DarthDooku

Im trying to self educate myself for now, and ive been using some library books and a website called wikipedia, which is a great site. Does anyone know any other good sites for educational purposes. Maybe starting from high school and up though college and so on.

This may be obvious to subscribers of the Astronomy magazine and newsletter, but they have totally redone the site. It is much more professional, and they have added a lot more features. There is one thing where they have a live chat and showing of some celestial objects. If you subscribe and dont know about it, check out the new site. Or buy a copy at the newsstand and you can gain access to all the subscriber features. Link: http://www.astronomy.com

Are there any other good sites like this for self education.

If there were a supernova in the milky way, would a backyard astronomer be able to see it. And what would it look like? Also, would a supernova in our galaxy have any effect on our solar system. I can imagine there would be a lot of meteors and things heading our way. Is it even possible? Are the timelines of star birth too close together in the milky way.

I would say that, given the size of the universe, its pretty much inevitable that there are other planets that can support life. The chances of one solar system in the whole universe containing life, is unthinkable. Will they be like us and smarter than us. I would say a little bit of everything. Some will be smarter, obviously since they have been here longer. But others may be in the prehistoric age with dinosaurs roaming around. As for looking like us, again, a little bit of everything. Some may look exactly like us. Some may have green skin that can absorb or reflect different kinds of radiation. And heavy dark eyelids that protect from powerful solar radiation. You cant go around saying its not happening. The universe is too big. And with the 100 and more planets that we have found, I would say we havent even broken the surface. With the right conditions, life could evolve in many different ways. There is no way to tell what they will look like and what they will breathe and eat. But i like to believe that somewhere there is a blue planet that has life, just like Earth. There is no way to answer these questions. It is all theory. I think the best place to start looking is Europa. There is a great possibility that there are deep sea lifeforms under the ice. I would just die to see what they look like. In Astronomy magazine, they said a mission to Europa would likely be in the middle of the next decade, around 2010-2015. By then the station on the moon will be up and running and preparing for space flights, based from the moon. This is the most exciting thing since the first landing on the moon. Its our first steps towards interstellar travel. Now if we could just get some of those NASA geniuses to develop and spaceship that can travel the speed of light and more.

Yes, Mr. Tycho. I think that golden nose of yours is going to your head. Please be a little more respectful.

About an hour ago i was watching The Science Channel. I just found out about it tonight. It seems they have programs about space every Tuesday at 8pm. I havent had a chance to look it up on the net, so i dont know anything about the channel. In New Jersey its on channel 72 or something. Anyway, they were talking about black holes for a while, until they went into the eventual collision of our galaxy with another. It was really interesting. Now, there explanation on what a black hole is, was pretty simple. When a star collapses, it turns into a tiny particle of dust. But this tiny particle contains all the mass off the star. So you have a tiny particle of dust that has an enormous mass. With this enormous mass comes an enormous amount of gravity. The gravity is so strong that it sucks everything into it. As it sucks in, the tiny particle gets bigger, making the black hole bigger and its gravity. It said that if a person was sucked in, he would explode, or be torn apart into millions of atoms. Im not sure if i explained everything exactly right, but thats pretty much what i remember. So to me, it seems that a black hole is just a tiny piece of matter, that has an enormous mass condensed into it. The gravity sucks stuff in, making it bigger. As for a black hole being a doorway to a wormhole or some way to travel through time, i would have to say no. I would say a black hole is just a piece of dust with a powerful field of gravity. When something goes into it, it gets torn apart into atoms and is collected into the original piece of dust, adding to the growth of the black hole. Whats really amazing about a black hole is how a huge star can collapse on itself and create a tiny piece of dust, with all the mass and more, that the original star possessed. Imagine if we could discover and harness the power and process that caused this. We could turn the worlds biggest landfills into a marble.

Ive been through a year and a half of college, but had to drop out due to personal problems. Im a long way off from being able to go back and i want to educate myself. Im looking for good sites that are about anything in Physics and Astronomy, or a mixture such as astrophysics. Im looking for a site that is pretty much for educational purposes. Maybe something set up like a textbook or encyclopedia. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The books at the local library arent very good.

They had a couple of really good shows on, but to my disappointment i only saw portions of them. One was the Elegant Universe. It had some really cool computer graphics. The other was about String Theory, wow was that some weird stuff. If you dont know about these check out NJN's website for tv schedule, they will probably be re-airing them.

Doesnt Hubble reach that far? Couldnt we get some kind of closeup on it or something.

I think that a colonization of mars that would entail changing the atmosphere is out of the question. I dont think they would take the chance of messing things up. The most you could ever hope for on mars would be a Space station and maybe other structures. There would be no going outdoors

When i heard of this i was appalled. I hope it is the downfall of Bush. He now has lost the vote of the entire gay population, and any open minded person.

Its obviously something from us. Probably a piece from one of the broken Japnese landers. Hey, you know how there was a big race to get to the moon. There is a lot of competition in space exploration. Did you ever think that maybe the US sabotaged the Japanese and French(i think thats who it was), landers in order to keep all findings in US hands. So anything really big would be kept secret by us and we would get all the credit and/or advantages produced from the findings. Makes sense to me, and im not sure i care all that much. They probably couldnt have gotten there without us. We just let them tag along, in order to keep the peace. Im not trying to start trouble because they would do the same thing to us.

I never said they couldnt. I said the didnt.

What is situ?

We're talking 100's of years into the future. Spaceships will be better and we will probably have landed on all planets where its even possible. Extracting raw materials from any planet or close asteroids probably wont be a problem. And they can always make a huge cargo ship, launched from earth, that will be stuffed with raw material and permanently docked at the station until its resources are delpeted, and it will just go back to earth and get more. Its feasible, if you consider that technology will be far more advanced in 200-300 years.

