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EDFLsnape OP t1_iuc8k10 wrote

Reply to comment by rondonjon in The scariest picture of space... by EDFLsnape

I've always been scared of space, I can just imagine waking up on a different planet, Different laws of physics, maybe even different types of life

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Most_Engineering_992 t1_iuc9yvu wrote

I'm going to be mean, so look away ...

There are vast regions of space where you could be floating (in a space suit) with no gravity and no light that you could see. Just endless, boundless darkness, with no direction. There are planets around solitary stars where the night sky is just black, and if you lived on one there would be no astronomy and nobody would have any notion of a larger universe.

"Vast" doesn't capture the scale

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mj6174 t1_iucgj0g wrote

Rogue stars fascinate me. The ones wandering between galaxies.

Edit: I think they are interesting because life can evolve on planets orbiting these stars. Other than parent star, there will hardly be any radiation risk, or supernova, neutron, x-ray or gamma ray bursts. If star have multiple planet, they may be observable in night sky but nothing much else it would be creepy. It will be much easier to conclude sky like a dome with bright shiny dots on it at night in such system. If at all these civilizations develop telescopes, they may still get views of far away galaxies.

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dingo1018 t1_iucr7gq wrote

What about the rogue planets? They can be wondering between solar systems or even galaxies, sometimes at incredible speeds if say they had a narrow escape from a black hole. And should one pass through or even just close enough to our solar system it would make a very handy space ship! If course we would have to be ready to go hop on as it passed, and you don't get to choose where you go.

Right now there could be a civilisation who managed to survive on a planet with no star! Just wondering through space, the planet core slowly cooling providing the bear minimum, but if they are clever enough they could split the atom and live in total comfort, until their version of Putin ruined it (how did this get political?) 🙉

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MVRK_3 t1_iudqvo7 wrote

Chances that there could be life on a rogue planet would be nearly none. A planet that is probably frozen solid because it doesn’t have a heat source at all. It would have no atmosphere either so it would be constantly bombarded by radiation and other harmful things that would kill anything living on it.

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dingo1018 t1_iuduz2f wrote

A sufficiently high amount of radioactive material in a world with a molten core is not impossible, the by-product of radioactive decay is heat. After all a good amount of the Earths heat is still residual from the planets accretion. Or there could be a gravitational influence such as large satellites gravitationally bound, the tidal forces producing heat from friction. And that's leaving aside a technologically advanced civilisation who can split atoms for power. Also an atmosphere could certainly survive even if just trapped below surface.

Regarding radiation, a strong magnetic field from a molten metal core should do the trick!

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MVRK_3 t1_iudw53f wrote

I don’t think a planet like that wound be rotating enough to keep a constant magnetic field like earth does though. Too many inconsistencies with a rogue planet like that would effect all of that. Also I don’t think intelligent life would be able to live with all those inconsistencies as well. Life on earth formed and evolved because earth was relatively constant with weather and conditions. A planet not in an orbit could go from being frozen, to super hot passing by another star, so life wouldn’t be able to adapt and evolve.

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BryKKan t1_iudx7cs wrote

Better answer is that they could live inside it, and use a combination of fission and fusion for energy

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MVRK_3 t1_iudxrc6 wrote

It’s not impossible, just very very unlikely.

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dingo1018 t1_iudxmwd wrote

I think after the event that sent it apart from it's star it would settle into a very stable state, space is vast, the odds of it coming close enough to another star close enough to benefit from it's heat output would likely be it's death due to gravitational shear.

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MVRK_3 t1_iudyt6h wrote

Possibly. But would life have time to evolve into some kind of intelligent form in that span though? In earths 4 billion or so years, we have barely evolved into intelligent life to barely touch the moon. Obviously there could have been life forms that evolve faster and discover technology faster than we have, but I still think it’s very unlikely.

Also I find it very sad that we will never find out the answers to everything we’re discussing.

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SeraphSurfer t1_iudxpbm wrote

>They can be wondering between solar systems or even galaxies, sometimes at incredible speeds if say they had a narrow escape from a black hole. And should one pass through or even just close enough to our solar system it would make a very handy space ship! If course we would have to be ready to go hop on as it passed, and you don't get to choose where you go.

Alert Hollywood. I HAVE A SCRIPT!

It's kind of like the little watched "Space 1999", but with modern special effects and a whole world to work with vs just a moon base, I think we've potential.

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dingo1018 t1_iudxz1h wrote

It has been in a book or two, but that is no reason to stop now!

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Opus_Majus t1_iug751l wrote

Do you happen to recall any of those book titles?

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dingo1018 t1_iuhj4nj wrote

Dark Eden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Eden_(novel) was a fun read, one of the random ones I've borrowed from the library, it's not that heavy on the sci fi unfortunately it's more a human book about the highly inbred descendants of a crew that crashed on a rogue planet, but the author does a fair job of describing his idea of a frozen planet with pockets of geothermal heat that is channeled through the trunks of giant trees and various life forms most of which are bioluminescent in some way, pretty cool read actually I did enjoy it.

That's the only one I can personally remember reading specifically about rogue planets but Wikipedia has a page im gonna bookmark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rogue_planets_in_fiction

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carbonqubit t1_iugh83z wrote

What I think are even stranger and more daunting are rogue supermassive black holes that are created from incomplete galaxy mergers.

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snarkuzoid t1_iudb33d wrote

How about "really, really vast"?

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Most_Engineering_992 t1_iudz0ei wrote

How about ...

“Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.”

