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[nekkid]

Light travels as photons which travels at a fixed 299 792 458 m / s. At this speed, it would take those photons forty years to reach us. So anything that we see actually happened forty years ago. The further a light source, the farther into the past we are seeing. Similarily, any data we send to this planet will have a forty year delay. This speed of light is the hard limit on how fast any particle/wave can travel so we'll always have this delay in communication.

The headfuck for me is when astronomers talk about being able to see further with new telescopes, such as JWST, which means we are observing things so far in the past that actually they're fairly soon after the Big Bang. That's fine - I get that. But space is expanding from a single point, so those objects wouldn't have been so far from our relative position in the cosmos, so light wouldn't have had to travel so far, so why is the first bit true?

 

[Obscura]

You can tell it's exciting news because there wasn't a "NASA to show something cool in 42 hours" teaser.

What "announcement of an announcement" by NASA hasn't turned out to be exciting news?

 

[nekkid]

What "announcement of an announcement" by NASA hasn't turned out to be exciting news?

NASA: "hold onto your butts - we have an incredible announcement incoming. It has something to do with life on other words"

NASA: "we've discovered arsenic-based life on Earth - which can only have evolved independently of all other life. This improves the likelihood of life evolving elsewhere in the galaxy by several orders of magnitude."

Scientific community: "that thing NASA said they found? Yeah, that's bullshit."

 

[Divvy]

The headfuck for me is when astronomers talk about being able to see further with new telescopes, such as JWST, which means we are observing things so far in the past that actually they're fairly soon after the Big Bang. That's fine - I get that. But space is expanding from a single point, so those objects wouldn't have been so far from our relative position in the cosmos, so light wouldn't have had to travel so far, so why is the first bit true?

When the universe was in it's infancy, less thank 400k years old, it was nothing more than a mass of super hot plasma that was so dense, that light itself could not escape. After that period, it cooled enough to become mostly gaseous, which let the photons trapped inside escape. Those photons are still travelling and that is what we are trying to detect.

Also, space is not really expanding from a single point though, just like a load of bread doesn't expand from a single point when it bakes. It's more like a loaf of raisin bread where the space between raisins expands. In fact, this expansion occurs at all levels to the point where one of the leading theories is that the universe will eventually die because the space between subatomic particles will be so great, that atoms will no longer be able to hold themselves together. The universe will be a giant soup of particles too far away from each other to interact. So that's a fun thought.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

In fact, this expansion occurs at all levels to the point where one of the leading theories is that the universe will eventually die because the space between subatomic particles will be so great, that atoms will no longer be able to hold themselves together. The universe will be a giant soup of particles too far away from each other to interact. So that's a fun thought.

This sounds like a super depressing way to die.

 

[Divvy]

This sounds like a super depressing way to die.

Well this is trillions of years into the future, so like, you probably won't be around for that.

 

[Obscura]

NASA: "hold onto your butts - we have an incredible announcement incoming. It has something to do with life on other words"

NASA: "we've discovered arsenic-based life on Earth - which can only have evolved independently of all other life. This improves the likelihood of life evolving elsewhere in the galaxy by several orders of magnitude."

Scientific community: "that thing NASA said they found? Yeah, that's bullshit."

Could you provide links, please? Google is failing me.

 

[DarkKyo]

This sounds like a super depressing way to die.

If it makes you feel any better, that particle soup could one day potentially spawn another vacuum bubble due to quantum fluctuations and lead to the birth of the next universe.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Literally the plot of Interstellar, except replace "dwarf star" with "blackhole"

 

[HK-47]

Call me when we can actually measure the atmosphere of goldilocks zone planets.

 

[4444244]

The Belgians named their telescope Trappist?

Those cheeky beer-brewing bastards!

 

[Melon Husk]

Call me when we can actually measure the atmosphere of goldilocks zone planets.

Leave your number, if you're serious.

 

[Walpurgis]

If they have large animals, we might be able to discover the origin of the Australian continent and finally send it home.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

Well this is trillions of years into the future, so like, you probably won't be around for that.

If it makes you feel any better, that particle soup could one day potentially spawn another vacuum bubble due to quantum fluctuations and lead to the birth of the next universe.

Meh.

 

[Link]

Sound travels slower (and requires matter to travel), radio is electromagnetic wave, same thing as light, just another frequency.

Radio waves are light, actually.

Well, okay, technically radio waves and visible light are just two different types of electromagnetic radiation, but yeah, they both go the speed of light in a vacuum. Despite radio being used to carry sound in every day life, it isn't actually sound. That's why it can travel through space

Well, I learned something new today. Thanks, guys.

 

[Melon Husk]

Well, I learned something new today. Thanks, guys.

Watch CrashCourse Astronomy y'all and you'll know a shitton more than Isaac Newton ever did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rHUDWjR5gg&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPAJr1ysd5yGIyiSFuh0mIL (about astronomy).

Well this is trillions of years into the future, so like, you probably won't be around for that.

We'll probably have a few of our own universes going on at that point. Pointless to speculate that far when humanity as a species has existed for only ~5000 generations and civilization has been a thing for only 500.

