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taog · 06-29-2004, 02:28 PM

That's interesting about supermassive black holes. I didn't know they had such a large 'radius'. I guess they are a lot bigger than i thought. I really don' tknow much about black holes, but find it very interesting that you study them for a living. What do you do exactly?

Also, most of this type of astronomy isn't funded by the government. A lot of it is worked on by profs and students. The students pay the prof's wages, so the students are paying for the research on said topics to be done.

NASA is a space agency, not an astronomical agency. Though they are directly related, and NASA is astronomy based, the goal of NASA is more for inner solar system research, rather than what's beyond the solar system. Though, now it seems that bush has made NASA's biggest goal manned missions to the moon and mars, which i believe is usless right now.

Anyway, the greatest minds and the best discoveries are founded and funded by universities rather than your taxes.

Other than that, Astronomy is good for the reasons that have been stated in this thread.

One huge thing that people need to realize is the fact that an asteriod or meteor could crash into earth, and either destroy earth on impact, or start a nuclear war or something, if a big enough meteor landed overtop of a country who has nuclear weapons. Imagine that, the blast would look like a nuclear explosion, which would cause a chain reaction of 'who bombed us'. The country where the meteor hit might believe it was their enemy, and turn around and bomb them. This could lead to a nuclear war, and the destruction of earth.

This is fully possible. A lot of people would say, 'we have the sky covered. We can see what is coming towards us and when.' The fact is, we won't know, and we can't see. It's impossible to watch every portion of the sky for asteriods of meteors coming to earth, and picking up ones that are heading our way, before it's too late. Hell, a few years back some astronomers noticed another object orbiting earth. At first, astronomers thought this might have been a second moon to earth that had been missed for hundreds of years. It ended up being part of some spacecraft, a mission to jupiter i think. Astronomers weren't surprised that we could have missed a second moon to earth. This proves that we don't have that close of an eye on the sky.

So, astronomy gives us at least a bit more of a chance, because we are always watching the sky. Becauise of astronomy, we just might have a chance to beat that asteriod that just might be heading for earths path right now.

06-29-2004, 02:28 PM	#42 (permalink)
taog Crazy Location: London, Ontario, Canada	That's interesting about supermassive black holes. I didn't know they had such a large 'radius'. I guess they are a lot bigger than i thought. I really don' tknow much about black holes, but find it very interesting that you study them for a living. What do you do exactly? Also, most of this type of astronomy isn't funded by the government. A lot of it is worked on by profs and students. The students pay the prof's wages, so the students are paying for the research on said topics to be done. NASA is a space agency, not an astronomical agency. Though they are directly related, and NASA is astronomy based, the goal of NASA is more for inner solar system research, rather than what's beyond the solar system. Though, now it seems that bush has made NASA's biggest goal manned missions to the moon and mars, which i believe is usless right now. Anyway, the greatest minds and the best discoveries are founded and funded by universities rather than your taxes. Other than that, Astronomy is good for the reasons that have been stated in this thread. One huge thing that people need to realize is the fact that an asteriod or meteor could crash into earth, and either destroy earth on impact, or start a nuclear war or something, if a big enough meteor landed overtop of a country who has nuclear weapons. Imagine that, the blast would look like a nuclear explosion, which would cause a chain reaction of 'who bombed us'. The country where the meteor hit might believe it was their enemy, and turn around and bomb them. This could lead to a nuclear war, and the destruction of earth. This is fully possible. A lot of people would say, 'we have the sky covered. We can see what is coming towards us and when.' The fact is, we won't know, and we can't see. It's impossible to watch every portion of the sky for asteriods of meteors coming to earth, and picking up ones that are heading our way, before it's too late. Hell, a few years back some astronomers noticed another object orbiting earth. At first, astronomers thought this might have been a second moon to earth that had been missed for hundreds of years. It ended up being part of some spacecraft, a mission to jupiter i think. Astronomers weren't surprised that we could have missed a second moon to earth. This proves that we don't have that close of an eye on the sky. So, astronomy gives us at least a bit more of a chance, because we are always watching the sky. Becauise of astronomy, we just might have a chance to beat that asteriod that just might be heading for earths path right now.