Massive Black Hole Stumps Researchers

[cchris]

As each day goes by we seem to learn a bit more about the solar system and Earth's past but this stuff throws up more questions than answers.

I can't even begin to fathom this,yet it fascinates the fuck outta me.

How insignificant are we? WOW.


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Massive Black Hole Stumps Researchers
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 06:30 am ET
28 June 2004



A team of astronomers have found a colossal black hole so ancient, they're not sure how it had enough time to grow to its current size, about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.

Sitting at the heart of a distant galaxy, the black hole appears to be about 12.7 billion years old, which means it formed just one billion years after the universe began and is one of the oldest supermassive black holes ever known.

The black hole, researchers said, is big enough to hold 1,000 of our own Solar Systems and weighs about as much as all the stars in the Milky Way.

"The universe was awfully young at the time this was formed," said astronomer Roger Romani, a Stanford University associate professor whose team found the object. "It's a bit of a challenge to understand how this black hole got enough mass to reach its size."

Romani told SPACE.com that the black hole is unique because it dates back to just after a period researchers call the 'Dark Ages,' a time when the universe cooled down after the initial Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. That cooling period lasted about one billion years, when the first black holes, stars and galaxies began to appear, he added. The research appeared June 10 on the online version of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Invisible to the naked eye, black holes can only be detected by the radiation they spew and their gravitational influence on their stellar neighbors. Astronomers generally agree that black holes come in at least two types, stellar and supermassive. Stellar black holes form from collapsed, massive stars a few times the mass of the Sun, while their supermassive counterparts can reach billions of solar masses.

A supermassive black hole a few million times the mass of the Sun is thought to sit at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, and some of the largest supermassives seen date have reached up to two billion solar masses, researchers said.

[degrawj]

holy freaking crap!!! that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. i mean, that would be like having a 3 month old weigh 300 pounds. well, i guess it's back to the drawing board!

[KellyC]

astronomy isn't a very reliable science is it?

[kutulu]

At least science is willing to admit it when something shows that things need to be revised.

[kutulu]

The black hole, researchers said, is big enough to hold 1,000 of our own Solar Systems and weighs about as much as all the stars in the Milky Way.

Are they talking about length and width dimensions or in terms of mass? I thought that the phyiscal size of black holes was reletively small.

[snoop]

um, so its really really big, and really really old . . . . hmmm, sounds like my mother-in-law

S

[choskins]

That is cool. I wish people gave a crap about astronomy nowadays. It was one of my favorite courses in college. Just don't take it in the fall semester, as those 1:00 a.m. lab sessions get pretty cold.

[splck]

interesting stuff, thanks for the link.

[Fremen]

Whenever I try to contemplate the vastness of outerspace and its many mysteries, my brain whimpers in pain.

I'll just concentrate on my own massive black hole, Mr. Mouth.

[Nefir]

Very cool article.

We truly are just insignificant specks on the everchanging tapestry of the universe...

Reality is far more complex than we are physically capable of contemplating.

[Moobie]

Did anybody notice this little oddity?

Sitting at the heart of a distant galaxy, the black hole appears to be about 12.7 billion years old...

The black hole, called a blazar because it spews jets of radiation in roughly the direction of Earth, sits at the center of a galaxy about 12.7 billion light-years away...

Spews jets of radiation.... wait a minute... *looks down at watch* ah crap.

[taog]

I'm an Astronomy nerd. I'm taking it in school starting in the fall.

I just wanted to point out that the black hole would be as massive as 1,000 of our solar systems. They don't mean as large. The black hole is probably smaller than our sun, but way more massive. You were correct, black holes are very small. They collapse on themselves constantly, which makes them very small, and their gravity is more forceful than any other known thing, and can even pull in light, this the reason why it's a black hole.

Anyway, something like this doesn't surprise me at all. We have recently discovered that supermassive black holes reside at the centre of most, if not all galaxies in our universe.

There are many different things you have to put into play when looking at the age of this black hole, which wasn't mentioned in the article, and should have been.

When astronomers looked at a recent discovery of a distant supernovae, it appeared that the redshift (how fast it is moving away from us) didn't match with it's brightness based on the current calculations for what it should be.

In other words, when using two different ways to calculate distance, they didn't match.

What did this in turn tell us?

