@Fraser, By examining the spectrum of light from a galaxy, you can determine whether the galaxy is moving towards or away from Earth, and how fast. You probably heard the expression 'red shift' meaning the direction of the galaxy is moving away from us and also the greater the shift of the basic element's absorption lines found in it's light's spectrum resolution the greater it's speed of doing so. The Andromeda galaxy is 'blue shifted' and heading towards us.
34:08 brutal honesty: always a scientist in my eyes bro. This is why I love youtube, amazing manufactured channel with incredible content, and yet there is some personal stuff here that makes the cut. An interesting portal in the the psychology of Fraser: good cut.
The best content out there hands down! I love the background music and the work done on the graphics as you answer the questions, this is really worth much more praise. Thank you!
Fraser, you are one of my favorite science communicators on YT. Thank you so much for all you do! Here's a like and comment in return for the care and feeding of the Almighty Algorithm. 🙏 ❤️❤️
Those were some pretty excellent questions. And Fraser answered them with such finesse. I wonder if he missed his calling. He could be a great teacher or even proffessor, imo.
Huge fan of Revelation Space! If you liked the first one, then I highly recommend the rest of the series! The first one was decent, but they get much better in the middle of the series.
Tatooine was the winner in my estimation, possessing as it does, usefully, the superficial and the complex. The Asteroid Belt is what remains of the Sun's ring (planets too not altogether dissimilar).
Hi Frazer, i'd like to share an observation that has to do with a *distractin effect of background. However first let me assure you that I nevertheless love your videos dearly and nothing can stop me keeping watching! What happened: The background music kicked me out after 1 minute. That had nothing to do with my music style preferences. Since the cause is not well known, a description of the issue: A hearing impairment effects the brain's ability to isolate the spoken word from additional noises present at the same time. That can make listening challenging, annoying or impossible. The closer the background noise is to pitch, volume and rhythm of the speaker the stronger the effect. This phenomenon effects many. You probably know people who complain they only hear indistinguishable noise at gatherings or loud public venues. I'd like to share an observation: I understand that the music is intended to create a certain atmosphere. And despite my problem, I think it fits that purpose very well! What I observed is that in videos where the music is restricted to points which introduce a new video segment, or paragraph intros of the narration, I can "retain" this atmosphere! Another factor is that the background has a significantly lower volume than the narration. In this video you've done that, so I count that one on my ears having a bad day;-)
Naboo was my favorite. Question for the next Q and A: Because every two body system has L points, is it possible to make use of the moon's L2 point? Maybe a radio telescope that is blocking unwanted noise from the Earth?? (Sorry to add another "Lagrange point" question to the pile haha)
When China put a lander on the far side of the Moon, they put a relay satellite in a halo orbit about the Earth-Moon L2. The halo orbit radius was larger than the Moon's radius, so there was always line-of-sight to it from the Earth (and from it to the far side of the Moon).
On the question about being hit by a meteor on the moon: What about bringing an air defense system to the moon for that purpose? I can imagine that modern radar tech could detect a meteor in time and then launch a missile "against" it? When it only occurs very rarely, i think this could be an option? What do you think?
Coruscant - Interesting to hear the answer and with James Webb likely to discover other examples a good introduction to what may come in the near future
Mustafa Coming up with strategies to overcome problems like this is half of the excitement of taking on these challengies like setting up a research station on the moon. ? Please do an in depth video on Uranus, its fascinating how its oriented and how thongs orbit it
That’s the premise of the predicted planet 9. There are a few TNOs whose orbits are aligned and that’s the basis for predicting a roughly Neptune-sized very distant planet with a highly eccentric orbit.
Most interesting question/anser :Bespin. Follow-up question: What kind of pressures would the diver experience if they went diving below the ice? The gravity on these moons are a fraction of earths, so, just wondering what depth one would need to go to get to earth equivalent.
Love the content. BTW. During Dagobah, DR asked How can we determine how Fast an object is travelling away from us. He was asking more about how they measure red shift. Not what the object was doing while the light was traveling.
Hey Faser, I want to follow up on the "rockoon" question from QA206. You are correct that the hard part of getting in to orbit is achieving high velocities, however, if a balloon or some other form of lighter-than-air ship can carry a vehicle above most of the atmosphere, the main benefit is not so much the lack of air resistance, but the fact you are not fighting gravity losses and the rocket equation doesnt apply. Instead of having to accelerate quickly to reduce gravity losses, you can accelerate veeery slowly and something like ion propulsion might be viable, even allowing you to use solar panels for energy and air molecules as propellant to accelerate gently. Maybe it would take weeks or months to get anywhere near orbital velocities, and you may still need a an actual rocket for final insertion burn, but wouldnt that be far more efficient? I imagine a ion engine on a giant inflatable lighter-than-air flying wing, allowing you to convert speed in to lift and skip off the upper layers of atmosphere, maybe dipping in and out of the atmosphere as you build up speed (and shed heat and gather propellant). Have it covered with solar panels. The only real issue I can see is friction heating, though Im not sure how much of a problem that is at very high altitudes.
