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Scholz's star, a binary system consisting of a red dwarf and a brown dwarf, changed the trajectory of comets and other distant solar system objects when it passed just 0.82 light years from the Sun around 70,000 years ago:
At a time when modern humans were beginning to leave Africa and the Neanderthals were living on our planet, Scholz's star - named after the German astronomer who discovered it - approached less than a light-year from the Sun. Nowadays it is almost 20 light-years away, but 70,000 years ago it entered the Oort cloud, a reservoir of trans-Neptunian objects located at the confines of the solar system.
This discovery was made public in 2015 by a team of astronomers led by Professor Eric Mamajek of the University of Rochester (USA). The details of that stellar flyby, the closest documented so far, were presented in The Astrophysical Journal Letters [open, DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/800/1/L17] [DX].
Now two astronomers from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), the brothers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, together with the researcher Sverre J. Aarseth of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have analyzed for the first time the nearly 340 objects of the solar system with hyperbolic orbits (very open V-shaped, not the typical elliptical), and in doing so they have detected that the trajectory of some of them is influenced by the passage of Scholz´s star.
"Using numerical simulations we have calculated the radiants or positions in the sky from which all these hyperbolic objects seem to come," explains Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, who together with the other coauthors publishes the results in the MNRAS Letters [open, DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/sly019] [DX] journal.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:07AM (27 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:48AM
Shame! Get the title to understand why:
Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam, pow, pow
Stairway scare, Dan Dare, who's there?
In penance, take your overdose then listen to the several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict.
If not, I'll call Eugene and this time I promise I'll omit telling him to be careful with that axe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:33AM (25 children)
Astronomy is the only discipline that matters in the long term.
In the "very short term", say 50-100 years, we *may* solve most medical issues and achieve life extension/anti-aging (if you perfect medical nanobots, you could get a cure all). Nuclear fusion power plants could work in that timeframe. Classical, neuromorphic, quantum, etc. computing should all be maxed out by then, or advancing to unimaginable levels if not maxed out. Throw strong AI into the mix, and it will make scientific discoveries and invent technologies at a feverish pace if it doesn't try to kill you.
If you and/or humanity live through all that (no doomsday, and life extension works), you can either fuck around on Earth (probably the better option TBH) or head out into space (an alternative to suicidal boredom). At a minimum, we will spread our
muskselves across the solar system. Bases on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Mercury [nytimes.com], Callisto, Titan, and hanging out in the upper atmosphere of Venus [wikipedia.org] come first. Artificial gravity or Venus's 0.9g would be nice, but low gravity health effects should be counteracted by your nanobots. Once you no longer care about solar power, you could put a base on Pluto, Eris, a Planet Nine moon hopefully having higher than 0.01g, or wherever. Most of the "interesting" rocks should be less than 0.5% the current distance to Proxima Centauri.Going interstellar will be somewhere between the greatest pain in the ass ever and fully exciting based on what technologies the physicists make available. If faster-than-light travel is impossible, then exploring the galaxy would suck. If it is possible, then hallelujah. Test: If you think some UFO sightings are alien spaceships, then faster-than-light travel could be real (or maybe they are just very patient or sent uploaded minds on small, fast probes). If Fermi Paradox is 2real, then maybe that's a sign that galactic travel is an abysmal slog and you will never have a warp drive. If FTL is dead in the water, there are schemes [wikipedia.org] that could at least get you to 0.1c. 50-100 years to the nearest star is lame, but could be tolerable if you pack the right entertainment. I'm thinking a Matrix-level virtual reality hookup, possibly with your mind temporarily wiped if that's what you need to increase immersion (basically living new lives in simulation), and as many strong AI slaves as desired. Use your imagination, maybe (along with random procedural generation).
The endgame for interstellar travel would either be colonizing an Earth-like planet, which seems like it could be possible even within a 20-50 light year distance from Earth [wikipedia.org], finding/contacting/meeting intelligent aliens, or just exploring target after target endlessly.
If you disagree with the notion that you will personally make it onto the immortality train, then sure, shit on most astronomy for being pointless since you will die before you could get the opportunity to see anything cool up close. The most relevant astronomy topics for you could be the near-term size of the space economy [nasaspaceflight.com] (some people will make lots of money off the craze without leaving Earth), and anything to do with JWST or another telescope finding alien life, since that would at least cause a nice shitstorm, maybe some Heaven's Gate inspired mass shootings.