It showed that it's possible that the universe is a) Expanding at an accelerating rate, rather than a constant one, or b) Time is actually slowing down.

If either of these are true, the universe is much older than previously thought with Hubbles calculations, or time was actually moving faster in the past, which would explain why the blackhole looks so old now.

Also, it's thought that the universe is about 13 billion years old, but the actual numbers that Hubbles law proves is between 13 and 17 billion years old. If it's 17, it's more likely that something like this isn't such a huge deal, and it's more likely for something like this to exist.

It is very interesting, however. Thank you for pointing this out. I'll have to do some more research on the topic.




Also, here's a little bit of a better explanation for the above about the supernovae. I am kind of going out on a tangent here, but this will kind of help you understand the unknowns about related subjects such as this, and the fact that they are huge findings, but always played as something bigger than they actually are, in a way. We don't have rethink all of our theories regarding astronomy, but we might have to think about some theories, and what this supports. That's basically what astronomy does. You find something new, figure out everything you can about it, and find out what theories it supports.

Astronomy is one of the most precise sciences. It becomes hard for people to understand when you start talking about things, such as the black hole, that a lot of people don't really understand. Black holes have just recently been proven to exist, and were just theories before this. We don't know what existed before that black hole, or around it, and we will never know. It's possible that our calculations for finding out the age of this black hole is wrong. We might just have to figure out more about black holes, and what they do exactly. Since we can't see inside them, it's hard to know exactly what is going on.

Anyway, now for my whole tangent part of my post. I just thought this was interesting, and might help to explain the 'mysterious' age of this black hole. It's also just to show you that the age factor isn't that big of a deal, and isn't concrete either. The size of it is insanely huge, which makes this black hole amazing.







Recently astronomers took a look at a far off supernova. This supernova was quite interesting, because it appeared that the redshift (how fast it is moving away from us) didn't match with it's brightness based on the current calculations for what it should be.

What does this tell us?

Well, one of 3 things, now.

At first it was believed that this could have been caused by an accelerating universe, rather than an expanding universe at a constant rate.

If this were true then, back when this supernova emitted the light rays that we are seeing today the universe would have been expanding at a different rate. A slower rate. Which would thus explain why the supernova isn't as bright as it's redshift suggests. The redshifts suggests that the supernova should be closer than it actually is, but since the universe was expanding at a slower rate in the past, if this theory were true, then this would explain things a little better.


At this time another theory was also suggested to explain why this supernova appears to be further than what the redshift suggests.

To understand this, you must first understand that the speed of light and time are directly related. It's called time dilation, which is explained by the general (or special) theory of relativity.

Time dilation basically states as your speed increases, time decreases. Or, the faster you move, the slower time goes.

Now, in physics, and astronomy and anything related, we set time as a constant, c. However, if you were to change that constant, it would also change the value of how fast time goes by compared to how fast you are moving.

So, relating to this situation, if you were to set the speed of light, c, at a lower rate for the past than it is now, you come up with a pretty interesting conclusion.

It's kind of confusing to understand, so i'll try my best to explain it.

If the speed of light were moving at a faster rate in the past, this means that the light coming from the supernova would have taken less time to get to us than what we would expect.

Basically look at it this way. If something was moving very fast 10 minutes ago and you measured how fast it got to you, but it was slowing down, you would get some number, lets say x.

If you then measured something that was moving at the rate that this object you just observed at the time it got to you, you would get another number, lets say y.

y has to be greater than x, because it would have taken less time to get to you, since it was moving faster to begin with.

Same thing here. Our first view would be the second object from the above. This is what we would expect from this supernova. But, if the speed of light were slowing down, the objects light would have taken that much less time to get to us, because the light was travelling at a faster rate to begin with.

This would explain why the object seems to be much further than we thought.

The interesting thing about this is, if the speed of light is in fact slowing down, this means that the speed of time is speeding up. If this theory is true, it also changes many formulas, including E=mc^2, because c can no longer be looked at as a constant.


Now, very recently it has also been suggested that another force might cause this to happen. This theory is also supported by many other strange occurences in the universe, such as gravity. The way some cosmological objects move and act, such as black holes and galaxies and such, compared to what is around them, is sometimes very strange.

The theory that 'dark matter' exists in the universe has been around for many years, but you can also apply it to this specific case too.