Puzzling question: Say there was a universe identical to ours but differed in that it was heavily populated by primordial black holes of various sizes and with some made of antimatter. What would be some observational differences between the black holes of matter and those of antimatter as they interact with the rest of the universe? In particular should we assume annihilation radiation will not escape an event horizon and therefore the mass of an antimatter black hole should also increase as it absorbs regular matter?
The Moon is the jumping off point for the exploration and utilization of resources for expansion into our Solar System. H3 for instance. We cannot find much of it here but we have identified a LOT of it is on the Moon.
Naboo. Its actually not a good example to say that solar photons experience zero time traveling to Earth. This is because the rest frame of a photon doesn't actually exist. Such a rest frame would have the photon both at rest AND moving at c (light moves at c in all rest frames,) which is an unresolvable paradox. Antimatter annihilation produces gamma rays which are nigh-on impossible to focus and control. It may release a lot of energy but in random directions - not a good power source for a spaceship. Fusion energy may be as good as it gets.
i have a question : we know that the moon is slowly moving away from us more and more every year , would putting space stations or mining the moon change the rate of it moving away from us ? also would the moon ever stop being tile locked to the earth and how would that change the effects it has on earth? thanks love your channel love this show !
so glad you got to read Revelation Space! I'm a huge fan of Reynolds, so I recommend the entire series, but one of his standalones, House of Suns, is my all time favorite hard sci-fi book. Check it out yal!
I seen a gravitational lensed photo but there were 3-4 parts of it, i said those are different points in time for that galaxy, literally time machine we have here. I can see before when the dinos are rolers and when there no longer. (if it were our galaxy)
Book Recommendation. 'Cosmosapiens' By John Hands. Not a book you can read only once but it had me engrossed. He challenges the dogma that's crept into todays science subjects like astronomy, cosmology, biology and examines where these subjects dare I say, fail and he provides possible solutions to inherent problems. As always I enjoyed your video and a Happy New Year to you and yours. Lang may yer lum reek.
Hi Fraser, love your shows. What are limits of ultra-high power energy sources & lasers on the moon. Could these propel manned interstellar ships, heat mars habitable zones/melt ice on Mars & perhaps break up approaching astroids?
Hi Fraser, love your space bytes. In a quest to understand Dark Energy, could it be related to Gravity? Specifically, is it possible calculate the friction (conversion) of energy created from the kinetic energy of two attracting gravity fields (or wells) that are contacting (overlapping) eachother?
Just watched, great stuff. There is something I don't really get when thinking about the expansion of the universe. If things further away are moving faster, and the further away the more we look back in time, doesn't that mean the expansion is slowing down, not speeding up. ?
Yavin: My thought is that if we need building materials to get to Mars or use on Mars, we would be smart to have s mine / refinery that is free of an atmosphere and most of the gravity - less energy to get those materials to other locations.
some book recommendations i got from steve gibson from the security now podcast (not about computers): - currently reading the silver ships series by scott jucha (20 books) - the frontiers saga by ryk brown. he plans to write 5 seasons with 15 books each, or 75 books in total. currently in the middle of the 3rd season - books by michael mccollum: antares series, gibraltar series (3 books each), euclid's wall, sails of tau ceti, lost earth, ... - project hail mary by andy weir - the rho agenda and 2 follow-up series (3 books each) by richard phillips - the lost fleet series (AFAIK 6 books) by jack campbell - some books by daniel suarez - peter f. hamilton: commonwealth series, the void series and others - the bobiverse series (currently AFAIK 4 books) by dennis taylor - the expanse series by james s.a. corey (at least 7 books) - the honor harrington series by david weber ok, that should keep everyone busy for a while.
Laser propulsion seems like it could work in some cases. Laser is an interesting way to transfer energy from Earth to space quickly. I had thought before that a combination laser/ion drive (using the laser energy to accelerate heavy ions) could be useful for jetting around the inner solar system. Would need line of sight from Earth, though. (Or wherever the laser is located.) And, would also need a source of ions. So, maybe some craft that's designed to hop from asteroid to asteroid, collecting whatever matter is available and accelerating it with laser energy from Earth. Also, lasers could be useful for transferring large amounts of energy to craft in Earth's orbit, like powering a space factory/3D printer, for example.
A large advantage to launching a rocket at high altitude is the reduced air pressure increases your rocket's specific impulse considerably; as much as 100 seconds.
Not a book but a comics series, as a kid in the eighties I loved reading Yoko Tsuno from Roger Leloup. I forgot about her , but I noticed there are still albums made. I wonder if still find them as great as I did back then.
A follow up on 'Endor' and the Photonic drive: What if a small spaceprobe was made with a long lived RTG and a Laserdrive? Sure, perhaps only a few hundred watts and a couple of hundred kilos of spacecraft being pushed by micronewtons(?). But over years and years of pushing, shouldn't the speed slowly add up?
