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Sorry man!

Right troops, I've flung enough random universe facts at you. If anyone wants to know more about any particular part of the cosmos, let me know in the thread and I'll do my best to enlighten you in a FUN way...

:)

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The biggest problem with living on the moon, in fact the biggest problem on leaving Earth is the lack of a magnetosphere. It protects us from a huge amount of stuff we want to avoid. There is no way to generate a similar thing on the moon, so basically anyone living up there (and they would have to live in hermetically sealed units, not on the open surface) would be subjected to all sorts of nasty stuff that the body is just not capable of dealing with.

^^^ Typical Better Together scaremongering IMO.

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It's unknown whether it's current location is in interstellar space or an unknown region of the solar system.

I never understood why they was such a debate about whether Voyager had left the Solar System. Surely the Oort Cloud is part of the Solar System, and Voyager must go at least another 1000 times as far to get the edge of the Oort Cloud.

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just had a quick look at scale distances of size of planets compared to distances between them. WOW shows how insignificantly small we are

There are many ways to imagine how small we are.

Take this simple example. The speed of light is so fast it could circumnavigate our planet 7 times in one second.

Take a second to ponder how fast this is.

Now think on the fact that, at that speed, it would take around 4.3 years to reach the CLOSEST star to our Sun.

And whilst pondering that, think on the fact that there are more stars in the Milky Way galaxy than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.

Then, whilst you're at it, think on the statistic that there are more galaxies in the known Universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.

Yup, we're THAT insignificant.

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there is a guide to an "experiment" you can do on the internet, think it is aimed at about 10 year olds but you will get the idea.

It starts with a rock approx 8" in diameter and that is you sun, Mercury is a pin head, Venus and earth a peppercorn, Mars a pinhead, jupiter a pecan saturn an acorn neptune and uranus a coffee bean and pluto a pinhead. Put into perspective the sizes.

To get the distances apart place the sun at the start od solar system then walk (wait till a check this oot)

from the sun 10 adult size paces and drop the pinhead and that Mercury

9 more paces drop peppercorn and thats Venus

7 more paces drop another peppercorn and ths Earth

14 more paces drop pinhead and thats Mars

95 more paces drop pecan nut and thats Jupiter

112 more paces drop acorn and thats Saturn

249 more paces drop coffee bean and thats Uranus

281 more paces drop other coffee bean and thats Neptune

242 more paces and thats Pluto.

holy shit thats you travelled more than half a mile to do this and the reference points in between (planets) some are the size of pinheads!!!

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Sorry man!

Right troops, I've flung enough random universe facts at you. If anyone wants to know more about any particular part of the cosmos, let me know in the thread and I'll do my best to enlighten you in a FUN way...

:)

Any facts on black holes Confidemus?

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Any facts on black holes Confidemus?

Certainly my good man.

Well, despite the name, they're not black, they're practically invisible. The gravitational pull generated by a black hole is so immense that nothing can escape it, not even light. And light's the fucking fastest thing in the Universe. We only know they're there because of the way they interact with matter around them.

A black hole is esentially the corpse of a star, which needs to be somewhere in the region of 20 times the mass of our sun. When the star is "alive", gravity pushes in and pressure pushes out, keeping a steady balance for the star to keep shining. When the star reaches the end of it's life, gravity slowly begins collapsing the material at the core of the star until it collapses beneath its own weight. The core now becomes a black hole. In the middle of what is left of the core, is a single point with zero volume and infinite density.

Black holes consume EVERYTHING in their path. It's thought that there are supermassive black holes at the centre of every galaxy, including ours, which can be many millions of solar masses in size.

Each black hole has an event horizon, a boundary where light and matter will, after crossing it, only continue inwards. After this point, nothing escapes.

HTH.

:)

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Certainly my good man.

Well, despite the name, they're not black, they're practically invisible. The gravitational pull generated by a black hole is so immense that nothing can escape it, not even light. And light's the fucking fastest thing in the Universe. We only know they're there because of the way they interact with matter around them.

A black hole is esentially the corpse of a star, which needs to be somewhere in the region of 20 times the mass of our sun. When the star is "alive", gravity pushes in and pressure pushes out, keeping a steady balance for the star to keep shining. When the star reaches the end of it's life, gravity slowly begins collapsing the material at the core of the star until it collapses beneath its own weight. The core now becomes a black hole. In the middle of what is left of the core, is a single point with zero volume and infinite density.

Black holes consume EVERYTHING in their path. It's thought that there are supermassive black holes at the centre of every galaxy, including ours, which can be many millions of solar masses in size.

Each black hole has an event horizon, a boundary where light and matter will, after crossing it, only continue inwards. After this point, nothing escapes.

HTH.

:)

Is there any realistic chance one could destroy the planet ?
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Is there any realistic chance one could destroy the planet ?

Our planet?

Not a chance. We live in a relatively quiet corner of the galaxy. I think the closest one to us is about 1,600 light years away in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.

Even the supermassive black hole at the middle of our galaxy is about 30,000 light years away.

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Our planet?

Not a chance. We live in a relatively quiet corner of the galaxy. I think the closest one to us is about 1,600 light years away in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.

Even the supermassive black hole at the middle of our galaxy is about 30,000 light years away.

Haha aye, I meant our planet.

Are new ones always forming throughout the universe? And could one not form in our galaxy?

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Material World on Radio 4 today did a great discussion on multiple universes and the big bang based on the recent Planck results. Not only that the other half of the programme is all about time. A really good listen for anyone interested in this subject. You can catch it on the iPlayer here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01snlsw/Material_World_Multiverses_Culturedriven_Evolution_Lee_Smolin_on_Time/

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