This is completely out of line. Who ever said i was stating facts. I was just expressing my thoughts in the form of a theory based on logic and a little creativity. Im sorry i dont have the resources to conduct scientific experiments to lend some kind of proof to my ideas. Its not like im submitting this stuff to NASA. Maybe people like you are the reason why scientists like Isaac Newton dont get recognized untill 100 years later. Maybe you need to be a little more open minded.

Go back a few posts and read mooeypoo's post. Then maybe you can make a connection.

I just read in Astronomy magazine, which is a great magazine by the way, that by the year 2012, NASA wants to have a space station on the moon that will be for the purpose of sending manned missions to Mars by the year 2020. I was really amazed to read this. In ten years, we could be taking the first steps to manned missions outside of our solar system. Sure that would be looking way into the future, but you have to start somewhere. Imagine that in 100 years that the space station on the moon is ancient history. So is the space station on Mars. Then the space station on Pluto will be ancient history. Pluto is the last planet in our solar system. The next step is to build a space station outside of our solar system. Imagine a space station that is large enough to construct spaceships. This is where it would get interesting. We would now have a space station outside of our solar system with the ability to launch spaceships directly from space, with no atmosphere to contend with. Just imagine how far, a burst from an earth-launched spaceshuttle, would carry a shuttle that was already in space. And after that, they would obviously make a shuttle that was more suitable for launch in space. The ships wouldnt need all that extra fuel to burn through the atmosphere, so they would be designed more like an economy class car. Ok, im going to stop now because i think im getting to close to Captain Kirk.

Your talking about scifi books? Just because somebody can think of it, doesnt mean it can actually happen. And obviously, it hasnt happened in this solar system. How can an organism adapt, if it cant survive long enough to reproduce. And with a deteriorating environment, such as it was when the planet had a chance to produce life, way back in the beginning stages of its development, the oranism no longer has the foundation to even try. I think that life in this solar system depends on sunlight, water, and oxygen. Without the correct proportions of these elements, life will not thrive. All the planets are depending on the same sun and the same elements from the periodic table, so the beginnings of life would all be the same. I think that in the beginning all of the planets were similar to earth. But for many different reasons, varying from planet to planet, the environment broke down and turned into what it is now. So according to my theory, there is one way for life to survive in this solar system. Sun, Oxygen, and Water. A single celled oranism, which is the beginning of life cannot flourish if these conditions deteriorate to what we see today. If it cannot flourish than it doesnt have time to learn to adapt. Adaption takes many generations, which didnt happen. The planets were not stable enough to allow the oranisms to create enough generations to adapt. You shouldnt base your response on what you have read in scifi books.

Yeah, creatures on Earth. Earth isnt even close to being as cold as Mars. And you say, "what if they adapt." Well, I dont see any signs of a civilization on Mars, so obviously they couldnt adapt. So if the Earth's ozone depletes tomorrow, are we supposed to just "adapt." :zzz:

Here is how i look at it. They have proof that Mars was once a world filled with water. So there is the possiblility that it could have sustained a bacterial form of life. When they speak of life on Mars, this is what they mean. They do not mean that there there were six foot tall creatures, with opposable thumbs, running around trying to build things. Take a look at three planets. Venus, Earth, and Mars. That is the order from which they move away from the sun. Respectively they are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th planet from the sun. We all know that the closer you get to the sun, the hotter it will be. Venus being the closest of the three is extremely hot, and cannot contain any form of life. The average surface temp is 482 C. Then you look at Mars Which is further away. Its surface temp is around -62 C. So at one point in time it may have been warm enough to have water. Mars also has the suggestion of a system of seasons. The color of the atmosphere changes in the same way the the earth changes season. So we are getting closer to my point. You have Venus which is too close to the sun to support anything. Then you have the earth which is in perfect position for supporting life. Then you have Mars which is not too close to the sun to burn everything out, but is far enough to cause trouble with the cold. Mars surface temp isnt that far away from being life supportable. It is only about 75 degrees too cold, which is nothing. So Mars isnt being burned up and is just a little too cold to support life. I dont know enough to know why the earth is in the perfect position to support life. But i do know that the universe is designed to take care of itself. A simple example would be inside the human body. Our immune system is there to take care of any problems. Here is my theory. Our solar system has designed itself to create a planet with the perfect atmosphere, by having 9 planets positioned with our sun in an ascending pattern. They start close and get further away. Basically, it is a trial and error solar system. Spread the planets out and see which one is successful. In our solar system, probably because of the distance from the burning sun and the tolerance of its radiation, the third planet from the sun seems to be in the best position. It makes sense that the planet one step closer to the sun is too hot. And the planet one step away is just barely too cold. In the beginning the planet Mars was getting ready to be a life supporting planet, It was probably warm enough because of all the activity going on that created the planet in the first place. It got so far as to produce a source of water for its inhabitants, but it started to reduce in temperature and slowly deteriorated into a barren rock. So we have proof that the planet started preparing a home for life to flourish, but now we have to see if it got so far as to actually start the process of creating living oranisms. Now back to the trial and error theory, we notice that Mars is a bit smaller than earth. Maybe the solar system made Mars this way in order to attract more heat from the sun. Its easier to heat something small than something large. Which brings me to Pluto the farthest and smallest. The solar system was trying to see if a really small planet farther away would be a good supporter of life. Now think about, what if Pluto was a few positions closer. Maybe so far as to be in Mars' position. I wonder if the smaller and further away trial would have worked it it was a little closer. Give me some feedback.