TL;DR: There's an essentially infinite amount of exploration to be done in the universe. If you are willing and capable of living millions of years, maybe you could see a bit of it. If not, then at least make your death interesting.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:00PM (16 children)
Imagine yourself waiting days to preview your comment on S/N.
That's a certainty.
No entertainment can last for 50 years. Sooner or later you are gonna try russian roulette.
Immortality you say? Imagine yourself working for the same manager forever and tell me if you still see immortality as desirable.
Really, you think the evolution will let you psyche evolve that fast to allow your survive being immortal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:09PM (14 children)
I offered a good solution to that problem in the comment. Mind wipe and live multiple virtual lives in VR scenarios. If all that is too complicated or unsettling, you can opt for cryostasis in between destinations.
I think you need to evolve into a grammar nazi.
Suicide is on the table. Or some kind of mind wiping and personality replacement to avoid compromising mission objectives. Select a permanent, or maybe reversible, change in psyche using a few handy GUI menus. Or go into cryosleep.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:24PM (3 children)
What's the point of mind wipe? You might as well reproduce and die at some point in the future.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:00PM
The point is that c0lo, and many others to be fair, don't see how they could stand living hundreds or millions of years while exploring the galaxy. 200+ years from now, there will be a mix of advanced technologies available alongside the interstellar spacecraft that could make this journey more palatable. You could go into some kind of cryosleep (the easy option). You could read a new book every day and not run out for hundreds of thousands of years. You could play around in VR, enhanced with aforementioned neuromorphic strong AI, and networking with other minds on the ship. You might not have a body at all but might exist as an uploaded mind. If the ship does have room for life support and walking around, and mind uploading exists, you could have a body printed on demand, and destroyed and recycled whenever your finished (crew of thousands can take turns sharing a small physical space).
I simply offer mind wiping as a way to create a novel virtual reality experience. Maybe it can be done in such a way that a vague impression of your "real" life is kept while you bumble through the scenario, and you have a sudden "aha" moment at the end when you realize that you were living in a Truman Show-esque simulation all along. Maybe this is torture, or maybe you would get addicted to it. You would have all the time you need to find out.
If you have perfect anti-aging available, will you still want to die at some point? That's a question you have to answer for yourself, and doesn't need to be imposed on everyone else ("who could possibly want to live that long oooohhhh nnoooooooooo").
If you were reproducing and dying, then you'd just have a generation ship, which wasn't what I was talking about because it doesn't make sense in light of anti-aging and doesn't allow you to see the places you're traveling to (since you'd be dead).
As for reproduction, by the point a ship like this launches, we'd have the ability to mix DNA digitally, synthesize an embryo, and incubate it to term in an artificial womb. Any sex would be for recreation or to make a point.
I don't have to come up with perfect solutions to these issues, since there will be centuries to think about it. But it is amusing to see the skepticism and disdain for immortality. Maybe we should pass out razor blades and California-approved suicide pills [soylentnews.org] to centenarians as a public service. Not only are they fucking old, but they don't even have the bodies of young adults! They must be suffering.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:46AM (1 child)
Going to sleep is a bit like dying. The person who wakes up is someone else, who happens to have your memories.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 06 2018, @12:45AM
Or, as I often point out, the person that was sitting where you are a second ago was quite possibly someone else who happened to have most of your memories. Of course if you start taking such a hypothesis too seriously, and are selfish, all future plans suddenly seem unimportant. They only matter to the person that will inherit your continued existence.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:31PM (1 child)
Mind bleaching happens nowadays, no doubt.
Personality replacement? That more fantastic than FTL.
Besides, if you get to replace the personality, why bother with biological beings, why not send AI just from the start?
(underlying matter: what makes you you? I tend to think that the biological body is included, but Ok, fine, let's say a human being is defined by the mind only. Now, if you get to replace even that... who has the right to life, your born-in personality/firmware or the replacement v1.1 or v1.2?... if you kill them based on the needs of "the mission objective" why send a human in the first place?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:24PM
Most of this is now addressed in other comments.