Dark matter is basically what a lot of things point to. It's kind of there to explain the unknown things that happen in the universe. It's there to explain why some objects act the way they do, and why there is this missing piece of energy (referred to as dark energy).

If you figure out the makeup of the entire universe, with what we know today, and you find the mass of the entire universe, you will end up getting errors, and you will end up getting numbers that aren't consistant with other theories and fomulas to figure out the same thing.

The reason why this happens is summerized by this mysterious 'dark matter', and 'dark energy'.

Basically what they are is, something that is unobservable. It's there, but you can't see it or detect it. It's the opposite of everything else, but produces effects that counter balance our universe into what our theories show. Dark energy is the opposite of gravity, it pushes rather than pulls.

If there is this 'dark matter' in the universe, it could also explain why this might happen with this supernova. The distance that this object has travelled away from us is in fact where the light shows (neglecting dark matter) and is in fact where the redshift shows (because of dark matter).

Basically, the light has to travel though the dark matter, but it doesn't change the properties of the light, except for the redshift. It's hard to imagine, and i don't know much about it, but it's an interesting thought.

Basically if there is this mysterious dark matter, the light that came from that supernova would have traveled through it, thus giving the redshift and brightness of the supernova different conclusions regarding figuring out how far away this supernova is.





EDIT:

I just read my post over, and, well, i didn't do the best job at explaining some things. I'll come back tomorrow and explain anything that anyone has any questions about, and explain myself and thoughts on it a little better. I'm way too tired right now, which is why some of this might not make a whole lot of sense.

[charlesesl]

Originally posted by taog
I'm an Astronomy nerd. I'm taking it in school starting in the fall.

I just wanted to point out that the black hole would be as massive as 1,000 of our solar systems. They don't mean as large. The black hole is probably smaller than our sun, but way more massive. You were correct, black holes are very small. They collapse on themselves constantly, which makes them very small, and their gravity is more forceful than any other known thing, and can even pull in light, this the reason why it's a black hole.

Anyway, something like this doesn't surprise me at all. We have recently discovered that supermassive black holes reside at the centre of most, if not all galaxies in our universe.

There are many different things you have to put into play when looking at the age of this black hole, which wasn't mentioned in the article, and should have been.

When astronomers looked at a recent discovery of a distant supernovae, it appeared that the redshift (how fast it is moving away from us) didn't match with it's brightness based on the current calculations for what it should be.

In other words, when using two different ways to calculate distance, they didn't match.

What did this in turn tell us?

It showed that it's possible that the universe is a) Expanding at an accelerating rate, rather than a constant one, or b) Time is actually slowing down.

If either of these are true, the universe is much older than previously thought with Hubbles calculations, or time was actually moving faster in the past, which would explain why the blackhole looks so old now.

Also, it's thought that the universe is about 13 billion years old, but the actual numbers that Hubbles law proves is between 13 and 17 billion years old. If it's 17, it's more likely that something like this isn't such a huge deal, and it's more likely for something like this to exist.

It is very interesting, however. Thank you for pointing this out. I'll have to do some more research on the topic.




Also, here's a little bit of a better explanation for the above about the supernovae. I am kind of going out on a tangent here, but this will kind of help you understand the unknowns about related subjects such as this, and the fact that they are huge findings, but always played as something bigger than they actually are, in a way. We don't have rethink all of our theories regarding astronomy, but we might have to think about some theories, and what this supports. That's basically what astronomy does. You find something new, figure out everything you can about it, and find out what theories it supports.

Astronomy is one of the most precise sciences. It becomes hard for people to understand when you start talking about things, such as the black hole, that a lot of people don't really understand. Black holes have just recently been proven to exist, and were just theories before this. We don't know what existed before that black hole, or around it, and we will never know. It's possible that our calculations for finding out the age of this black hole is wrong. We might just have to figure out more about black holes, and what they do exactly. Since we can't see inside them, it's hard to know exactly what is going on.

Anyway, now for my whole tangent part of my post. I just thought this was interesting, and might help to explain the 'mysterious' age of this black hole. It's also just to show you that the age factor isn't that big of a deal, and isn't concrete either. The size of it is insanely huge, which makes this black hole amazing.







