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First images from Euclid are in

(dlmultimedia.esa.int)
1413 points mooreds | 5 comments | 21 Oct 24 20:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.62s | 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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1970-01-01 ◴[22 Oct 24 13:45 UTC] No.41914208[source]▶
The actual problem is that we were made early enough to begin to understand the full scale of it, but we're still not mature enough to go out there and explore it. Therefore, you can reason that now is the right time to get behind anything that pushes us beyond the Earth.
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mr_mitm ◴[22 Oct 24 15:32 UTC] No.41915296[source]▶
These distances are well outside the scope of exploration. Getting to the next solar system is already a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Getting to the next galaxy? Forget it. Getting to these galaxies we see in the picture? Absolutely no way. I know people like to be optimistic about these things but it's honestly pure wishful thinking.
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1970-01-01 ◴[22 Oct 24 15:38 UTC] No.41915377[source]▶
Once we have fusion reactors, it won't be.
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Night_Thastus ◴[22 Oct 24 15:43 UTC] No.41915450[source]▶
Fusion reactors won't really help. Sure, you can accelerate indefinitely - but only at maybe 1G or a bit more if you don't want to kill the occupants. Then you have to flip and decelerate. Unless we find a way to freeze/stasis people, the limits are still shockingly small.

We'd need to start cracking some kind of jumping/FTL/etc technology to have any hope of real exploration.

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1. dreamcompiler ◴[22 Oct 24 16:39 UTC] No.41916079[source]▶
Well... you don't need to freeze people if you can travel at a substantial fraction of c, because of time dilation.

Caveats:

1. It's really, really hard to supply enough energy to go that fast, even with fusion power.

2. Your passengers won't be able to go home again, because by the time they get back everyone they've ever known will be long dead.

3. Even if you could go that fast, you'll eventually hit a speck of dust and disintegrate.

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2. behnamoh ◴[22 Oct 24 19:19 UTC] No.41917699[source]▶
> 3. Even if you could go that fast, you'll eventually hit a speck of dust and disintegrate.

Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean if we clash with anything (even as small as a space dust) while traveling at a substantial fraction of c, it would disintegrate us?

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3. adamredwoods ◴[22 Oct 24 19:44 UTC] No.41917960[source]▶
F=ma

At 1% the speed of light (approx 3000000 m/s) and a medium-mass dust (1x10-5 kg, stationary), not enough force or area to dent steel (350 N/mm^2), but over time, lots of dust could cause erosion (quick math/estimates).

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4. mr_mitm ◴[22 Oct 24 20:27 UTC] No.41918365[source]▶
It would cause damage. The faster you go, the worse is the damage. Even just the cosmic microwave background will eventually turn into dangerous gamma radiation, so you will need heavy lead shields in the front, which makes traveling even more expensive and difficult. At certain speeds, you should think of your spaceship as a drill penetrating the inter galactic medium. And even then the journey will take millions or billions of years (in the reference frame of those staying at home).
5. dreamcompiler ◴[22 Oct 24 21:54 UTC] No.41919118[source]▶
The relevant equation is for kinetic energy, which is 0.5mv^2. Using your numbers that's about 4.5E+7 Joules, or the energy of about 10kG of TNT exploding. That will certainly make a dent, and your space ship won't survive many of those.

I was thinking v would be more like 10% of c, which would mean about 1000kG (1 kiloton) of TNT, or about 1/20 of the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. From a particle of dust weighing 10mG. You'd be toast.