25:00 We have no idea but I would lean towards not-malevolent - if they have the tech for interstellar travel they probably have the tech to get whatever resources they want without the hassle of even bothering insignificant natives like ...yourselves. There are many, many reasons to go out there and explore other than resource exploitation, ahh sometimes these small-minded humans do not understand the pull of knowledge and curiosity.
Excellent channel! Is it theoretically possible to create an engine for a spacecraft that captures virtual particles as they come into existence, but before they annihilate each other, and use them as a type of fuel?
Hi Fraser, I love your channel. Here's a question for you... let's say we wanted to transmit the essence of a human mind to a receiver in another star system. How long would it take?
A photonic drive powered by 100% conversion of antimatter / matter to gamma rays would work, but advanced technology would be required to create something that would convert the reaction to gamma photons instead of to heat, blast, etc.
I really liked when you declined to answer on the question about conspiracy theories, I've seen that. I believe that everyone who is following you closely would be pretty disappointed but the way you handle it is the correct way 👏 Basically we believe in science, we all know what it takes to make real discoveries and confirmation of every discovery is needed by the scientific community so you need to lay down clear evidences or you just say it's hypothesis based on this, that and so on and it has to fit in to all other confirmed discoveries and even then it's not evidence until we have the evidence so yeah, keep it up. Maybe you can explain next time when something like that pops up how discoveries are made and what makes real science so people can understand and maybe, just maybe we can win another believer in science and not in the conspiracy theories.
Question about travel to other stars. Since the speed is only relative, why is it restricted to the speed of light. Theoretically a space ship could accelerate for ever.
Here's a stretch on the "Rockoon". What if the balloon is a LONG double hulled dirigible, with a multi kilometer long rail gun? Divisible lifts the rail gun above most of the atmosphere, the rail gun applies horizontal velocity to the payload. Fundamental question is whether this system is better by cost, payload to LEO, reliability, than a first stage rocket. My suspicion is no, especially with re operable first stages.
Bespin. Just as a follow up would the inertia of the ice shell of a moon such as Europa result in the ice shell spinning at a different rate than the core of the moon?
hi fraser, when do you think we will see the first person born in outerspace or mars assuming its possible? surely that would be a pivotal moment in human history.
Kamino: will we ever see a day that ion engines become powerful enough to be the main form of propulsion for space flight? and if so, how long do you think it will be until it becomes viable to use those same engines on earth or within other planets atmospheres?
Here’s a question. Is the expansion of the universe the actual cause of time? Seems to me that without expansion, like say travelling at the speed of light, time stops.
I find your channel the most informative and detailed with commonsense thinking. But if we were an advanced space faring species traveling to a destination several light years from us. How would we avoid or detect a newly born sun that just developed that is in our flight path that was not there when we left Earth? Since we travel a sunlight speed?
Hey, Fraser. A though occurs... If two black holes, by unimaginable fluke had precisely opposite spins, and then they merged, would that cancel out? What would a black hole that doesn't spin be and look like?
I think about the number black holes that are near the center of our galaxy. My question how does it work IF the combined mass of those black holes out-weighed our supermassive black hole (I think its eating them all).
Maybe I'm naive/unlettered but I found the characters in a Revelation Space unbelievably psychopathic. Everybody else seems to love them! They aren't like Dune's Machiavellian power brokers. They just delight in torturing each other for no apparent reason. There must have been a pre-alpha melding plague that re-wired everybody's brains or something.
Fraser, I do agree that there's no good reason for ordinary human beings to live on Mars permanently. So thanks for putting that out there. However there are some questions regarding a permanent base or bases. Firstly, Mars is going to do you permanent harm. Those that explore Mars will do so knowing that it will do them harm and will give informed consent to this. However, normal ethics would dictate that no one goes there twice - or stays between mission cycles. The timing is such that if you had a permanent base there may be periods between missions where the base is uninhabited. It's also complicated by the fact that you probably want to explore more than one region. Meaning quite likely you'll see a progression of one-mission bases.
@16:16 [Naboo] The observed velocity of the photon does't enter into it. To a photon, there is no time. Time doesn't exist. _Ergo:_ A photon can go through a _slower_ medium and emerge after more _observer time_ having elapsed, but the photon would still not sense any time as having elapsed.
Question about the twin paradox: If Alice remains on Earth, always experiencing the same acceleration (10 m/s²), and Bob goes on a trip, but his ship always maintain the same acceleration (10 m/s²) for the entire trip, holding a speed close to the speed of light for the majority of the time, when Bobs meets Alice again, will be any time dilation between the two?
If they meet again, it means Bob turned around at some point. Bob will be younger. The dilation of the twin paradox is due to motion, which is much larger than that of acceleration. The passage of time on Earth is only a tiny bit slower than the passage of time in deep space -- not enough to shift radio frequencies enough to change their tuning (that's only happened once, and it was due to large relative velocities).
