Is it approaching the right time to abandon astronomy?

Why do astronomy in the first place?
1) In the stone age, to get the callendar right so you could schedule crop planting and sports meets.
2) Post 1679, to understand physics.
3) To predict disasters such as the impact of comets.
4) Post 1959, to contact extraterrestrial intelligence that could enormously advance human society.
5) Post 1979, to create great poster pictures.

We’re now getting to a time when none of those excuses will do.

mollwollfumble said:

Is it approaching the right time to abandon astronomy?

Why do astronomy in the first place?
1) In the stone age, to get the callendar right so you could schedule crop planting and sports meets.
2) Post 1679, to understand physics.
3) To predict disasters such as the impact of comets.
4) Post 1959, to contact extraterrestrial intelligence that could enormously advance human society.
5) Post 1979, to create great poster pictures.

We’re now getting to a time when none of those excuses will do.

Aren’t we still finding stuff we hadn’t known existed?

mollwollfumble said:

Is it approaching the right time to abandon astronomy?

Why do astronomy in the first place?
1) In the stone age, to get the callendar right so you could schedule crop planting and sports meets.
2) Post 1679, to understand physics.
3) To predict disasters such as the impact of comets.
4) Post 1959, to contact extraterrestrial intelligence that could enormously advance human society.
5) Post 1979, to create great poster pictures.

We’re now getting to a time when none of those excuses will do.

Visual light astronomy ?

6) to find a potential new home planet so Elon Musk can fuck off and take a crowd of entitled first world millennials with him.

Once we know everything

dv said:

Once we know everything

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Tamb said:

dv said:

Once we know everything

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

dv said:

Tamb said:

dv said:

Once we know everything

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

If we are still here to do that.

dv said:

Tamb said:

dv said:

Once we know everything

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

LOL

I thought we studied the Universe because it is there.

dv said:

Tamb said:

dv said:

Once we know everything

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

I’m thinking more about the world’s money running out.

I’m not including Earth Observation for space here in “Astronomy”. There are still plenty of good reasons for that. Earth observation seems to be a much higher priority now.

The Rev Dodgson said:

I thought we studied the Universe because it is there.

Seems a damn good reason to me.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

Tamb said:

But we won’t know that we know everything so astronomy will continue ad Infinitem.

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

I’m thinking more about the world’s money running out.

I’m not including Earth Observation for space here in “Astronomy”. There are still plenty of good reasons for that. Earth observation seems to be a much higher priority now.

We live in a world infamous for its vast wastage on bullshit and nonsense. Zillions spent on weapons and garbage.

There needs to be far more resources dedicated to worthwhile research of all kinds, not less.

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

Well eventually the universe will be destroyed so we might have to pack it in then

I’m thinking more about the world’s money running out.

I’m not including Earth Observation for space here in “Astronomy”. There are still plenty of good reasons for that. Earth observation seems to be a much higher priority now.

We live in a world infamous for its vast wastage on bullshit and nonsense. Zillions spent on weapons and garbage.

There needs to be far more resources dedicated to worthwhile research of all kinds, not less.

Yeah, that’s what I thought yesterday.

But for instance, what about money spent on geology and chemistry? Shouldn’t that be more than on astronomy?

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’m thinking more about the world’s money running out.

I’m not including Earth Observation for space here in “Astronomy”. There are still plenty of good reasons for that. Earth observation seems to be a much higher priority now.

We live in a world infamous for its vast wastage on bullshit and nonsense. Zillions spent on weapons and garbage.

There needs to be far more resources dedicated to worthwhile research of all kinds, not less.

Yeah, that’s what I thought yesterday.

But for instance, what about money spent on geology and chemistry? Shouldn’t that be more than on astronomy?

Geological research is largely funded through the stock exchange. I imagine chemistry would be similar.

Michael V said:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

We live in a world infamous for its vast wastage on bullshit and nonsense. Zillions spent on weapons and garbage.

There needs to be far more resources dedicated to worthwhile research of all kinds, not less.

Yeah, that’s what I thought yesterday.

But for instance, what about money spent on geology and chemistry? Shouldn’t that be more than on astronomy?

Geological research is largely funded through the stock exchange. I imagine chemistry would be similar.

Geological engineering research related to mining is well funded. Scientific geological research, or engineering research without a direct link to a source of income (such as earthquake engineering) struggles to find funds.

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

We need to research Mars so we can move there once we completely fuck up Earth.

Ian said:

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

That was partly sorted out by the WISE satellite in 2009 to 2010. With updates since then being relatively minor. 16 new near earth asteroids this month, out of a total known of 20324 near earth asteroids, none of which is dangerous.

> We need to research Mars so we can move there once we completely fuck up Earth.

Too expensive to move more than a tiny fraction of the population there. I had been hoping to have a base there before the nuclear missiles wipe everybody out. But a nuclear war with icbms may not even happen now.

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

That was partly sorted out by the WISE satellite in 2009 to 2010. With updates since then being relatively minor. 16 new near earth asteroids this month, out of a total known of 20324 near earth asteroids, none of which is dangerous.

> We need to research Mars so we can move there once we completely fuck up Earth.

Too expensive to move more than a tiny fraction of the population there. I had been hoping to have a base there before the nuclear missiles wipe everybody out. But a nuclear war with icbms may not even happen now.

The worry would be one side has what they think are unstoppable/undetectable missiles and instigate a massive first strike

Ian said:

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

This is the graph i was looking for. No dangers found so far.

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

That was partly sorted out by the WISE satellite in 2009 to 2010. With updates since then being relatively minor. 16 new near earth asteroids this month, out of a total known of 20324 near earth asteroids, none of which is dangerous.

I thought that there were big gaps in our understanding of NEOs.
In any case potential mitigation techniques for an object on track to impact earth are all problematic.

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

I’d like to know more about what’s out there as well as what’s coming in here by way of PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).

This is the graph i was looking for. No dangers found so far.

Hey, this one is brand new.

https://atlas.fallingstar.com/home.php

Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System
ATLAS is an asteroid impact early warning system being developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA. It consists of two telescopes, 100 miles apart, which automatically scan the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects.

ATLAS will provide one day’s warning for a 30-kiloton “town killer,” a week for a 5-megaton “city killer,” and three weeks for a 100-megaton “county killer”.

That’s about as good as it gets. No warning at all for anything approaching from within 60 degrees of the Sun.

Astronomy can easily be handled by AI across all astronomy fields.

Continually updating databases until the observable universe is mapped completely.

My thinking is that astronomy still has to be taught to children etc to they can learn further concepts in astrophysics and cosmology unless that is changing.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Astronomy can easily be handled by AI across all astronomy fields.

Continually updating databases until the observable universe is mapped completely.

My thinking is that astronomy still has to be taught to children etc to they can learn further concepts in astrophysics and cosmology unless that is changing.

I like that.

We can’t abandon astronomy until Donald Trump learns the solar system.