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First images from Euclid are in

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1413 points mooreds | 5 comments | 21 Oct 24 20:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.63s | source
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neom ◴[22 Oct 24 00:08 UTC] No.41909872[source]▶
Some of that zooming in made me feel pretty damn uncomfortable. It really is f'ing massive out there huh. Makes me wonder what this is all about, I'm sure it's something, I wonder what. :)
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wayoverthecloud ◴[22 Oct 24 01:59 UTC] No.41910437[source]▶
I think that too. That it's surely meant to be something. But sometimes I think what does "meaning" even mean? Does universe really have any "meaning", the term that humans invented and that even they are unsure of? Then, I think it's a big randomness, a random accident, a big joke, just happening with nothing to make sense of.
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imchillyb ◴[22 Oct 24 02:25 UTC] No.41910601[source]▶
So many rules, laws, and systems for all of this to be random. Seems a waste of good code if everything is random.

Is an ecosystem random? What happens when one outside force is added to an ecosystem? There's plenty of examples around the globe of this.

Life doesn't 'find a way' and balance. The ecosystem is damaged, and often times destroyed by adding a single non-native species. That doesn't seem random does it?

Randomness should have error correction, as it's random. Doesn't seem to though.

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phito ◴[22 Oct 24 06:01 UTC] No.41911587[source]▶
Ecosystems do adapt. They look broken to us because of our ridiculously small life span.

That's why I dislike framing climate change actions as "saving the planet". The planet will be just fine. We won't.

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shiroiushi ◴[22 Oct 24 07:29 UTC] No.41912024[source]▶
"The planet" is really just a ball of mostly iron and silicates. Of course it'll be fine no matter what. What's important is what's on the surface, namely lifeforms and the biosphere. They're what make this orb so special. Climate change will harm humans, sure, but not just us: it'll harm many other species too, ones which can't adapt fast enough.
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conductr ◴[22 Oct 24 07:47 UTC] No.41912122[source]▶
It’s happened before, life will prevail and eventually thrive again in some other format. I think fully eradicating life from earth will be quite difficult even if we tried. Perhaps when we get swallowed by our sun or some similar event.
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1. shiroiushi ◴[22 Oct 24 07:51 UTC] No.41912145[source]▶
Climate change, even in the worst case, won't come remotely close to eradicating all life. It won't even eradicate humans (though it'll suck for people living on the coasts or in Florida). Even the very worst imaginable catastrophe wouldn't eliminate the various single-celled organisms and extremophiles.

But there are a lot of larger species that are at risk. Maybe I'm just species-ist, but I'm more concerned about things like various bird or mammal species than I am some bacteria.

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2. conductr ◴[22 Oct 24 14:38 UTC] No.41914759[source]▶
It’s definitely sad and especially so that humans are causing/contributing to it. It’s mostly because of our timescale being only witness to a decline and what’s lost is tangible and known. What’s unknown is how on an evolutionary timescale the field is being reset for the next round of species to emerge. From that perspective, it’s a bit interesting to think what could happen. Particularly in the mammal world as humans have or will have eradicated most large predators. Prey populations will swell/collapse and cause adaptation. Some current herbivores/omnivores may convert to carnivore due to the availability of resources. A lot will happen. If you freeze time to protect existing species too much, it’s mostly just for sentimental reasons. Some species do a great service to current ecosystems and are vital to human life as we know it, protecting those is a little different IMO (bees come to mind.)
3. sourcepluck ◴[22 Oct 24 16:11 UTC] No.41915776[source]▶
> Climate change, even in the worst case, won't come remotely close to eradicating all life. It won't even eradicate humans (though it'll suck for people living on the coasts or in Florida). Even the very worst imaginable catastrophe wouldn't eliminate the various single-celled organisms and extremophiles.

I have heard intelligent people claim a good few times now, and feel like it's obviously unscientific. It seems faith-based. Sure, life on Earth has proven to be resilient and adaptable, but we've no way to be sure how the planet will develop in the coming thousands and millions of years.

Climates and ecosystems and geology change. Life on Earth has persisted through some wild misadventures and atmospheric changes, but it's a very complex system. Surely it's theoretically feasible that some surprising thing could set us off on a course towards ending up with an atmosphere similar to Venus or Mars one day? How can we know with certainty this won't happen?

To me it seems like "life-ism" rather than species-ism at that point. The idea that "life will go on, no matter what" seems so obviously intuitive to a member of the Life class. I fear it is a misguided - though romantic, and somewhat touching - sentiment.

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4. lazide ◴[22 Oct 24 16:37 UTC] No.41916059[source]▶
Co2 has had spikes up to > 5000 ppm in the atmosphere in the past.

Is anything possible? Sure.

Is anything currently proposed as possible likely to sterilize the planet? No.

We could get hit by a mini-moon sized asteroid tomorrow though that liquifies the crust, of course.

5. shiroiushi ◴[22 Oct 24 23:52 UTC] No.41919977[source]▶
Well, this planet's been hit by asteroids including the massive one that made the Chixhulub crater, and life persisted. I think the idea that some life wouldn't survive all but the most catastrophic event (i.e. something liquifying the entire crust) is honestly nuts. Pumping a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere isn't going to destroy life; there's plenty of plants and bacteria that thrive with lots of CO2, even if humans don't.