Recently astronomers took a look at a far off supernova. This supernova was quite interesting, because it appeared that the redshift (how fast it is moving away from us) didn't match with it's brightness based on the current calculations for what it should be.

What does this tell us?

Well, one of 3 things, now.

At first it was believed that this could have been caused by an accelerating universe, rather than an expanding universe at a constant rate.

If this were true then, back when this supernova emitted the light rays that we are seeing today the universe would have been expanding at a different rate. A slower rate. Which would thus explain why the supernova isn't as bright as it's redshift suggests. The redshifts suggests that the supernova should be closer than it actually is, but since the universe was expanding at a slower rate in the past, if this theory were true, then this would explain things a little better.


At this time another theory was also suggested to explain why this supernova appears to be further than what the redshift suggests.

To understand this, you must first understand that the speed of light and time are directly related. It's called time dilation, which is explained by the general (or special) theory of relativity.

Time dilation basically states as your speed increases, time decreases. Or, the faster you move, the slower time goes.

Now, in physics, and astronomy and anything related, we set time as a constant, c. However, if you were to change that constant, it would also change the value of how fast time goes by compared to how fast you are moving.

So, relating to this situation, if you were to set the speed of light, c, at a lower rate for the past than it is now, you come up with a pretty interesting conclusion.

It's kind of confusing to understand, so i'll try my best to explain it.

If the speed of light were moving at a faster rate in the past, this means that the light coming from the supernova would have taken less time to get to us than what we would expect.

Basically look at it this way. If something was moving very fast 10 minutes ago and you measured how fast it got to you, but it was slowing down, you would get some number, lets say x.

If you then measured something that was moving at the rate that this object you just observed at the time it got to you, you would get another number, lets say y.

y has to be greater than x, because it would have taken less time to get to you, since it was moving faster to begin with.

Same thing here. Our first view would be the second object from the above. This is what we would expect from this supernova. But, if the speed of light were slowing down, the objects light would have taken that much less time to get to us, because the light was travelling at a faster rate to begin with.

This would explain why the object seems to be much further than we thought.

The interesting thing about this is, if the speed of light is in fact slowing down, this means that the speed of time is speeding up. If this theory is true, it also changes many formulas, including E=mc^2, because c can no longer be looked at as a constant.


Now, very recently it has also been suggested that another force might cause this to happen. This theory is also supported by many other strange occurences in the universe, such as gravity. The way some cosmological objects move and act, such as black holes and galaxies and such, compared to what is around them, is sometimes very strange.

The theory that 'dark matter' exists in the universe has been around for many years, but you can also apply it to this specific case too.

Dark matter is basically what a lot of things point to. It's kind of there to explain the unknown things that happen in the universe. It's there to explain why some objects act the way they do, and why there is this missing piece of energy (referred to as dark energy).

If you figure out the makeup of the entire universe, with what we know today, and you find the mass of the entire universe, you will end up getting errors, and you will end up getting numbers that aren't consistant with other theories and fomulas to figure out the same thing.

The reason why this happens is summerized by this mysterious 'dark matter', and 'dark energy'.

Basically what they are is, something that is unobservable. It's there, but you can't see it or detect it. It's the opposite of everything else, but produces effects that counter balance our universe into what our theories show. Dark energy is the opposite of gravity, it pushes rather than pulls.

If there is this 'dark matter' in the universe, it could also explain why this might happen with this supernova. The distance that this object has travelled away from us is in fact where the light shows (neglecting dark matter) and is in fact where the redshift shows (because of dark matter).

Basically, the light has to travel though the dark matter, but it doesn't change the properties of the light, except for the redshift. It's hard to imagine, and i don't know much about it, but it's an interesting thought.

Basically if there is this mysterious dark matter, the light that came from that supernova would have traveled through it, thus giving the redshift and brightness of the supernova different conclusions regarding figuring out how far away this supernova is.





EDIT:

I just read my post over, and, well, i didn't do the best job at explaining some things. I'll come back tomorrow and explain anything that anyone has any questions about, and explain myself and thoughts on it a little better. I'm way too tired right now, which is why some of this might not make a whole lot of sense.

Jesus, that is one long post.
But good stuff never the less.
Always interesting to study things much larger than ourselves.