@@JohnDlugosz I watched a video from Sabine Hossenfelder where she explains that the dilation of time is due the acceleration, and not the relative velocities between the two observers!
'NABOO' -interesting to dream. Does a critter in the ocean notice when a tsunami passes? seems like a similarity to photons. as does electrons (packets) bumping along a wire? Maybe only when forced onto shore, but bouncing along the bottom... how hard? they say magnetism and electrics or gravity and time concur. i used think of electrons pumped through a motor spun it and you must recapture the water to complete the loop. So jumping through ratcheting or ahead in the stream.... oh boy
The Sun has rings ! Tau Ceti has rings ! Many Stars have rings ! If a Star does NOT have rings, then there won't be life in that system ! Rings create a cool Oasis for life ! DML .
What speeds and distances are required before time dilation becomes would become noticeable to human perception, without the use of careful measurements?
Well, consider that when movies are shown on PAL television, they are sped up about 4% and people don't notice. So let's say a dilation factor of 10% is needed to be noticeable casually. That would be 86.6% the speed of light. Since we're approximating, round that to 85.
Isn’t there a slight contradiction between the answers given to both Revenant RV at 25:58 and Sci-fi Nerd at 30:06 regarding a chance encounter with space faring alien species and the probability that their motivations towards us being malevolent rather than benevolent due to their expansionist nature demonstrated by the fact that they’re a long way from home. But then describe the reasons for our own expansion into the void as one that needs no real justification, why climb a mountain, because it’s there. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Isn’t it more likely that this holds true for them too.
@@frasercain I did think of that as I was typing out my post, but it had taken me so long to type it on my phone, with these eyes, that I just had to post it anyway. xD
Since electric and Plasma propulsion is making progress, could the Bussard Ramjet RAIR (Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket) engine be feasible in the solar system?
Question: With regard to sideways to orbit. Normally a launch is mostly horizontal to get to orbital speed. Would it be possible or worthwhile (fuel costs) to use a ballistic trajectory such that the return or falling part of the path would be outside of the Earth's atmosphere and the gravity exerted on the satellite would add the speed needed to acquire orbital velocity? Could the difference be made up with higher efficiency plasma drives or even solar sails to save on mass/fuel? That is could the velocity increase after apogee be enhanced using these devices so that orbit could be achieved with less fuel than a direct orbital insertion? I am guessing it boils down to how far an object has to be away from Earth so that the acceleration brings the object up to orbital speed before it hits Earth. Because at apogee speed is minimum (not zero because there is some motion added to make sure the fall is not merely straight down but beyond the side of Earth's disk), the fall would have to be enough to add almost all of the velocity needed for orbit. It would also be a question of if the final orbit was leading or trailing Earth's motion. Leading would require more fuel in the first place but would also have added more velocity. (I am not actually sure that is true)
I'm bit confused by the photon drive idea. If photons are massless and they are being fired out the back of your space craft without hitting anything where does the equal and opposite reaction fit in. I understand the idea of photons being fired at your spacecraft hitting a solar or laser sail imparting momentum. just dont see how they would produce thrust this way. i get ion drives as they have mass.
@Fraser,
By examining the spectrum of light from a galaxy, you can determine whether the galaxy is moving towards or away from Earth, and how fast.
You probably heard the expression 'red shift' meaning the direction of the galaxy is moving away from us and also the greater the shift of the basic element's absorption lines found in it's light's spectrum resolution the greater it's speed of doing so.
The Andromeda galaxy is 'blue shifted' and heading towards us.
The work of a journalist today is more important than ever before
34:08 brutal honesty: always a scientist in my eyes bro. This is why I love youtube, amazing manufactured channel with incredible content, and yet there is some personal stuff here that makes the cut. An interesting portal in the the psychology of Fraser: good cut.
You've been my space news guy for the last 20 years, heres to 20 more!
WOW that's amazing. Fraser has been my space guy for the last 20 days! I'm excited to see what comes next for him and his team!
@@handsomeblackmuscle9845black Hercules? Lol
A few months now and he has quickly become my main content binge on UA-cam. Space is everything.
The best content out there hands down! I love the background music and the work done on the graphics as you answer the questions, this is really worth much more praise.
Thank you!
Thanks
the Coruscant question/answer is so cool. we have a prediction we will see a supernova, how awesome is that
Oh, I do find value in you podcasts here, man. I don't engage much, but I do enjoy listening to the news, interviews and opinions... keep it up.
Thank you Fraser, Happy New Year Brother, much love from the UK
Fraser, you are one of my favorite science communicators on YT. Thank you so much for all you do! Here's a like and comment in return for the care and feeding of the Almighty Algorithm. 🙏
❤️❤️
Tatooine!
I love accretion disks. That picture collection is mind blowing.
Those were some pretty excellent questions.
And Fraser answered them with such finesse.
I wonder if he missed his calling.
He could be a great teacher or even proffessor, imo.
