Starship Asterisk*

by **billcal** » Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:08 am

On January 20, without thinking, I posted a comment about the earth appearing to rotate backwards in this video (from east to west instead of west to east as needed to have the sun rise in the east). Almost immediately afterward it dawned on me that this video could only be shot from a satellite traveling eastward around the earth, which would account for the apparent reverse motion. Duhhhh!

by **Chris Peterson** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 11:59 pm

billcal wrote:Beautiful video. But in the opening scenes as the "camera" pulls back from the view of the Himalayas, bringing the southern tip of India and then Australia into view, why is the earth shown rotating in the wrong direction (east to west instead of west to east)? When I got up this morning the sun was still rising in the east.

Looking at the terminator that is visible in that scene, I don't see anything to suggest the Earth is rotating the wrong way. What happens is that once the camera has pulled back to show the entire Earth, it starts moving to the east (left), which gives a relative apparent east-to-west rotation to the Earth. But it's only an artifact of the viewer's changing position.

by **billcal** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 11:45 pm

Beautiful video. But in the opening scenes as the "camera" pulls back from the view of the Himalayas, bringing the southern tip of India and then Australia into view, why is the earth shown rotating in the wrong direction (east to west instead of west to east)? When I got up this morning the sun was still rising in the east.

by **jrsquid3** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:20 am

FYI, I will be doing this exact "flight" on Tuesday, February 2 at the Hayden Planetarium.

You can RSVP for it here:

http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php?re ... 99&index=1

or get tickets online here:

http://www.amnh.org/programs/programs.p ... nt_id=1587

TUESDAYS IN THE DOME

VIRTUAL UNIVERSE

The Hayden Planetarium, with ongoing support from NASA, has assembled the world’s largest cosmic atlas, extending from Earth to the greatest distances yet charted by astronomers. Join us on the first Tuesday of each month for a fully interactive tour of the universe that surrounds us—the longest trip you can take while staying in New York.

Download a home version of the Digital Universe at http://www.haydenplanetarium.org.
The Farthest Reaches of the Cosmic Ocean with Jason Kendall
The Farthest Reaches of the Cosmic Ocean with Jason Kendall

* Tuesday, February 2 Buy Tickets
* 6:30 pm
* Hayden Planetarium Space Theater
* $15 ($13.50 Members, students, senior citizens)
Enter at 81st Street/Rose Center
* Code: HM020210

Cruise through intergalactic space and explore the immense distances between galaxies. We will learn how the universe has changed with time and how the celerity of light allows us to see the universe as it was billions of years ago.

----

The Museum does this only once a month. If we can sell it out, maybe they'll do more!

Jason Kendall
Director, Inwood Astronomy Project
http://www.inwoodastronomy.org
NASA/JPL Solar system Ambassador, New York City
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/pro ... endall.htm

by **Chris Peterson** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:33 pm

neufer wrote:They couldn't very well include the Kuiper belt after ignoring the Asteroid belt.

The planets are individual, isolated bodies, so you can construct a more or less smooth trajectory from the Sun outwards that will take you past each of them (if you pick a reasonable time). But the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, and Oort cloud are basically empty space, sparsely populated with tiny bodies. You could construct your path so it took you past one member of each, but that would probably be a rather confusing image to most people, so it makes good sense to leave out these low density clouds of objects.

by **Chris Peterson** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:25 pm

Markus Schwarz wrote:diameter of Milky Way = 30 kpc
Here I just use the age, since the „size of the universe“ is not well known: 13,7 billion years
So, the diameter would be about 7.6 km. Again, only a mountain comes to my mind.

The size of the Universe isn't known at all, since most of it is presumably not observable. But the size of the observable Universe is probably known to a high degree of accuracy, and is 93 billion light years. At your scale, that's equivalent to 52 km- quite a bit larger than any mountain.

by **Markus Schwarz** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:10 am

Dear Case24,

here are the rough numbers. They are by no means precise, but just orders of magnitude.

diameter earth = 12,700 km
diameter sun = 1.4 10^6 km
So, the diameter would be about 5 m. Imagine your marble and a house.

diameter sun = 1.4 10^6 km
diameter solar system (taken to be that of Pluto's orbit) = 12 10^9 km
So, the diameter would be about 430 m. Imagine a small hill.

diameter solar system (see above) = 11 light hours
diameter of „radio sphere“ = 70 ly
So, the diameter would be about 2.7 km. Imagine a mountain like the Kilimanjaro

diameter of „radio sphere“ = 70 ly
diameter of Milky Way = 30 kpc
So, the diameter would be about 64 m. Imagine a office building.

diameter of Milky Way = 30 kpc
Here I just use the age, since the „size of the universe“ is not well known: 13,7 billion years
So, the diameter would be about 7.6 km. Again, only a mountain comes to my mind.