[Arroe]

i've always wondered what would happen if one day the universe just ended. or the sun collapsed. we'd all be fucked and no one would have any idea what happened before all life on Earth is gone. we know nothing about the universe and it makes me just want to go out and live every second of life because it makes me realize what little time we have here and how everything we do is so insignifigant that we need to make them signifigant insignifigant things... if that makes sense.....

i've always had an idea in my head since i was a kid that the universe is in a jar in some fungus in a janitors closet in another dimension. just hope the janitor doesn't come in and knock over the jar, lol.

[analog]

I'm curious how much money we're putting into this sort of thing and exactly what great good it's doing to help us. Homeless, hungry, needy families? Fuck that, we've got a black hole we can't see and has nothing to do with us over 12 billion light years away!

*throws cash around into the wind*

[Asuka{eve}]

The world is small place after all!

[H12]

Originally posted by analog
I'm curious how much money we're putting into this sort of thing and exactly what great good it's doing to help us. Homeless, hungry, needy families? Fuck that, we've got a black hole we can't see and has nothing to do with us over 12 billion light years away!

*throws cash around into the wind*

Good question. I think astrology is cool and all, but we really shouldn't be spending much of our time and money on much outside of our own galaxy.

[fnaqzna]

It would surprise if the government spent half as much on science as it does on welfare.

[splck]

I dunno, I'd rather the cash be spent discovering things out there like. The amount spent on this type of research is a good deal at twice the price .

Thanks for the great post toag.

*runs around and grabs analog's cash*

[ObieX]

I'd have to go with splick here. When all of my great great great great great grand children are boarding space craft escaping the earth that is slipping into death, they can all look back at analog's ancestors and wish them luck on their floating rock that is about to be obliterated.

It may not mean shit now, but in 10 - 10000000000000000000000 years it may.

And after all, you never know. There is the very good chance that some rock may be speeding toward our general area. That rock may smack into us killing EVERYTHING, or it may come close, throwing us out of orbit, killing EVERYTHING. I like the fact that we stand some chance of having SOMETHING survive as long as we look out for that one thing that may kill us all.

And again, this science may come to help us in every way possible. A force that moves galaxies and ripples the whole universe itself (gravity) may prove to help us all in imense measures. Geeks, and whatever you all may think of the people looking though little lenses on a hill, may be the cause of the salvation of all known life. A microscopic percentage of my tax dollars is well deserved.

[skier]

I feel discoveries made by astronomy have been worth the time and effort. Stellar navigation helped us travel around the world. It revolutionized the way we see the world (ie. we travel around the sun, we are not at the centre of the universe). Astronomy resulted in space travel, from which we have satellites, superpens, and many discoveries that were made possible because of the vacuum and zero-gravity of space (well relative zero-gravity at least). More stuff about how great astronomy is here. Some stuff about how space travel has benifited the average citizen. Tie-in back to astronomy. Conclusion.

[Stare At The Sun]

Originally posted by analog
I'm curious how much money we're putting into this sort of thing and exactly what great good it's doing to help us. Homeless, hungry, needy families? Fuck that, we've got a black hole we can't see and has nothing to do with us over 12 billion light years away!

*throws cash around into the wind*

What about the 80 billiion +++ that went to Iraq, for no reason whatsoever. That's a waste of money. Atleast this is peaceful research that will benefit our understanding of the universe. Would you like to live in a mud hut, and run around in a loin cloth?
No? Well, the reason you're not, is because of technology, and advances in science over the ages.

[SecretMethod70]

Originally posted by kutulu
Are they talking about length and width dimensions or in terms of mass? I thought that the phyiscal size of black holes was reletively small.

This post sorta got lost in the discussion. They are talking about mass.

Very interesting and cool indeed. *Goes to read "Black Holes and Time Warps" again* Great book for anyone interested in this stuff. Probably a bit out of date by now though, but interesting nonetheless.

[cchris]

Thanks taog,that is one hell of a post.

The concept of feeding the planet only to have it wiped out by something that could be prevented is a risk worth taking imo.
More dollars need to be spent on this planet first.
But.
Mankinds thirst for knowledge,as others have said,re navigation,technology and indeed what lays ahead provides the key.

The balancing act is the hard part.

