ESA's GAIA to launch next week.

Post #384,158 by Another Scott 12/13/13 1:17:51 PM Reply	ESA's GAIA to launch next week. http://sci.esa.int/gaia/ Gaia is an ambitious mission to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in the process revealing the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Gaia will provide unprecedented positional and radial velocity measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a stereoscopic and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our Galaxy and throughout the Local Group. This amounts to about 1 per cent of the Galactic stellar population. Neat. Cheers, Scott.
Post #384,161 by Ashton 12/13/13 3:50:21 PM Reply	Whenever I see that number bandied about, 10¹¹ ... am reminded that (early-on.. before 5 x 10¹² maxxed out.) was normal max beam of protons in one pulse for the Bevatron. SCALE, then: One. proton. for. each. star! We be so Presumptuous while so Tiny. ..so if bigger is always better, where's that leave Us?
Post #384,179 by Another Scott 12/14/13 9:09:49 AM Reply	Yup. N_A always gets me. 6.022E23 molecules/mole. An absolutely staggeringly large number. Yet you hold it in your hand when you hold 18 grams (a little over 1 tablespoon) of water. There are estimates of the number of stars in the observable universe that are in the 1E23 range... http://www.universetoday.com/36302/ We are so incredibly, mind-bogglingly tiny in the even local scheme of things - no wonder that so many "religious" people are anti-science. :-( They're missing out on the wonder of it all. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #384,182 by boxley 12/14/13 9:44:20 AM Reply	thats the part that I never understand We are so incredibly, mind-bogglingly tiny in the even local scheme of things - no wonder that so many "religious" people are anti-science. to me it makes me think that religion is more all compassing, how else would we communicate without a common grok? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #384,185 by hnick 12/14/13 1:12:09 PM Reply	!(tl;dr) Too short and broad brushed to understand. Religions are an authoritarian tribal control mechanism. They tend to be more shrinking than expanding unless they are using major force (see medieval Christianity or Islam). You can't really communicate with another type of society in terms of regional belief. They are. You are. If there are no points in common, you can not communicate. If there are one or more points that you both understand together, you can try to communicate. If you have inflexible positions, you may have a modicum of communication, but not understanding, which is the point of communication. Look at our political parties for a good example. My position is that one needs to be self aware without artificial restrictions to be able to accept and try to communicate with the unknown. I would expect you would be fairly good at this if you didn't enjoy being a fucking troll so much.
Post #384,188 by a6l6e6x 12/14/13 3:11:05 PM Reply	So true. The last sentence gave me a chuckle! Alex
Post #384,197 by Ashton 12/14/13 7:34:14 PM Reply	Geo. Carlin Award with Epaulets.. Best-condensed summary of a mondo-Bloviation-inducing topic since Bertie replied, ~~ You ask me to accept one little absurdity [virgin-birth IIRC] and I say: if that one, then why not any? ;^>
Post #384,199 by Ashton 12/14/13 7:46:52 PM Reply	Also. Too. It's the occasional well-formed-Thought like >This< ... which makes bearable our often silly retorts to serious Schtuff ..and which gives IWETHEY its well-desrved Chops -vs- most of the [N+2] "blogs" now inundating/infuriating! the transistorized word-space with such a piss-poor S/N (that: it might Be already: the Second-Death of authentic Language.) Thanks for taking the time to weed out the stuff of our laziest 'posts'; Cool brevity always exceeds.

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