Seriously just WOW
 

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170201.html

I'm old. I remember when they had to map Mars with radar because they hadn't come up with a space-worthy camera. I remember when exoplanets were theories based on anomalies in gravitational mathematics.

This just blows me away.

And Pluto was a planet.

I'm with you. That is pretty amazing.

I guess the Trump gag orders didn't extend to APOD. That's good.

This black hole has the mass of 20 Billion of our Suns. The tiny dot in the middle is our galaxy. Good video here.

Whoa!!! Very cool.

My fave video.

damn

footie - wrong thread, I'm guessing.

It certainly seems so, and I was perfectly sober. Maybe one of our mods can pin a note on its jacket and send it home.


In other news, here is the black hole comparison guy's other awesome comparison video. Although the intro is a bit superfluous.

I sent it over to see Uncle Donald.

Does anyone else find black holes just a little terrifying?

I mean, I don't expect to ever encounter one in my lifetime, so it's not a real threat to me. But can you imagine?

Nope, it's just another way to die, and pretty far down the list of possibility's. But it does make good nightmare fuel. ;)

I find the whole business fascinating and circuit overloading. Especially the second video where he compares the sizes of the planets/moons of our system and then moves on to our galaxy, then other galaxies, then our universe, then multiverses.

Universes of galaxies, then galaxies of universes, and multiverses of galaxies of universes, then universes of galaxies of multiverses, then galaxies of universes of multiverses...


It's turtles all the way down.

All the way down.



I watched the graphic/zoom/multiplier/squarer and stacker sequence to get to 20 billion.

Mind blown. The sun is ALREADY GI-FUCKING-NORMOUS. I followed it, but ... I don't think I grasp it.

I doubt anyone does. if you think of how populated the subatomic world is with stuff and then you think about how populated the whole clump of multiverses is with stuff, and then you multiply them, well, it's pretty much paralyzing.

The problem I have is with the location of the universe. In what space does it exist and what is its relationship to that space?

I also think, in a macrocosm/microcosm model that the universe's birth, the big bang, is an example of systole/diastole. The big bang was the ejecta thrown from a black hole. Eventually, all the new black holes will eventually coalesce, creating another ultimate, BABH (bigg ass black hole) and the whole universe will get sucked into it and ejected out the other side.

Inhale, exhale.

I am switching now from the philosopher drug to the sled dog drug, but I sincerely enjoy your musings, footfootfoot.

More later, I hope.