Huge fan of Revelation Space! If you liked the first one, then I highly recommend the rest of the series! The first one was decent, but they get much better in the middle of the series.
I thought the story was over and then I realized there are three more!
Tatooine was the winner in my estimation, possessing as it does, usefully, the superficial and the complex. The Asteroid Belt is what remains of the Sun's ring (planets too not altogether dissimilar).
Hi Frazer, i'd like to share an observation that has to do with a *distractin effect of background. However first let me assure you that I nevertheless love your videos dearly and nothing can stop me keeping watching!
What happened: The background music kicked me out after 1 minute. That had nothing to do with my music style preferences. Since the cause is not well known, a description of the issue:
A hearing impairment effects the brain's ability to isolate the spoken word from additional noises present at the same time. That can make listening challenging, annoying or impossible. The closer the background noise is to pitch, volume and rhythm of the speaker the stronger the effect. This phenomenon effects many. You probably know people who complain they only hear indistinguishable noise at gatherings or loud public venues. I'd like to share an observation: I understand that the music is intended to create a certain atmosphere. And despite my problem, I think it fits that purpose very well! What I observed is that in videos where the music is restricted to points which introduce a new video segment, or paragraph intros of the narration, I can "retain" this atmosphere! Another factor is that the background has a significantly lower volume than the narration. In this video you've done that, so I count that one on my ears having a bad day;-)
Naboo was my favorite.
Question for the next Q and A:
Because every two body system has L points, is it possible to make use of the moon's L2 point? Maybe a radio telescope that is blocking unwanted noise from the Earth?? (Sorry to add another "Lagrange point" question to the pile haha)
When China put a lander on the far side of the Moon, they put a relay satellite in a halo orbit about the Earth-Moon L2. The halo orbit radius was larger than the Moon's radius, so there was always line-of-sight to it from the Earth (and from it to the far side of the Moon).
Coruscant!
Thank you, always great videos!
Coruscant - fascinating question and answer, I didn't know this was possible!
Thank you for the book recommendation Fraser, I've just bought it! 👍
On the question about being hit by a meteor on the moon: What about bringing an air defense system to the moon for that purpose? I can imagine that modern radar tech could detect a meteor in time and then launch a missile "against" it? When it only occurs very rarely, i think this could be an option? What do you think?
Really enjoy these episodes. Most of the stuff you talk about goes way over my head but still really enjoy.
Coruscant - Interesting to hear the answer and with James Webb likely to discover other examples a good introduction to what may come in the near future
Mustafa
Coming up with strategies to overcome problems like this is half of the excitement of taking on these challengies like setting up a research station on the moon.
? Please do an in depth video on Uranus, its fascinating how its oriented and how thongs orbit it
coruscant - just such a beautiful idea
Is it possible that a captured planet could lurk in the Ort Cloud? Also, could we determine this mathematically?
That’s the premise of the predicted planet 9. There are a few TNOs whose orbits are aligned and that’s the basis for predicting a roughly Neptune-sized very distant planet with a highly eccentric orbit.
I vote for all answers! Thank you for doing this, you are amazing.
Are the asteroid belt and kiuper belts considered rings around the sun if looking from another star ?
Most interesting question/anser :Bespin.
Follow-up question: What kind of pressures would the diver experience if they went diving below the ice? The gravity on these moons are a fraction of earths, so, just wondering what depth one would need to go to get to earth equivalent.
Love the content. BTW.
During Dagobah, DR asked How can we determine how Fast an object is travelling away from us.
He was asking more about how they measure red shift. Not what the object was doing while the light was traveling.
Hey, so cool, thanks Fraser for featuring my question 😁 obviously I vote Bespin…
lol you go, John
Never voted before but Coruscant was fascinating!
Naboo!! I love that answer, I can explain this to my friends
Hey Faser,
I want to follow up on the "rockoon" question from QA206. You are correct that the hard part of getting in to orbit is achieving high velocities, however, if a balloon or some other form of lighter-than-air ship can carry a vehicle above most of the atmosphere, the main benefit is not so much the lack of air resistance, but the fact you are not fighting gravity losses and the rocket equation doesnt apply. Instead of having to accelerate quickly to reduce gravity losses, you can accelerate veeery slowly and something like ion propulsion might be viable, even allowing you to use solar panels for energy and air molecules as propellant to accelerate gently. Maybe it would take weeks or months to get anywhere near orbital velocities, and you may still need a an actual rocket for final insertion burn, but wouldnt that be far more efficient? I imagine a ion engine on a giant inflatable lighter-than-air flying wing, allowing you to convert speed in to lift and skip off the upper layers of atmosphere, maybe dipping in and out of the atmosphere as you build up speed (and shed heat and gather propellant). Have it covered with solar panels. The only real issue I can see is friction heating, though Im not sure how much of a problem that is at very high altitudes.
Naboo. I never would have wondered that. But, I love it.