[redarrow]

Originally posted by Stare At The Sun
What about the 80 billiion +++ that went to Iraq, for no reason whatsoever. That's a waste of money. Atleast this is peaceful research that will benefit our understanding of the universe. Would you like to live in a mud hut, and run around in a loin cloth?
No? Well, the reason you're not, is because of technology, and advances in science over the ages.

You have to admit that astronomy (NOT science) has done absolutely nothing to improve my, or your, way of life at home. It has just taken tax dollars away from me, to prevent me from buying comfy chairs and wide screen tv's.
You dont see a little sticker on your computer saying "This was made based on the technology of NASA"


But science, science has done tons to improve my life.
Just cut out that astronomy deal and im happy.

[jwoody]

Thanks for the info taog. I understood your explanation quite clearly.

Just my personal opinion without scientific fact to back it up but what we don't know about black holes (and space in general) could be the answer to many problems on our puny little planet, even homelessness.

What sort of effect would free electricity for all have on the political and economical state of the world as we know it?

*edit*

[taog]

No problem dudes. I'll come back with some more facts, and some things that Astronomy has done to help your life.

I do agree that we shouldn't be spending so much money on moon and mars missions, however. The reason being, we can get it done with robots a lot cheaper and easier.

Originally posted by H12
I think astrology is cool and all

Also, this bugged me a little, so I thought I would point it out and correct the poster. No harm intended, but I just wanted to point out the fact that Astrology is way way way different than Astronomy.

When people make this mistake, though I know it's harmless, it's like someones nails on a chalkboard.

[ARTelevision]

thanks cchris...

I figure dark matter explains most of what we don't know about the universe.

anyway, I'm not a researcher but I'm stumped too.

[stingc]

Originally posted by taog
I just wanted to point out that the black hole would be as massive as 1,000 of our solar systems. They don't mean as large. The black hole is probably smaller than our sun, but way more massive. You were correct, black holes are very small. They collapse on themselves constantly, which makes them very small, and their gravity is more forceful than any other known thing, and can even pull in light, this the reason why it's a black hole.

No. Supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies have masses millions of times larger than our sun. The paper claims this one has a mass of around 10 billion suns! The characteristic radius of the black hole then works out to be about 100 times larger than the earth's orbit around the sun. "Regular" black holes only a few times more massive than the sun will be very small -- a few kilometers or so. (I'm using the term radius very loosely here, as the concept doesn't formally exist in this case, but that's a long story.)

There's a lot to say about these things (I deal with black holes for a living), but I don't like writing as much as taog apparently does .

[stingc]

Originally posted by redarrow

You dont see a little sticker on your computer saying "This was made based on the technology of NASA"

That's because NASA doesn't have to advertise. Although not the main point of astronomy to anyone who does it, there are actually a lot of technological spinoffs. Admittedly, this mostly comes from space travel, which isn't really astronomy in the sense of this thread.

I don't want to get into a rant on the fundamental value of knowledge, but arguments can be made that this sort of fundamental research is useful to the average person in the sense you're discussing. The equipment needed to make astronomical measurements usually requires a lot of new technology that often ends up being adopted by engineers later on.

Also, fundamental physics is often tested using astronomy because we don't have the technology to perform any direct experiments. What was considered completely "useless" physics 70 years ago is now used to develop computer chips among other things. Everything is connected in physics.

[Ripsaw]

Fascinating.

[degrawj]

Originally posted by redarrow
You have to admit that astronomy (NOT science) has done absolutely nothing to improve my, or your, way of life at home. It has just taken tax dollars away from me, to prevent me from buying comfy chairs and wide screen tv's.
You dont see a little sticker on your computer saying "This was made based on the technology of NASA"


But science, science has done tons to improve my life.
Just cut out that astronomy deal and im happy.

you couldn't be further from the truth. there are many things that have been developed by NASA that benefit peoples every day lives. i used to have a list somewhere around on my computer, i'll look for it now, but one of the technologies in particular are artificial hearts. artificial hearts are based on technologies used on satellites. another technology used on satellites that benefits us are solar panels. while solar panels, and the concept they are based on, did not specifically come from space exploration, the required use of solar panels in space has made it so that NASA has had to develop better and more efficient solar panels, which can be used on earth. i'll add more to this list as i find stuff, but it's sheer ignorance to say that space exploration does not benefit us at all.

