In other words, we're totally insignificant. Happy Monday!
NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
71–80 of 97 posts
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#72I don't understand exactly why all space pictures are black and white.
There are hi-res cameras that are smaller than a coin now available to consumers, so I can't even imagine what could be used by scientists.
Is it because they need to be transmitted back to earth, and 1 channel would be better than 4?
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#73I don't understand exactly why all space pictures are black and white. There are hi-res cameras that are smaller than a coin now available to consumers, so I can't even imagine what could be used by scientists. Is it because they need to be transmitted back to earth, and 1 channel would be better than 4?
It's because monochromatic filters would allow for a much larger portion of the incident light to be captured than if there were multiple filters active in different wavelengths at the same time (which you would need for color photography).
Those filters are typically wheels that are rotated mechanically.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#74I don't understand exactly why all space pictures are black and white. There are hi-res cameras that are smaller than a coin now available to consumers, so I can't even imagine what could be used by scientists. Is it because they need to be transmitted back to earth, and 1 channel would be better than 4?
It's because monochromatic filters would allow for a much larger portion of the incident light to be captured than if there were multiple filters active in different wavelengths at the same time (which you would need for color photography). Those filters are typically wheels that are rotated mechanically.
Yup - it's a higher priority to capture visible, infrared and ultraviolet.
Plus, the design of Cassini design of Cassini started in the 1980s and many of the part decisions would have been made then - even then they would have favored rugged, tried-and true technology over anything cutting edge. Actual launch was 1997.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#75Nasa is showing a lot of imaginary photos through our history. They start to be a tad over pushing things and sometimes I wonder how much is just a photoshop works and make believe "facts"..
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#76That tiny little speck in that endless blackness is us. All of the human race living on this tiny rock fighting over who owns which piece of land and whose religion is most peaceful. All the world leaders should be spent to space to understand how insignificant we are and how petty and insignificant our disagreements are.
I think you're right in that everyone should be aware of the scale of the universe. But importance seems to be fractal in the way that electrons are important to protons, salty and sweet food is important to me, stars to planets, galaxies to universes and so on. We are important, to ourselves. And I think that's OK.
Exactly. One of the personal existential dilemmas I face regularly is reconciling the importance of the human condition with its insignificance.
I've come to decide that all the infinity of the Universe may just as well not exist if there were no sentient beings to experience it.
Even if I were immortal, and had a spaceship that could take me anywhere instantly, I would still ultimately get attached to the stories and struggles of individual beings, no matter how localized and of infinitesimal consequence they may be.
I can imagine that there must be unimaginable beauty out there; endless fields of exotic crystals, planetoids drifting through sparkling nebulas, rogue planets far away from the light of any star, islands floating in the multicolored clouds of a gas giant – even our own planet has many surreal places most people aren't even aware of, like [0] – but even such beauty would become depressing if there is no other being to share it with.
I know that this kind of thinking is a human thing; a member of a hive-mind species may probably never feel that way. An species with no biological mating, or an species where all members are identical clones, may have no concept of love or beauty.
But again, these differences between species, races, and individuals is what makes everything interesting.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#77I don't understand exactly why all space pictures are black and white. There are hi-res cameras that are smaller than a coin now available to consumers, so I can't even imagine what could be used by scientists. Is it because they need to be transmitted back to earth, and 1 channel would be better than 4?
It's because monochromatic filters would allow for a much larger portion of the incident light to be captured than if there were multiple filters active in different wavelengths at the same time (which you would need for color photography). Those filters are typically wheels that are rotated mechanically.
But wouldn't color allow to observe the features a lot better?
To me you lose a lot of details when you remove the color (although I would think there isn't a lot of color in space).
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because monochromatic filters would allow for a much larger portion of the incident light to be captured than if there were multiple filters active in different wavelengths at the same time (which you would need for color photography). Those filters are typically wheels that are rotated mechanically.
But wouldn't color allow to observe the features a lot better? To me you lose a lot of details when you remove the color (although I would think there isn't a lot of color in space).
Color isn't so much removed as it is filtered out to improve the sensitivity in other bands. By filtering out visible light (or least, most of it) other bands can be imaged with much higher sensitivity (but it is also possible just to filter out a visible band of the spectrum for imaging).
Just like you can't see IR right now with the naked eye but you could see a BW print of an IR filtered image (that's a 'false color' image, technically that term should be reserved for images that show other wavelengths as colors that we can interpret). The same goes for UV.
A lot of astronomical imaging is done in wavelengths we can not observe directly. Almost all those 'pretty color pictures from space' are false color images.
Another important bit is that for the most part space is the same on that scale today as it is tomorrow, so if you want to make several images of the same object with different filters you usually can without much in terms of loss of opportunity. For some configurations and objects nearer to us that is more problematic but for objects further away time is on our side.
The furthest example of this is radio telescopes, which image the sky using radio waves, waves so long that they are no longer called 'light'. And yet, we can make really nice images by shifting those radio frequencies to the visible spectrum allowing us to 'see' with radio waves.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is Pale Blue Dot in any way nihilistic? I feel like you missed the point of the entire thing if the message you got was one of hopelessness.
Because you could insert any other human concern into those enumerated in "Pale Blue Dot", and they become just as easily diminished. Like human rights, for instance. Who cares about female genital mutilation - after all, Betelgeuse is huge , man! Who cares about something as small as a clitoris?
See, I have always considered that it had the opposite effect - by looking at the big picture, putting things in perspective and calling for a more humanistic outlook on life, it inspires empathy and action towards "making the world a better place". Far from trivializing widespread issues such as the ones you pointed out.
But then again, you already acknowledged this out in your previous comment, and I get that here you were just trying to explain what you thought the alternative was.
Re: NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn
#80That tiny little speck in that endless blackness is us. All of the human race living on this tiny rock fighting over who owns which piece of land and whose religion is most peaceful. All the world leaders should be spent to space to understand how insignificant we are and how petty and insignificant our disagreements are.
If we're being honest here, I don't think most world leaders are quite as blindly caught up in our significance as the majority of humanity. If anything, world leaders play the game and understand that it's all a house of cards. Meanwhile, the people who lack personal agency moan and thrash about wondering why we're still so ignorant, even though we're in the middle of the Great Peace, prosperity on a global level is…
> If we're being honest here, I don't think most world leaders are quite as blindly caught up in our significance as the majority of humanity.
They're all small fish trying to reduce the size of the pond they're in so they seem bigger.