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OSFrog2023 t1_iucc3rz wrote

Different laws of physics? Physics applies everywhere in the universe

^unless ^we ^are ^projections

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charliespider t1_iuccysq wrote

As far as we can determine yes, but we are not positive. There have been speculations that some of the "constants" have even changed over time since the big bang, which could have ramifications with regards to inflation, etc

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OSFrog2023 t1_iucdm7z wrote

His implication is that we could go to another planet and the physics could be different. That's fundamentally untrue. Constants like how the electroweak force changed to electromagnetism and weak force? That fits into our theories of physics as is.

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charliespider t1_iucekye wrote

Right, what he implied wouldn't happen but I was referring to things like this: https://www.science.org/content/article/are-laws-physics-changing

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/are-the-laws-of-physics-really-universal/

and not just the consolidation of the fundamental forces.

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OSFrog2023 t1_iucf56j wrote

Just because math allows for a thing doesn't mean we see it represented in our universe... and yes the laws of physics are absolute to our entire observable universe thus far. When we see something that doesn't aline, it's because we messed up something, not that the universe is changing itself.

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curiouscolo4 t1_iuch65e wrote

genuinely asking as a question and not trying to challenge you because I have no clue, but how can we be in anyway certain that the laws of physics that work on our planet and surrounding galaxy, are held throughout the universe? I'd like to think things could be very different elsewhere.

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OSFrog2023 t1_iuduqmu wrote

Galaxies are the same everywhere. Those galaxies we just found from jwst are surprisingly well formed for that early tho. Which means we are missing something or over/under estimated are models of expansion. But these images are far more precise than before with near infra-red observations. So where before we were just drawing the outline of our portrait, now we are starting to fill in the details. It's more precise, and more likely to miss perfection. That's never bad though, the best parts of science are the anomalies.

And the universe isn't very different actually. It's surprising uniform in temperature. And when modelled with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation, our universal distribution of galaxies looks like what would result from those very tiny temperature fluctuations early on.

The physics didn't change, the temperature did... allowing for more advanced elements to be created. The temperature changed because of inflation and the dissipation of energy resulting from that expansion. Heat is basically just the friction of things bouncing into each other. So the more room you have, the less things will hit each other, and as a result, decrease temperature. The universe atm is 2.7 Kelvin and its only getting colder... very, very slowly. Weird thing is, the universe is still inflating, and even wilder, that inflation is accelerating.

My favorite quote on fiction... make believe has to be believable, reality rarely is.

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MrAnonAMoose t1_iuda8lt wrote

This is a more common concept in the multi-verse model, comparing between universes, not within a single universe.

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charliespider t1_iue17xv wrote

Wow... ok... I link to a couple of articles (could have linked more) where physicists discuss the possibility that the thing we call the "laws of physics" may not be as immutable as once thought and you respond with:

>the laws of physics are absolute to our entire observable universe thus far

You realize that we don't even know what 95%+ of the universe even is right? These "laws of physics" you are so certain about only explain 4-5% of the matter/energy we are aware of.

I think I'll take the opinion of a well known physicist like Sean Carroll over some guy on Reddit.

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OSFrog2023 t1_iue7ir9 wrote

You mean the theoretical physicist Sean Carroll? Remind me what that field entails again? Observations? Or maths that may or may not have application within our own universe? You have literally no idea what you are talking about. Until you do, don't come with a YouTube video that baits pot heads into thinking they are growing...

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complex_variables t1_iudfr24 wrote

I have seen well developed theories that the speed of light varies over time, but not from place to place.

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k1lky t1_iud49mw wrote

Well the physics WE know applies most places in the universe. But in an earlier life I went to some places where the physics is different and ours does not apply. Are we projections? No, WE are real, the entire universe is projection we have imagined.

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OSFrog2023 t1_iudvpvj wrote

Tell me you wanna be a boltzmann brain without telling me you wanna be a boltzmann brain....

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Ragnarok314159 t1_iud8wzz wrote

Physics will be the same no matter where you go, just some of the values would be different for gravity.

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zerohedge7 t1_iud3cvj wrote

Maybe this is what happens when we die. You respawn in a different galaxy with different rules

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MVRK_3 t1_iudrp88 wrote

There are quantum theories that state when you die, your consciousness will move to a different universe.

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BryKKan t1_iudxkrh wrote

There are also people who believe their magic sky daddy will take them to heaven. There's zero evidence of consciousness existing separate from the brain.

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MVRK_3 t1_iudybdu wrote

There isn’t, but the theories from physicists have way more value than the theories that have no proof at all, like religion.

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BryKKan t1_iudyitz wrote

Eh. I'll give you "more", but not "way more". It's purely speculative. I don't put any stock in the idea that the universe needs "an observer" to function.

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MVRK_3 t1_iue0pwi wrote

I’m willing to actually trust a physicists theories as opposed to some religious persons theory (if you can even call it a theory) though. The physicist would actually be able to give you reasonings as to why what they’re saying could be true as opposed to someone from religion just saying to believe them with no proof at all.

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EDFLsnape OP t1_iudtd7a wrote

Exactly what I've been thinking, Dying is a scary thing to think about, How we are even alive and have our own bodies (if that makes sense) its just crazy. When we die is it just black? do we go to an after life? do we wake up in a different galaxy? Its not like when we die its just nothing, it seems impossible for us to never be conscious

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zerohedge7 t1_iuedsry wrote

Who knows. Nobody knows. Perhaps we never will know

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mrflippant t1_iudi7un wrote

Fwiw, the laws of physics are consistent throughout the observable universe 👍

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EDFLsnape OP t1_iudt1mi wrote

Did not know that! my science teacher taught me that a while ago

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poodle-party t1_iudqm6u wrote

Physics should be the same throughout the entire universe

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Resting_burtch_face t1_iucao2g wrote

It scares me too. But I am also curious and fascinated by it. To me, it's like the ocean but scarier because we have no idea of where or if it ends.

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