I hope this answers your questions!

by **emc** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:43 am

Hi Jim!
Good answers! While each of us has unique personality we can still share a same vantage point. The Universe is bigger than all of us. Thanks for answering and BTW helping me feel a part of it.

by **jimsaruff** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:44 pm

Hey, Ed!

How about these three?

1) The universe is evolving.

2) You somehow possess the ability and desire to view and interact with it; you, therefore, are inarguably a part of it.

3) Your personality is unique.

Note: I am not suggesting this is comprehensive. Just some of the things we might believe to be true about the universe.

by **neufer** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:11 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

by **alexsosa** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:07 pm

Don;t mean to be picky, but on the way out from earth in the movie, sunlight on earth is shown turning, yet the background stars stay in place. Since the sun/earth relative position is almost fixed in relation to the stars during one day, shouldn't the sunlit portion of earth also be almost fixed in relation to the star background?

Great movie. I have visited your site almost every day for several years now. A wonderful place. Thank you.

by **emc** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:46 pm

Hi Case24, If it helps, you are infinitely less than small compared to the universe. Heck, we don’t even know for sure how big the universe really is. We can only see so far then physics take over… Limited Sight Distance… know what I mean?

I think what is really important is the truth about why and how we are here. Can anybody tell ME? The Bible tells me that we are here to relate with God but what's so hard about that? Just imagine building the universe from scratch. Tell me what we know about that.

And r937, what’s this talk about stealing the Moon? Now there’s something new to add to my worries. And wouldn’t that be a good way to torment life on Earth? What would life be like on Earth without the Moon? Would there even be life? At what then would we howl at night? The stars…? How frustrating would that be? I mean all those stars… Which one to pick? Too many choices… It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

I hope we’re never liberated from the Moon and its gravitational interactivity!

And what do we really know about the universe? Can anyone tell me in three sentences or less?

by **Case24** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:56 pm

I'm having a hard time grasping just how small I am. Can you help me gain some perspective?
If the Earth were an approx. 5cm diameter (approx. 2") marble, what object represents our sun?
If our sun were a 5cm diameter marble, what object reflects the size of our solar system?
If our solar system were a 5cm diameter marble, what object reflects the furthest extent of human originated radio waves?
If the furthest extent of human originated radio waves were a size of a 5cm diameter marble, what object reflects the size of our galaxy?
If our galaxy was a 5cm diameter marble, what object reflects the size of our universe?

by **ta152h0** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:19 pm

I had to play it again, my stereo was cranked up playing " Stoned cowboy "by fantasy 1969 to overwhelm the chosen music.
Pass the ice cold one ,please.

by **djullman** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 6:35 pm

Wonderful movie. I'm sure it took a ton of work and I commend your efforts. If you ever update it in the future, it'd be neat to include a Twin Paradox return trip, where the viewer of this movie ages 5 minutes, but the solar system ages 13.7 billion years while we were gone. Maybe just travel 1 billion years away from earth and then show what the earth might look like 1 billion years from now: changes in climate, land masses, erosion, etc...

Again, thanks for the great animation.

by **JohnD** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 6:12 pm

Very nice, but I'm puzzled.......

What's the white glow that envelopes the Solar System as we leave it, and as we return,
and the geodesic sphere seen as we leave the Milky Way?

John

by **geckzilla** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:49 pm

neufer wrote:
geckzilla wrote:They ignored the entire Kuiper belt. I guess because it would be too faint.
They couldn't very well include the Kuiper belt after ignoring the Asteroid belt.

Ignoring the asteroid belt is even worse than ignoring the Kuiper belt. Every kid and his mom knows about the asteroid belt but the Kuiper belt is fairly obscure. I demand asteroids and Kuipers and Oorts too. That's it, I like Contact's version better... even if the planets were mysteriously lined up for the occasion... it goes through the asteroid belt and Saturn's rings and the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. How bout that? Eh? Eh?!

by **DonAVP** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:44 pm

Very well done and worth saving. Is it possible to download this?

