for all we know the odds could be 1 in every 100 billion; we have no way of knowing, almost any guess you'd make is equally unfounded.

What are the odds we are the only one?

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#19

Post by dylan604 »

xedrac wrote: post #16

This is stunning work. Bravo! I feel so small and insignificant right now. And that's not a bad thing.

That's one of my favorite aspects of astronomy. To the universe, we're (Earth) just a spec on a dot. The stepping away from all of the things that seem so stressingly important and realize that it's only us that feels that stress and the universe really absolutely doesn't give a shit. It always helps me to give less of a shit too.

Re: Grand mosaic of the Milky Way is now larger than ever

#20

Post by wahern »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #18
zokier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for all we know the odds could be 1 in every 100 billion; we have no way of knowing, almost any guess you'd make is equally unfounded.

What are the odds we are the only one?

Nobody can tell you without pulling numbers out of thin air. That's the point. The only thing that can be said is that the probability of intelligent life arising is greater than 0, which follows from our own existence. Beyond that, any claims about the likelihood of intelligent life are just 20th and 21st century versions of "there must be a God because the universe couldn't have arisen by chance."
Post reply on HN