@Liljo
I was given a ten inch Dobsinian scope which I only used once to see if the mirror was collimated which it was, but now waiting for clear skies, been cloudy here for months. Astronomy is not such a big deal here🙂 I do have a 20X80 binoculars with solar filters so I can see sunspots.
@Kevin-Eleven
So you figure our future in space is space cities in orbit around some star or other, not necessarily Sol. Or not even in orbit, just on a million year cruise?
@sonhouse saidI would never book a million year cruise.
@Kevin-Eleven
So you figure our future in space is space cities in orbit around some star or other, not necessarily Sol. Or not even in orbit, just on a million year cruise?
Think of all the passenger locator forms you'd have to fill in
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Not an exoplanet, but I do believe the Webb will finally prove the existence and actually provide imaging of the long believed existence of Planet 9 (known by most theorists as "Planet X".
A little aged, but this is a good introductory article about this possible planet within our solar system:
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet-49523
@Liljo
The actual targets will be settled by a committee. For one thing, since we only know the general area such a planet would be so it would be up to other scopes to do a wider deeper look and if they peg it THEN Webb would take over but till then they already have a schedule of stars to look at.
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@sonhouse saidYou are correct. I shouldn’t have even hinted at the Webb being used to find it. Far to narrow a field of view for hunting targets. However, if it is actually located, the Webb could sure do some very interesting studies of it.
@Liljo
The actual targets will be settled by a committee. For one thing, since we only know the general area such a planet would be so it would be up to other scopes to do a wider deeper look and if they peg it THEN Webb would take over but till then they already have a schedule of stars to look at.
@contenchess saidPhysical resources are easily had, yes, but what if aliens were interested in living resources and they are not so easily had? Bad news for the Africans sold into slavery....
@Liljo
We can't go there and if they have the technology to come here it will be like Columbus and the Indians except this time we are the Indians.
(I stole that line from the movie "Battleship" ...I think 🤔)
Anyways...
If they come it will be for resources.
Moreover, New World Indian populations were 95% wiped out by the introduction of small pox. Europeans did not intend this; it happened more or less accidentally, though sheer carelessness and rapacity to get at physical resources. There is no reason to think aliens advanced enough to manage interstellar travel would consider h. saps. to be anything worth preserving or that aliens would have anything corresponding to human morality. They could be highly intelligent locusts which blow through the galaxy consuming everything in their path and leaving waste products and devastation behind.
@moonbus said"They could be highly intelligent locusts which blow through the galaxy consuming everything in their path and leaving waste products and devastation behind."
Physical resources are easily had, yes, but what if aliens were interested in living resources and they are not so easily had? Bad news for the Africans sold into slavery....
Moreover, New World Indian populations were 95% wiped out by the introduction of small pox. Europeans did not intend this; it happened more or less accidentally, though sheer carelessness and rapacity ...[text shortened]... ugh the galaxy consuming everything in their path and leaving waste products and devastation behind.
Have you been watching episodes of Star trek TNG?
A creature called the Chrystalline entity did just that.
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@moonbus saidThat's very unlikely to happen between species coming from another planet, though. We cannot even catch most infectious diseases from fish, except parasite worms; even less from plants. From a creature on another evolutionary tree altogether? Forget it.
Moreover, New World Indian populations were 95% wiped out by the introduction of small pox.
@moonbus saidIntelligence may be a road to a potential solution. I'm more worried about the locusts blowing through the galaxy consuming everything in their path which were operating on pure bug-like instincts and reflexes.
Physical resources are easily had, yes, but what if aliens were interested in living resources and they are not so easily had? Bad news for the Africans sold into slavery....
Moreover, New World Indian populations were 95% wiped out by the introduction of small pox. Europeans did not intend this; it happened more or less accidentally, though sheer carelessness and rapacity ...[text shortened]... ugh the galaxy consuming everything in their path and leaving waste products and devastation behind.
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@wildgrass said....makes me wonder....just how wild is that grass?
Intelligence may be a road to a potential solution. I'm more worried about the locusts blowing through the galaxy consuming everything in their path which were operating on pure bug-like instincts and reflexes.
I am not worried about any alien invasions. I am, however, worried about the infestation of crabgrass in my lawn this spring.