May I plug a very neat program called Celestia http://www.shatters.net/celestia/. It give you the ability to fly out like this video and much more. It is free and shows much of what is shown in the video. It does not show the know galaxies out toward the furthest point or the background radiation. However there are a number of addons that people have created to show more detail. It is to scale. It is not a game, more of an educational program. It gives you the ability to point and click any star visible. It will tells the name, class, luminous and distance from were you are. You can fly to any object in the system. Here is a list of objects you can view stars, galaxies, open clusters, planets, asteroids, comes, satellites, nebula (addons) and eclipses of any moon on any planet. Like I said this program is very impressive. It is a 34 meg download and will run without internet connections.

Don

by **neufer** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:33 pm

sellekaers wrote:Well, it all looks nice, but first of all the Milky Way has no bar on the image,
which is wrong, as it is known that the Galaxy is a spiral WITH a bar.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

sellekaers wrote:Secondly "the galaxies we have mapped so far" are again wrong, as the whole sky is already mapped up to some 150 Mpc in depth
(for example by the 2MASS Redshift Survey) and the map in the movie looks like what was done (probably) by SDSS only.
So those who visit the Museum and watch this movie don't really get a true picture about "the Known Universe".

One could always go to a Creationist museum and watch
"the Known Universe in the biblical sense".

by **DonAVP** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:25 pm

r937 wrote:as we started to back away from the earth, and all those green lines started showing up for satellites in LEO, i'm thinking, hey, wait'll they show all the lines for the comsats in geosync, of which there weren't as many as i suspected...

and when we backed out further, i thought... HEY, SOMEBODY STOLE DA MOON!!!

luna was completely missing, both on the way out to the edge of the universe and then at the end on the way back in to earth

sigh

Play it again. It shows the orbit of the moon both going out and coming in. Note, after the satellite orbits fad out the moon orbit is seen. This is going out. Coming in, it shows the orbit of the moon. We never see the moon however. Also no satellite orbits coming in.

I don't think they showed the geosyc orbit however. I have seen them represented and they are evenly spaced in pairs (or more can't recall) at the same orbital distance.

Don

by **sellekaers** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:13 pm

Well, it all looks nice, but first of all the Milky Way has no bar on the image, which is wrong, as it is known that the Galaxy is a spiral WITH a bar.
Secondly "the galaxies we have mapped so far" are again wrong, as the whole sky is already mapped up to some 150 Mpc in depth (for example by the 2MASS Redshift Survey) and the map in the movie looks like what was done (probably) by SDSS only.
So those who visit the Museum and watch this movie don't really get a true picture about "the Known Universe".

by **neufer** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:49 pm

geckzilla wrote:
neufer wrote:(It was nice to see that they ignored both Pluto & its orbit
despite the picture icon at the top of this thread. )
Given that the guy who claims responsibility for the whole Pluto debacle
works at the Hayden Planetarium, it would be amazing if Pluto were in that video.

The guys responsible for the whole Pluto/Planet X debacle are dead.

geckzilla wrote:They ignored the entire Kuiper belt. I guess because it would be too faint.

They couldn't very well include the Kuiper belt after ignoring the Asteroid belt.

by **geckzilla** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:05 pm

neufer wrote:(It was nice to see that they ignored both Pluto & its orbit
despite the picture icon at the top of this thread. )

Given that the guy who claims responsibility for the whole Pluto debacle works at the Hayden Planetarium, it would be amazing if Pluto were in that video. They ignored the entire Kuiper belt. I guess because it would be too faint. Their focus did seem to be on illustrating a realistic scale.

by **neufer** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:51 pm

r937 wrote:HEY, SOMEBODY STOLE DA MOON!!!

luna was completely missing, both on the way out to the edge of the universe and then at the end on the way back in to earth

I'm guessing the idea here is to constantly concentrate on ever larger features on the way out.

The moon would suddenly have become a smaller feature; however, it's orbit is a larger one.

(It was nice to see that they ignored both Pluto & its orbit
despite the picture icon at the top of this thread.

)

by **mrogovin** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:16 pm

Nice but I prefer the original Eames' film Powers of 10, on which this is clearly based. First of all, the Eames film also went to the subatomic scale - the other edge of the known universe. Second, it provided a little more detailed descriptions of distances in scale, time and proportion. Third, rather than based in a mountain range in Asia, it started at a human scale: literally with humans (at a picnic in Chicago in the best known of the two versions). I think this was important because most of us relate to the universe on a human scale, rather than on a mountain scale (which itself is vast and oftern hard to comprehend). It would have been nice for AMNH which is based in NY to start with people in the park outside the planetarium (or have versions that start in various locations around the world, but all at a human scale). I would love to see the original film updated. Still, this is well done and goes put things in proportion. It is a incomprehensibly vast universe out there.

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: The Known Universe (2010 Jan 20)

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