Puzzling question:
Say there was a universe identical to ours but differed in that it was heavily populated by primordial black holes of various sizes and with some made of antimatter.
What would be some observational differences between the black holes of matter and those of antimatter as they interact with the rest of the universe?
In particular should we assume annihilation radiation will not escape an event horizon and therefore the mass of an antimatter black hole should also increase as it absorbs regular matter?
I appreciate your journalism very much and I appreciate your positive, practical approach. Thank you. Vote = Mandalore
Naboo. Top and deep question! 👍🏻
Coruscant for sure! 👏👏
The Moon is the jumping off point for the exploration and utilization of resources for expansion into our Solar System. H3 for instance. We cannot find much of it here but we have identified a LOT of it is on the Moon.
27:31 that performer is making a lot of interesting acting choices.
Naboo. Its actually not a good example to say that solar photons experience zero time traveling to Earth. This is because the rest frame of a photon doesn't actually exist. Such a rest frame would have the photon both at rest AND moving at c (light moves at c in all rest frames,) which is an unresolvable paradox.
Antimatter annihilation produces gamma rays which are nigh-on impossible to focus and control. It may release a lot of energy but in random directions - not a good power source for a spaceship. Fusion energy may be as good as it gets.
i have a question : we know that the moon is slowly moving away from us more and more every year , would putting space stations or mining the moon change the rate of it moving away from us ? also would the moon ever stop being tile locked to the earth and how would that change the effects it has on earth?
thanks love your channel love this show !
so glad you got to read Revelation Space! I'm a huge fan of Reynolds, so I recommend the entire series, but one of his standalones, House of Suns, is my all time favorite hard sci-fi book. Check it out yal!
I seen a gravitational lensed photo but there were 3-4 parts of it, i said those are different points in time for that galaxy, literally time machine we have here. I can see before when the dinos are rolers and when there no longer. (if it were our galaxy)
Book Recommendation.
'Cosmosapiens'
By John Hands.
Not a book you can read only once but it had me engrossed.
He challenges the dogma that's crept into todays science subjects like astronomy, cosmology, biology and examines where these subjects dare I say, fail and he provides possible solutions to inherent problems.
As always I enjoyed your video and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
Lang may yer lum reek.
Best question: Naboo ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Hi Fraser, love your shows. What are limits of ultra-high power energy sources & lasers on the moon. Could these propel manned interstellar ships, heat mars habitable zones/melt ice on Mars & perhaps break up approaching astroids?
Hi Fraser, love your space bytes. In a quest to understand Dark Energy, could it be related to Gravity? Specifically, is it possible calculate the friction (conversion) of energy created from the kinetic energy of two attracting gravity fields (or wells) that are contacting (overlapping) eachother?
Just watched, great stuff. There is something I don't really get when thinking about the expansion of the universe. If things further away are moving faster, and the further away the more we look back in time, doesn't that mean the expansion is slowing down, not speeding up. ?
Yavin: My thought is that if we need building materials to get to Mars or use on Mars, we would be smart to have s mine / refinery that is free of an atmosphere and most of the gravity - less energy to get those materials to other locations.
some book recommendations i got from steve gibson from the security now podcast (not about computers):
- currently reading the silver ships series by scott jucha (20 books)
- the frontiers saga by ryk brown. he plans to write 5 seasons with 15 books each, or 75 books in total. currently in the middle of the 3rd season
- books by michael mccollum: antares series, gibraltar series (3 books each), euclid's wall, sails of tau ceti, lost earth, ...
- project hail mary by andy weir
- the rho agenda and 2 follow-up series (3 books each) by richard phillips
- the lost fleet series (AFAIK 6 books) by jack campbell
- some books by daniel suarez
- peter f. hamilton: commonwealth series, the void series and others
- the bobiverse series (currently AFAIK 4 books) by dennis taylor
- the expanse series by james s.a. corey (at least 7 books)
- the honor harrington series by david weber
ok, that should keep everyone busy for a while.
Larry Niven wrote two novels about a star with a ring so dense it had a breathable atmosphere: The Integral Trees; and The Smoke Ring.
Coruscant was great!
Laser propulsion seems like it could work in some cases. Laser is an interesting way to transfer energy from Earth to space quickly. I had thought before that a combination laser/ion drive (using the laser energy to accelerate heavy ions) could be useful for jetting around the inner solar system. Would need line of sight from Earth, though. (Or wherever the laser is located.) And, would also need a source of ions. So, maybe some craft that's designed to hop from asteroid to asteroid, collecting whatever matter is available and accelerating it with laser energy from Earth.
Also, lasers could be useful for transferring large amounts of energy to craft in Earth's orbit, like powering a space factory/3D printer, for example.
A large advantage to launching a rocket at high altitude is the reduced air pressure increases your rocket's specific impulse considerably; as much as 100 seconds.
Not a book but a comics series, as a kid in the eighties I loved reading Yoko Tsuno from Roger Leloup. I forgot about her , but I noticed there are still albums made. I wonder if still find them as great as I did back then.
