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Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

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Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#11

Post by dylan604 »

mk_stjames wrote: post #3

The youtube link to a 'zoom' in video to the image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVprNB5XbI What is really, really neat to notice isn't just the detail in that final image.... look behind it, and there are whole edge-on spiral galaxies in the distance. Not stars. Galaxies. The nebula is about 1375 light years away. Those galaxies in the distance.... are billions of light years away. It's hard to comprehend.

> look behind it, and there are whole edge-on spiral galaxies in the distance. Not stars. Galaxies.

just to add to the awe of that, pretty much every "dot" in one of these images is going to be another galaxy. individual stars from within the Milky Way will have diffraction spikes and very obvious as a single item.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#12

Post by bloopernova »

Gorgeous and upsetting that I'll never be able to visit it.

13 billion years before me, potentially trillions of years after me. Seems like such a waste of the spark of awareness that I can't take that awareness and experience the galaxy in all its glory.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#13

Post by dudeinjapan »

qwertox wrote: post #6

It's so very unlikely that there aren't millions of other lifeforms out there. Sometimes I think that life could well have been just my soul and no one else, but here I am sharing this world with billions of other people, trillions of other lifeforms on this planet alone. So it is possible that more than one lifeform exists, that they share this universe and communicate in it. Why shouldn't this also be possible on m…

Strong evidence for a race of horse-headed aliens.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#16

Post by nyokodo »

kibwen wrote: post #8
qwertox wrote: post #6

It's so very unlikely that there aren't millions of other lifeforms out there. Sometimes I think that life could well have been just my soul and no one else, but here I am sharing this world with billions of other people, trillions of other lifeforms on this planet alone. So it is possible that more than one lifeform exists, that they share this universe and communicate in it. Why shouldn't this also be possible on m…

Of course there are other lifeforms out there, it's statistically implausible for it to be otherwise. What's also implausible is that, given the impossible vastness and hostility of interstellar space, that any will ever manage to contact us, specifically. Fortunately, we've got lots of crazy lifeforms here on Earth to keep us occupied, if we can take a moment to stop extincting them as fast as we possibly can.

> Of course there are other lifeforms out there, it's statistically implausible for it to be otherwise.

I'll grant you that once we have found a single other planet with life. Until then we're doing statistics on a single data point and no, the number of planets and galaxies etc are not sufficient to statistically determine the prevalence of life because as yet none of them are confirmed to have life. This is wishful thinking and statistical truthiness.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#17

Post by dylan604 »

itishappy wrote: post #10

Wow. The NIRCam image is probably going to be the most exciting new photo, but I can't get over how well MIRI reveals the internal structure of the nebula. NIRCam: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Horsehead_... MIRI: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Horsehead_... Comparison: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Slider_Too...

I love that there are multiple sensors that can be compared to like this, but also love when the optical images from Hubble are compared as well.

The images that combine all of the frequencies from Chandra X-rays, Hubble's optical, and now Webb's IR make for some truly fascinating images.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#18

Post by dylan604 »

bloopernova wrote: post #12

Gorgeous and upsetting that I'll never be able to visit it. 13 billion years before me, potentially trillions of years after me. Seems like such a waste of the spark of awareness that I can't take that awareness and experience the galaxy in all its glory.

I have reservations for the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#20

Post by travisjungroth »

kibwen wrote: post #8
qwertox wrote: post #6

It's so very unlikely that there aren't millions of other lifeforms out there. Sometimes I think that life could well have been just my soul and no one else, but here I am sharing this world with billions of other people, trillions of other lifeforms on this planet alone. So it is possible that more than one lifeform exists, that they share this universe and communicate in it. Why shouldn't this also be possible on m…

Of course there are other lifeforms out there, it's statistically implausible for it to be otherwise. What's also implausible is that, given the impossible vastness and hostility of interstellar space, that any will ever manage to contact us, specifically. Fortunately, we've got lots of crazy lifeforms here on Earth to keep us occupied, if we can take a moment to stop extincting them as fast as we possibly can.

I do think there’s other life out there. But just considering the other side, the statistical model only applies if the existence of life is actually stochastic.

If a farmer plants a single tree in the middle of a square mile plot and rips up anything else that grows, any Fermi approximations done by the tree are going to be quite misleading.

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