However no matter how mind numbingly difficult it is to wipe, scramble, recreate, regrow, remix, etc. brain matter, FTL remains more fantastical because it could end up completely impossible due to physics, or have unrealistically huge energy requirements. It would be a lucky break to get any kind of warp drive working.
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:44PM (1 child)
Or develop the artificial womb and send an AI with a bunch of human embryos at helium temperatures. Make the AI capable of parenting as a human could and you solved the "human species dissemination** through galaxy".
** no, colonization is not possible without FTL - the colonies won't be able to send anything material back to Earth that would make economic sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:21PM
That's not the scenario I'm talking about in the original reply. Coke man [soylentnews.org] is not going to care about an interstellar flinging of embryos. The idea here is that with anti-aging, you could hang out on Earth for a few centuries, during which time interstellar travel designs and other technologies are refined as much as possible. Then you set out on a journey to explore the universe, endlessly. You are a walking dead caveman loser if you can't choose to travel throughout the Milky Way and to other galaxies as desired.
Otherwise, your artificial womb idea is fine. Except that the frozen embryos are unlikely to be needed because at the point we would attempt such a mission, we could add an attachment to the womb that synthesizes an embryo from the DNA sequence. I guess the embryo would have the advantage of storing the genetic data with less degradation than today's conventional data storage would experience over many centuries, but then you could just use DNA-based storage instead of a pre-made embryo, probably saving on mass requirements.
Extrasolar colonies don't have to send anything back to Earth. We have closer resources throughout the solar system that we can utilize. Terrestrial planets and moons such as Mars or Titan, asteroid mining, a Dyson swarm, and more efficient recycling and manufacturing would make any such deliveries totally unnecessary. However, there is something that a colony could export without needing FTL travel: intellectual property (such as film), sent at the speed of light. Motivation to colonize in the first place could range from "just because we can", to scientific discovery, or making humanity more resilient against cosmic disasters like a nearby supernova or directional gamma ray burst.
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(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 06 2018, @12:40AM (5 children)
Would the VR simulations have some kind of HUD or tooltips to remind the person where they really were and that it was just a temporary simulation? Or would that be a reward or easter egg buried somewhere within it? If there are no clues like that included, it sounds awfully like our current lives on Earth. Of course this simulation argument is nothing new.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 06 2018, @12:56AM (4 children)
It depends. You set the parameters before you go under, and then regret it (or not) later.
I like the easter egg idea. As for the HUD, if you were mind wiped and "reborn" as a tabula rasa in a virtual world, you wouldn't necessarily question the appearance of HUD elements, status windows, RPG experience, skill system, etc. Especially if the NPCs are in on the game.
If in real life, everyone experienced elements of first person RPG games, possibly using floating abstract symbols or universally translated voices ("the announcer" or God(s) speaking to you), you would just accept it. Some might form interesting religions or philosophies around it, but I doubt most people would think they were living in a simulation. That's the way it always was. God granted us the useful hit point bars.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 06 2018, @01:19AM (3 children)
That's a very good point. I was thinking of the HUD or tooltip carrying a more explicit message though, something that more directly expresses the message that the person is experiencing a temporary simulation (or a life within a life). How you encode a very explicit message without a language is tricky though (attempted in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message) [wikipedia.org] and I think it would still polarize people between forming religious beliefs about it and viewing it more skeptically.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 06 2018, @11:28AM (2 children)
I include the "mind wipe" in my entirely speculative scenario so that it would go something like this:
1. You choose the desired parameters, setting, and scenario for the virtual world before being mind wiped. You get to adjust your fate/luck/how everything works, etc.
2. You undergo the mind wipe and are either reborn, flashed with some false memories, or given amnesia but with your working knowledge intact (so you don't need to relearn languages, concepts, etc). This is simply to increase immersion. This step could be optional or you could not entirely "wipe" your memories.
3. After you die virtually or conclude the simulation, you're back in your spacecraft and you get to have a gee-whiz moment as you remember your IRL memories, if applicable. This is also a good time to have an existential crisis as you'll have both your real memories and your memories of the virtual environment (where any loved ones were FAKE and GONE FOREVER, unless they are strong AI entities which can be saved in the spacecraft's memory permanently).