A follow up on 'Endor' and the Photonic drive:
What if a small spaceprobe was made with a long lived RTG and a Laserdrive? Sure, perhaps only a few hundred watts and a couple of hundred kilos of spacecraft being pushed by micronewtons(?). But over years and years of pushing, shouldn't the speed slowly add up?
25:00 We have no idea but I would lean towards not-malevolent - if they have the tech for interstellar travel they probably have the tech to get whatever resources they want without the hassle of even bothering insignificant natives like ...yourselves. There are many, many reasons to go out there and explore other than resource exploitation, ahh sometimes these small-minded humans do not understand the pull of knowledge and curiosity.
The asteroid belt is a ring around our star
Excellent channel! Is it theoretically possible to create an engine for a spacecraft that captures virtual particles as they come into existence, but before they annihilate each other, and use them as a type of fuel?
I so enjoy your channel.
Thanks a lot!
Hi Fraser, I love your channel. Here's a question for you... let's say we wanted to transmit the essence of a human mind to a receiver in another star system. How long would it take?
Doesn't our Sun technically have rings? (for example, the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt)
Can we calculate how large the moon around Saturn would have been, if we add up all the mass in the rings?
A photonic drive powered by 100% conversion of antimatter / matter to gamma rays would work, but advanced technology would be required to create something that would convert the reaction to gamma photons instead of to heat, blast, etc.
Tatooine. What is the asteroid belt if non a thin ring?
I really liked when you declined to answer on the question about conspiracy theories, I've seen that. I believe that everyone who is following you closely would be pretty disappointed but the way you handle it is the correct way 👏
Basically we believe in science, we all know what it takes to make real discoveries and confirmation of every discovery is needed by the scientific community so you need to lay down clear evidences or you just say it's hypothesis based on this, that and so on and it has to fit in to all other confirmed discoveries and even then it's not evidence until we have the evidence so yeah, keep it up. Maybe you can explain next time when something like that pops up how discoveries are made and what makes real science so people can understand and maybe, just maybe we can win another believer in science and not in the conspiracy theories.
revelation space is freaking fantastic !
The Kuiper and asteroid belt are rings around our sun.
Question about travel to other stars. Since the speed is only relative, why is it restricted to the speed of light. Theoretically a space ship could accelerate for ever.
What is loosing energy to power tidal flexing of Jupiter's moons?
What is the end state and how long will it take?
Here's a stretch on the "Rockoon".
What if the balloon is a LONG double hulled dirigible, with a multi kilometer long rail gun? Divisible lifts the rail gun above most of the atmosphere, the rail gun applies horizontal velocity to the payload. Fundamental question is whether this system is better by cost, payload to LEO, reliability, than a first stage rocket. My suspicion is no, especially with re operable first stages.
was there no Q&A last week? I feel like there was a live version, but no edited version showed up later.
30:50 🎶"Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain, why is he climbing a mountain?
To hug the mountain!"🎶
Bespin. Just as a follow up would the inertia of the ice shell of a moon such as Europa result in the ice shell spinning at a different rate than the core of the moon?
It would be cool if we could send some tardigrades to a protoplanetary disc to seed it with life.
hi fraser, when do you think we will see the first person born in outerspace or mars assuming its possible? surely that would be a pivotal moment in human history.
Kamino: will we ever see a day that ion engines become powerful enough to be the main form of propulsion for space flight? and if so, how long do you think it will be until it becomes viable to use those same engines on earth or within other planets atmospheres?
Endor: a photon rocket is the highest specific impulse... but _reflecting_ a photon gives you double that.
I’d use the laser to initiate the intensity needed to get ions moving with an ion chamber.
Here’s a question. Is the expansion of the universe the actual cause of time? Seems to me that without expansion, like say travelling at the speed of light, time stops.
I find your channel the most informative and detailed with commonsense thinking. But if we were an advanced space faring species traveling to a destination several light years from us. How would we avoid or detect a newly born sun that just developed that is in our flight path that was not there when we left Earth? Since we travel a sunlight speed?
Hey, Fraser. A though occurs... If two black holes, by unimaginable fluke had precisely opposite spins, and then they merged, would that cancel out? What would a black hole that doesn't spin be and look like?
Obviously it's so unlikely as to be safe to discard out of hand, but as a thought experiment?
Air-burst detonations are move devastating then land bursts.
I think about the number black holes that are near the center of our galaxy. My question how does it work IF the combined mass of those black holes out-weighed our supermassive black hole (I think its eating them all).
Hey Fraser are you going to be attending the Cosmic Summit in June in Asheville North Carolina? I'll be there.
Maybe I'm naive/unlettered but I found the characters in a Revelation Space unbelievably psychopathic. Everybody else seems to love them!
They aren't like Dune's Machiavellian power brokers. They just delight in torturing each other for no apparent reason. There must have been a pre-alpha melding plague that re-wired everybody's brains or something.
