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I wonder what kind of scale Hawking is thinking of when he talks alien life. Just our solar system? Our nearest stars, our entire galaxy? Certainly not the entire cosmos? Just by sheer scale of the number of stars and galaxies out there, billions of galaxies each with millions of stars, you’d have to think the odds would be good there are others looking at their night sky wondering if we’re out there. But yet, there is the question

If there is life elsewhere in the universe, Hawking asks why haven’t we stumbled onto some alien broadcasts in space, maybe something like “alien quiz shows?

What is the effective range of such radio/tv communications?  Would it be indefinite?  Since the universe is 13 billion years old, but our sun only 4, the range of stars/galaxies from which we could hear signals seems to depend more on signal strength than time.  Should we be hearing these signals?  Could it really be that we’re alone out there, the only life sentient enough to yet learn about the wonders of space and the cosmos we live in? What does that say about the miracle of our own life and existence?

I’ve been thinking about the Big Bang and the cosmos a lot lately, and really I think the only conclusion that makes any sense is that there is guiding hand to the universe’s creation.   The sheer wonder and scale of our universe, from the massive size and distance between galaxies to live that can fit on the head of a pin. The wonder of our existence,  boggles the imagination. Without a god guiding creation it seems the basic argument is that we’re an explosion that became self-aware, and a random one at that.  Neither one is provable I suppose, but one explanation makes a lot more sense to me than another.

It may look hypnotic, I know I’m starting to feel very, very sleepy. But to an astronomer, this spiral pattern says that we’re looking directly down the poles of this about to die star. Unlike Eta Carinae, which, while similarly close to ‘blowing’, doesn’t appear to have it’s poles pointed in our direction. And when it does, the earth could see a burst of gamma rays unlike any it’s experienced in at least a few hundred million years. We probably wouldn’t see the actual event, as a gamma ray burst might only last 5 seconds at max. Many don’t even last a full second. But the damage would be incredible, possibly burning off the entire ozone layer and starting a mass extinction. All the more incredible because this star is 8000 LIGHT-YEARS away! That translates to 47,027,998,500,000,000 miles away. (by the way, google DOES translate light years to miles, very cool!) 47 quadrillion miles away, and the power of a GRB is still enough to destroy a planet. Mind blowing.

If you’ve ever had even a passing interest in astronomy, this is the time to get interested again. I picked up a telescope last year with my tax return and have been amazed at the quality of astronomical news available since I’ve rekindled that interest. Of course we all know the Hubble scope, but theres also stuff like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and a whole slew of other space-based telescopes. I would think this has to be one of the most exciting times in history for an astronomy fan to be alive. And with even more powerful telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope on the way, it’s only going to get more incredible.

Giving the series name “Mega Disasters” all new meaning.   Can you imagine the power necessary to cause a mass extinction from 6000 LIGHT YEARS away?  Actually, I can’t myself, but it’s gotta be a lot! Enough to make all our nukes going off at once look like a fart in a hurricane.  And that, for a brief moment, that gamma ray burst outshines the entirety of our cosmos, that is even more mind boggling.  I think that’s why astronomy is so fascinating, just about everything in it, just boggles the mind!

The Daily Galaxy has an interesting discussion about Fermi’s Paradox, asking why, in a universe so vast and numerous as our own, with estimates for life elsewhere seemingly so abundant, why don’t we find any evidence of this life? This leads to some pretty wildly interesting theories , such as perhaps a planet broadcasting it’s existence to the universe is bad for it’s long term health! Maybe it draws conquering aliens to them, or perhaps it’s a symptom of a larger problem, such as broadcasting a signal being a sign of a sufficiently advanced technological society, a society so advanced it usually creates their own future masters, such as nanites that take over society and enslave it’s creators, or a society that wipes itself out thru nuclear winter, etc.

A supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy 3C321 is bombarding it’s neighbor, a mere 20,000 light years away (about the distance for us to the center of our own galaxy), with massive amounts of radiation that would destroy the atmospheres of any planets unlucky enough to be caught in it’s wake. The galaxy is 1.4 Billion light years away, so we are watching this galaxy’s ancient past. I wonder what’s going on there at this moment? I can’t help but wonder if we’re watching the extinction of one, or even many, ancient civilizations? Barring the Stargate TV series being a documentary instead of science fiction, it seems it would be extremely hard for even vastly advanced civilizations to escape what seems a certain death. Are there beings in that galaxy right now unaware of this cosmic catastrophe that killed off their ancestors? Are we watching merely an interesting cosmic phenomenon, or a snuffing out of billions, or even trillions, of lives? The mind boggles ….

About 4 months ago I finally decided to plunk down the money for a good astronomical telescope, deciding on the Orion Skyquest XT6.   Over Labor Day weekend, I finally had a chance to take this scope with me to some real dark skies and take a look through it under ideal conditions! My targets were galaxies.  Specifically Andromeda as well as the major galaxies in Ursa Major.  The first galaxy I spotted through my scope was M82, known as the cigar galaxy because of it’s shape (the one on the right in the above image).  I knew where to look for it, but did not know what it looked like.  At first I wasn’t sure about what I was seeing, but after looking it up on Wikipedia, there was no doubt in my mind.  Through the scope the shape was very similar to this picture, but without color.

The big thrill was seeing, and being able to find, Andromeda.  That was my white whale as a kid, something I always set out to see, but never could find.  Mostly that was due to lack of preparation on my part, not really knowing where to look.   Basically, I’d just go outside and scan the skies with my binoculars, as opposed to consulting star maps, learning how to navigate the heavens, etc.  A soon to rise moon may have, I believe, made conditions less than ideal.  But it was still clearly visible through the scope, and even somewhat visible to the naked eye (came and went).   Basically a big big blurry spot, seeing it was more dramatic and thrilling than the description makes it sound.  Mostly, I guess, from knowing what it was and knowing I was viewing as many as a trillion suns at once.

I think I may have, for the first time, finally seen Andromeda in the night sky! As much time as I’ve spent looking at the stars over my lifetime, it really is something that it took me this long to find. Perhaps a bit anticlimactic, through binoculars, basically all I saw was a blur, sorta like the photo here from slooh.com, only much smaller. But still, the thought that that little blob has at least as many stars as all the stars in our sky, it really stokes the imagination …

Slooh, by the way, is way cool, an online telescope controlled by subscribers. $20 buys you 200 minutes of telescope viewing time, which works out to be quite a bit of time in actuality. Well worth it so far, I’ve found …

Wow, what an exciting looking telescope. Hubble was certainly one of the most significant things to happen to astronomy in our lifetimes, and it’s replacement sure looks impressive, a full 6 meters in diameter, while the old Hubble was only 2. Plus, it looks like this telescope uses many smaller mirrors together instead of just one big one. Hopefully that would reduce the chance of anything going wrong, as happened with Hubble when they sent it up and realized, to all our horror, that it was out of focus. Not repeating that will make us all very happy.