3a. It's fun, I swear. Someone will want to do this.
The HUD/message or subtle hints, while certainly doable (the VR would be experienced using either an extremely advanced headset display or a "Matrix"-like connection), may be undesirable if the point is to forget everything. But this is all based on user choice and our future capabilities to affect how the brain works.
The technologies needed to affect the brain to this precise level may not be available for centuries, but I think they are more likely to be developed than faster-than-light travel, which is considered physically impossible. Time dilation could also help make interstellar journeys feel shorter, but you are still constrained by the need to decelerate for half of the voyage in order to orbit or land on an exoplanet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 06 2018, @12:37PM (1 child)
Yeah. When I thought about this time dilation keeping a space traveler young, when I myself was younger, I had a crazy idea for how to deal with the problem of all your colleagues back home aging hundreds of years while you were away. It's wildly inconvenient but I imagined they could all either enter a device, or the whole surface of the planet (or their country) be modified to be a device, that somehow accelerated them in place to an equivalent speed.
The trouble is they would have to be either vibrated back and forth or constantly rotating so that they didn't move too far from their home. Which of course means that they would constantly have to be undergoing acceleration or deceleration and it couldn't be too violent. This would require enormous amounts of energy and of course would severely limit the average speed and amount of time dilation attained, so the craft would have to move slower to match, or they would have to settle for a compromise where the colleagues at home age faster but are still alive when the traveler returns.
The whole idea sounds so inconvenient, difficult and uncomfortable that it would probably be more sensible for the entire society to just travel together as one in an enormous biosphere almost like a traveling planet (but obviously far less massive).
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 06 2018, @01:08PM
We just have to accept some people breaking away from the rest of humanity, unless the black swans of faster-than-light travel or communications are realized.
If mind uploading becomes possible, you may have a way to send a lot more people on an interstellar voyage, or even "clone" personalities of loved ones to stave off loneliness.
The near term concern (within the next few centuries) is colonizing or mining every rock in the solar system. Bezos (world's richest man) thinks that the solar system could support 1 trillion people [soylentnews.org]. If you are staying indoors the whole time, then distant rocks like Pluto and Sedna could be almost as easy to colonize as Mars or Titan.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:07PM
Math has held up pretty well for 30 years for me. And I have the better part of two decades out of the Civilization computer games.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:00PM (7 children)
This is so wrong, stop getting your science from press releases and look at what they are actually doing... You are being scammed.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:33PM (6 children)
100 years from this point should be plenty of time to cure cancer, aging, and other diseases with nanobots. It's nonsense to think it would take much longer than that.
Technologies don't exist in a vacuum. We already have nanolithography today and nanomachines in the lab capable of carrying drug payloads. We could have strong AI in decades, which could be used to design new technologies even faster.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:49PM (5 children)
It would be plenty of time if they were competent, sure. Instead its a bunch of significant p values. I 100% guarantee there will be no cure until that is abandoned, which probably cant happen until the current funding sources and institutions are rendered irrelevant. That probably wont happen without a reformation-like event.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:18PM (4 children)
I disagree. Just because someone is p-hacking doesn't mean that everyone is.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)
But if the p-hackers predominate because their results appear more significantnt and there are more of them because p-hacking is easy, the non-p-hackers will have trouble getting the funding they need for real discoveries.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:04PM
It's like they'll have to get their funding from people who actually care. Plenty of that out there particularly since we don't have the longevity problem licked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:16AM (1 child)
p-hacking is just the logical conclusion of an already flawed way of designing studies and interpreting the results.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:35AM
It's not logical. And the approach has its place particularly with complex systems that one doesn't understand well enough to come up with even a basic model (which describes a lot of modern medicine unfortunately). But once you've come up with models and such, you have better approaches.
The problem as I think we all know is not that we're haplessly implementing a flawed approach here, but rather that publicly funded medical research (and a lot of other research) is about theater rather than scientific progress. P-hacking just happens to be an easy way to attract that sort of funding.
My point however, is that not all funding is of this sort. A lot of people actually want solutions to big problems in medicine and are willing to pay for them. Theater isn't good enough. That's the research that I think will be decisive in the coming century.