[denim]

Originally posted by H12
Good question. I think astrology is cool and all, but we really shouldn't be spending much of our time and money on much outside of our own galaxy.

We're not talking about astrology. We're talking about astronomy. Keep that clear in your mind.

Astrology has to do with fortune telling.
Astronomy has to do with reality: looking at it, figuring it out.

As far as how much money is going into this, figure "not much". And for those who have a problem with that, why, exactly, do we bother living if we don't have any fun?

More to the point, this is basic research. Someone around here has a sig "If we knew what we were going to get, we wouldn't call it 'research'." Leave it at that for now.

[cosmoknight]

Studying astronomy is hardly worthless. Recently a new "force" was discovered and labled the "dark" force, a very bad name conjuring Star Wars tie ins. The dark force was hinted at by Einstein and they think its the reason are universe is expanding and speeding up. The down side is if unchecked the is new force could eventually accelerate the universe to the point were it would stretch us into atoms. Its being debated now and we know nothing about it nor any possible benefits to us. One thing I would like point out unless we study outside our little world we won't know all the rules and will be stuck with what we can expierence here.

[degrawj]

okay, while i did not find the specific information i was looking for, i did find some other useful info on why we need to explore space:

Colonization - in another twenty years it is estimated the population of the earth will reach over 8 billion. We could use a place to live.

International Diplomacy - we went to the moon to beat the Russians, now we're building the International Space Station as a way to work with the Russians. Go figure. In any event, prestige and international relations are among the most powerful reasons we've had for going into space.

Natural Resources - some day we may be able to mine the Moon for green cheese and the asteroids for minerals and ores.

Many applications that can be accomplished only from orbit, for example - telephone & TV communications around the world, weather observation and prediction (notably hurricanes), land surveys, and navigation (notably the Global Positioning System, GPS).

And here are some more technological advancements that benefit peoples lives as a result of space research:

Kidney dialysis, which has kept (and still keeps) countless people alive, came from the Apollo program.

New insulin pumps, which can eliminate the need for injections for diabetics.

And the space program is constantly producing new materials for prosthetic devices.

Also, NASA's development of small solid-state lasers led to the development of CD's and DVD's.

so basically, i don't want to hear people whining about how there is no benefit to exploring space. whoever says that is saying so out of pure ignorance.

[denim]

Originally posted by redarrow
You have to admit that astronomy (NOT science) has done absolutely nothing to improve my, or your, way of life at home.

I have to do nothing of the kind. And astronomy very much is science. It corrects itself when it finds theories conflicting with observed reality, for instance. Just because you don't recognize the benefits doesn't mean there aren't any.

(edit) spelling correction

[denim]

Oh, and I just wanna say, "super massive black holes are WAAAAAAY COOL!" Like, super chilled, man. But don't put your beer in them for refridgeration! You'll only get them out again in itty bitty bits, sorta, according to Hawking.

OTOH, little tiny black holes are hot stuff! But not in the "porn" sense.

[DelayedReaction]

Originally posted by redarrow
You have to admit that astronomy (NOT science) has done absolutely nothing to improve my, or your, way of life at home.

Astronomy led to the discovery that you could navigate the earth by the stars, which led to global exploration, international trade, and a little country called the United States. Astronomy is a science, and it has provided immense benefits to our civilization.

I wonder what our society would be like if we never supported science like this. How many discoveries have we made simply as an offshoot of pure research? How many times has our society benefited from research that had no plausible application at the time?

A few decades ago some guys thought up a form of theory called quantum mechanics. Back then it was revolutionary, but had little application. Who could possibly have imagined that, less than a century later, we would be using that theory to develop the next generation of superfast computers?

The greatness of a civilization is measured by how it treats its thinkers. Our civilization is pretty amazing, and it's in part because we treat our scientists and researchers so well.

[losthellhound]

Science is the highest form of a society. Advances do not come without research, and pure research and pure thinking leads to giant leaps in technology, society, and living

[cchris]

Great points there degrawj.

It may not be inevitable,but colonization of other planets after the moon might become a reality down the track.
Discoveries may be made that can accellerate what is now deemed just theory.

I know shit when it comes to the technical side of all this but I do know that 50 yrs ago everything we are witnessing now was a pipe dream.

Bring on the next 100 yrs.