Fraser, I do agree that there's no good reason for ordinary human beings to live on Mars permanently. So thanks for putting that out there. However there are some questions regarding a permanent base or bases. Firstly, Mars is going to do you permanent harm. Those that explore Mars will do so knowing that it will do them harm and will give informed consent to this. However, normal ethics would dictate that no one goes there twice - or stays between mission cycles. The timing is such that if you had a permanent base there may be periods between missions where the base is uninhabited. It's also complicated by the fact that you probably want to explore more than one region. Meaning quite likely you'll see a progression of one-mission bases.
Are Stargate cartouche symbols part of Unicode?
Did life near geothermal vents develop independently of life that we see today? If not, how did life survive the inhospitable journey to these vents?
@16:16 [Naboo] The observed velocity of the photon does't enter into it. To a photon, there is no time. Time doesn't exist.
_Ergo:_ A photon can go through a _slower_ medium and emerge after more _observer time_ having elapsed, but the photon would still not sense any time as having elapsed.
Is or could JWST be used to find Planet 9, and has there been any further development on finding it?
Question about the twin paradox:
If Alice remains on Earth, always experiencing the same acceleration (10 m/s²), and Bob goes on a trip, but his ship always maintain the same acceleration (10 m/s²) for the entire trip, holding a speed close to the speed of light for the majority of the time, when Bobs meets Alice again, will be any time dilation between the two?
If they meet again, it means Bob turned around at some point. Bob will be younger. The dilation of the twin paradox is due to motion, which is much larger than that of acceleration. The passage of time on Earth is only a tiny bit slower than the passage of time in deep space -- not enough to shift radio frequencies enough to change their tuning (that's only happened once, and it was due to large relative velocities).
@@JohnDlugosz I watched a video from Sabine Hossenfelder where she explains that the dilation of time is due the acceleration, and not the relative velocities between the two observers!
'NABOO' -interesting to dream. Does a critter in the ocean notice when a tsunami passes? seems like a similarity to photons. as does electrons (packets) bumping along a wire? Maybe only when forced onto shore, but bouncing along the bottom... how hard? they say magnetism and electrics or gravity and time concur. i used think of electrons pumped through a motor spun it and you must recapture the water to complete the loop. So jumping through ratcheting or ahead in the stream.... oh boy
The Sun has rings !
Tau Ceti has rings !
Many Stars have rings !
If a Star does NOT have rings, then there won't be life in that system !
Rings create a cool Oasis for life !
DML .
What speeds and distances are required before time dilation becomes would become noticeable to human perception, without the use of careful measurements?
Well, consider that when movies are shown on PAL television, they are sped up about 4% and people don't notice. So let's say a dilation factor of 10% is needed to be noticeable casually. That would be 86.6% the speed of light. Since we're approximating, round that to 85.
Isn’t there a slight contradiction between the answers given to both Revenant RV at 25:58 and Sci-fi Nerd at 30:06 regarding a chance encounter with space faring alien species and the probability that their motivations towards us being malevolent rather than benevolent due to their expansionist nature demonstrated by the fact that they’re a long way from home.
But then describe the reasons for our own expansion into the void as one that needs no real justification, why climb a mountain, because it’s there. To boldly go where no one has gone before.
Isn’t it more likely that this holds true for them too.
That's what humans do, but not necessarily what aliens will do. But we'll meet the expanders. And other civilizations will consider us expanders.
@@frasercain I did think of that as I was typing out my post, but it had taken me so long to type it on my phone, with these eyes, that I just had to post it anyway. xD
Since electric and Plasma propulsion is making progress, could the Bussard Ramjet RAIR (Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket) engine be feasible in the solar system?
Question: With regard to sideways to orbit. Normally a launch is mostly horizontal to get to orbital speed. Would it be possible or worthwhile (fuel costs) to use a ballistic trajectory such that the return or falling part of the path would be outside of the Earth's atmosphere and the gravity exerted on the satellite would add the speed needed to acquire orbital velocity? Could the difference be made up with higher efficiency plasma drives or even solar sails to save on mass/fuel? That is could the velocity increase after apogee be enhanced using these devices so that orbit could be achieved with less fuel than a direct orbital insertion? I am guessing it boils down to how far an object has to be away from Earth so that the acceleration brings the object up to orbital speed before it hits Earth. Because at apogee speed is minimum (not zero because there is some motion added to make sure the fall is not merely straight down but beyond the side of Earth's disk), the fall would have to be enough to add almost all of the velocity needed for orbit. It would also be a question of if the final orbit was leading or trailing Earth's motion. Leading would require more fuel in the first place but would also have added more velocity. (I am not actually sure that is true)
I'm bit confused by the photon drive idea. If photons are massless and they are being fired out the back of your space craft without hitting anything where does the equal and opposite reaction fit in. I understand the idea of photons being fired at your spacecraft hitting a solar or laser sail imparting momentum. just dont see how they would produce thrust this way. i get ion drives as they have mass.