 

[Lucreto]

Don't radio waves dissipate in space unless they are focused beam with a lot of power behind them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7544915.stm

Shostak calculates that Nasa's recent broadcast of Beatles music towards Polaris, the North Star, using a 210ft antenna and 20kW of power, would require any potential aliens to have an antenna seven miles across to be aware of it. To actually receive it as music, this would need to be increased to a 500-mile wide antenna. Polaris is 430 light years away.

 

[Dirca]

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Call me when we can actually measure the atmosphere of goldilocks zone planets.

supposedly happening this week for these particular planets.

Pointless to speculate that far when humanity as a species has existed for only ~5000 generations and civilization has been a thing for only 500.

you know, I've never looked at it like that before. It's a great way to see how far we've come in such a short time, and how significant each successive generation still is, relative to the entirety of human history.

 

[lastplayed]

just 40 light years from Earth

Oh just 40 light years... that's spittin' distance!

 

[jiggle]

which is within our generation, assess if they are actually inhabited,” de Wit says.

lol
What is he expecting to see?
Artificial structures and lights?

 

[FelixOrion]

lol
What is he expecting to see?
Artificial structures and lights?

Probably that you'd be able to measure levels of gases in the atmosphere that are the result of biology.

 

[dabig2]

We'll probably have a few of our own universes going on at that point. Pointless to speculate that far when humanity as a species has existed for only ~5000 generations and civilization has been a thing for only 500.

Yeah, the size of the universe and the time of it being born, living, and eventually dying that we're talking about are incomprehensible to comprehend really.

Horizontal axis is logarithmic base 10. So when the last supermassive black hole evaporates in 10^100 years give or take several orders of magnitude, we still have a looooooooong way to go till particles start getting ripped apart.

 

[Stinkles]

The headfuck for me is when astronomers talk about being able to see further with new telescopes, such as JWST, which means we are observing things so far in the past that actually they're fairly soon after the Big Bang. That's fine - I get that. But space is expanding from a single point, so those objects wouldn't have been so far from our relative position in the cosmos, so light wouldn't have had to travel so far, so why is the first bit true?

We don't know where the original point was because space is expanding equally in all directions. We know where the center of our galaxy is but we don't have a good frame of reference for the origin point of the big bang.

 

[UberTag]

Age of Aquarius? huh

I'll be extremely disappointed if we discover any of these planets are harboring life and this doesn't play to ring in the news.

 

[nekkid]

We don't know where the original point was because space is expanding equally in all directions. We know where the center of our galaxy is but we don't have a good frame of reference for the origin point of the big bang.

Stuff was still a lot closer together, was my point. Where the "centre" is should be pretty irrelevant.

 

[nekkid]

Could you provide links, please? Google is failing me.

Sure:

http://phys.org/news/2012-07-scientists-nasa-arsenic-life-untrue.html

 

[RiZ III]

The sizes and temperatures of these worlds are comparable to those of Earth and Venus, and are the best targets found so far for the search for life outside the solar system.

I didn't realize Earth & Venus had similar temperatures....

 

[BobLoblaw]

I just want to be around for the life on another planet confirmation. That's good enough for my lifetime.

 

[Slayer-33]

Probably that you'd be able to measure levels of gases in the atmosphere that are the result of farting.

.

 

[itxaka]

The Belgians have a telescope called Trappist, that's awesome lmao

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Probably that you'd be able to measure levels of gases in the atmosphere that are the result of biology.

It turns out there are some other worthwhile indicators we could look for, such the polarity distribution of sunlight reflected off the planets' atmosphere. A while ago I read that molecules of opposite chirality return oppositely polarized light, and it turns out having a dominant chirality is something biochemists believe is important for life to form, or even evidence of it having already formed.

 

[Joni]

Belgium found a planet, named it after a beer. Yes, that seems about right. Kinda exciting that there are so many potential Earths close by.

 

[FelixOrion]

It turns out there are some other worthwhile indicators we could look for, such the polarity distribution of sunlight reflected off the planets' atmosphere. A while ago I read that molecules of opposite chirality return oppositely polarized light, and it turns out having a dominant chirality is something biochemists believe is important for life to form, or even evidence of it having already formed.

Chiral compounds are optically active and have a property known as specific rotation - which direction is a function of the compounds handedness.

I'm not sure exactly what chiral molecules they'd look for, but you're probably thinking of amino acids, which make up proteins and enzymes. On Earth, biology is almost exclusively uses L-amino acids (ignoring glycine, which is achiral). The enantiomer of them, D-amino acids, do exist in biology but are quite rare to find. (A very similar situation exist with sugars.) Why biology on Earth evolved to favor one specifically rather than than the other is one of the greatest mysteries of biology; that is, it makes sense that evolution would chose to have a library of a single amino acid type (and this dominance is important, like you said), but we don't know why L-AAs specifically.

I don't think there's any reason to rule out that life on other worlds could be made of D-amino acids, though, so, if they would look for amino acids, it would be quite fascinating (beyond finding evidence of life) to see D-amino acids instead.