I saw a post the other day about if you can see the milky way galaxy.

[Eko]

I understood the post to be more about "if you can see the rest of the milky way galaxy" but really, yes, I can and do every day. Nothing really wrong about the post, but everything I see is the milky way galaxy. With my own eyes. Every day. Seeing the rest of it is awe inspiring. But seeing this part is also. There is not a single part of it that we can see with so much detail than what we see every day. We tend to disconnect ourselves from nature too much and not see how much of it we are. Both good and bad. I am part of the milky way, you are, you house is, everything we see is. The milky way is not apart of us, something we have to look out and see. I can see it right here as well as looking above. I am reminded of this video.

?si=tF7xjH0GPc_oyRZY

[brush]

1. I thought it was referring to light pollution in the more populated areas.

In some more rural locations one can still see the actual milky-looking trail of the spiral arm of our galaxy that we are on.

[Eko]

2. Correct.

I love seeing the milky way. Seen it many times living in Idaho. My point is that all I have to do is open my eyes since we are a part of it.

[brush]

3. Yes. Wonder if some living being on Andromeda gets similar views of their spiral arm?

[Eko]

4. from what I can tell its 152, 000 light year across and much bigger than ours

so I would imagine that they do.

[brush]

5. I have a feeling you're kind of a space nut too. I love to marvel at the images from...

the Hubble and James Webb telescopes.

Just the vastnes amazes me. And who, what other intelligent civilizations are out there.

[Eko]

6. A space nut absolutely.

But I'm also not a fan of intelligent civs being out there. Possible? sure, probable? no. I explained it to a friend recently by taking a piece of paper and holding it vertically thin-wise in a room. This paper represents our time in the universe. The thickness of it is the entire time we will be here until we are gone. This represents the size of the universe and our time here. That would be the X axis. Left to right. It is way way small. The Y axis is the size of the universe. Once again we are way way small compared to the rest. If we compare the age of the universe and the age of humanity to a year we have humans around for about 8 min of that year. Snap your fingers. That is how long we have lasted and will last. Humanity has been around for over 200,000 years. I give us max 1,000 more just due to our climate. Shoot, move it to 5,000. Still just a snap. Snap. Snap. Space, Time, they have kept us from meeting and will keep us from meeting or even knowing ( there is always winning the lottery) if there was any other intelligent life in the universe. I have no problem with doing so, I just have a understanding of time and distance. Imagine one bird finding another somewhere in the USA. Possible? yes. Probable? no.

[brush]

7. Deep. Deep. A question: Since life, in the many forms here on Earth happened...

Last edited Sat Mar 23, 2024, 01:59 AM - Edit history (1)

with the trillions of stars and even more planets in space around those stars, don't you think it's more than probable that life in some form has developed somewhere?

I'd bet on the chance of conditions for life in some form sparking somewhere on at least one, probably more, of the quadrillion planets out there is high.

What is improbable though because of the vastness of space, is contact with any of them.

[LastDemocratInSC]

9. If you're thinking of carbon based life, which we are, the answer is yes.

Carbon can combine with itself in more ways than all the other elements can combine with each other. So, the number of carbon life forms on Earth shouldn't come as a surprise to us. It would be a surprise, on the other hand, to see as many life forms based on other elements such as bismuth, that don't combine in so many ways. Nature is just following the path of least resistance.

[Eko]

10. I agree 100%.

I think the there is other life out there at this time. Intelligent? Maybe, maybe not. I feel somewhat confident that we will find life within our own solar system be it bacteria or single cell life forms. Intelligent? No. People win the lottery though. The space and time just make finding intelligent life very very very, keep going for a long time, very, very unlikely. Not probable. I would hazard its more probable to find a unicorn than intelligent life. Some people may look at that and think we are alone. Others would look at that and see how special we are, and possibly treat us as such. Without knowing our worth, and our place in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe we will never be who we should be. I dont need to look up into the heavens to see that I just need to open my eyes.

[LastDemocratInSC]

8. The diameter of the moon (and sun, too) in the sky is 0.5 degree.

The diameter of the Andromeda galaxy in the sky is 2.8 degrees. Almost 6 times the diameter of the moon. That is huge, but we can't see the galaxy well because it's so far away.