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Star near Orion

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  • 13-02-2012 2:37am
    #1
    AugustusMinimus
    Registered Users Posts: 4,553 ✭✭✭


    Saw a star tonight and wondering what it is.

    If you take the main 3 stars of orions belt, it's was roughly in a line drawn from the three stars westwards.

    Had a bluey - green colour. Never seen anything like it. hardly a planet ?


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    #2
    coylemj
    Registered Users Posts: 25,429 ✭✭✭✭coylemj


    Up to the right of Orion?

    Aldebran, brightest star in Taurus. It's a red giant and is considered to be the eye of the eponymous bull.

    or maybe down to the left? Sirius, brightest star in the sky.


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    #3
    AugustusMinimus
    Registered Users Posts: 4,553 ✭✭✭AugustusMinimus


    Ah. Prob Sirius. Never noticed it before.


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    #4
    NoQuarter
    Registered Users Posts: 4,632 ✭✭✭NoQuarter


    And the large reddish star above left to Orion is Betelgeuse which is dying out.


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    #5
    slade_x
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,425 Mod ✭✭✭✭slade_x


    NoQuarter wrote: »
    And the large reddish star above left to Orion is Betelgeuse which is dying out.

    May have already died, or may die soon (soon for the measure of time for a star with comparison to our own fleeting biological clocks is a very very very long time still, even for a dying one). maybe it could even last longer than mankind. Be a shame to miss the lightshow though


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    #6
    NoQuarter
    Registered Users Posts: 4,632 ✭✭✭NoQuarter


    True, and calculations say it would take approximately 520 years for the light show to reach us. Here's hoping it blew 519 years ago!


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    #7
    Aidan1985
    Registered Users Posts: 15 ✭Aidan1985


    Speaking on subject of distance and the speed of light. Let's pretend there is a planet harboring life orbiting a star 65million light years away. Now this life is extremely advanced with tech beyond our imagination and let's say they have a telescope, so powerful that it can see anywhere in the universe with exceptional detail. If they pointed the scope at Earth, would they actually see dinosaurs? I know this sounds crazy, and I may come across as a nut, but based on the laws of physics of the speed of light, this can be possible? 65million years ago marks the extinction of the dinosaurs. Light travels at nearly (or maybe slightly more) 300,000Kmps meaning that it would take the light from Earth 65million years to reach this planet. Therefore, right now, the inhabitants are looking into our past. Just a crazy thought from someone who thinks too much. Any ideas on this?


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    #8
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Aidan1985 wrote: »
    Speaking on subject of distance and the speed of light. Let's pretend there is a planet harboring life orbiting a star 65million light years away. Now this life is extremely advanced with tech beyond our imagination and let's say they have a telescope, so powerful that it can see anywhere in the universe with exceptional detail. If they pointed the scope at Earth, would they actually see dinosaurs? I know this sounds crazy, and I may come across as a nut, but based on the laws of physics of the speed of light, this can be possible? 65million years ago marks the extinction of the dinosaurs. Light travels at nearly (or maybe slightly more) 300,000Kmps meaning that it would take the light from Earth 65million years to reach this planet. Therefore, right now, the inhabitants are looking into our past. Just a crazy thought from someone who thinks too much. Any ideas on this?
    Nothing crazy about the idea at all, when you look at something you see it as it was when the light left it. If you were looking through a telescope at Mars and saw an asteroid hitting it, it would have actually happened 4 mins ago, so you would be witnessing an event that happened in the past.
    You can push this to any distance you want, so your hypothetical aliens 65 million light years away could be viewing the KT asteroid impact and fleeing T-Rex's.

    Think about this one, because of the finite speed of light everything you see happened in the past, even when you look at something in the same room as you, because the light has taken time to travel from the object to your eye you aren't seeing it at the same moment the light left it but a (very very tiny) fraction of a second later i.e. in the past. :)


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    #9
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users Posts: 16,686 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    Think about this one, because of the finite speed of light everything you see happened in the past

    Indeed, a character in one of Flann O'Brien's books invented a device with parallel mirrors reflecting each other forever and a powerful telescope. When he looked into it, he could see himself as a boy. :D


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    #10
    Is this my name?
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭Is this my name?


    Aidan1985 wrote: »
    Let's pretend there is a planet harboring life orbiting a star 65million light years away. Now this life is extremely advanced with tech beyond our imagination and let's say they have a telescope, so powerful that it can see anywhere in the universe with exceptional detail. If they pointed the scope at Earth, would they actually see dinosaurs?

    That is interesting to think about. Also, if we find life on another planet some day and it is 100k light yrs away, we might see very primitive life with no technology at all. but it's been 100k yrs and by now the aliens could have advanced their technology thousands of yrs ahead of us.
    or if there was something as reflective as a mirror in space (for whatever reason) and it was for eg. 1 million light yrs away, if we could look at it at the right angle we could see Earth as it was 2 million yrs ago. if we could find something mirror-like at various distances we could actually see exactly what happened in the past at different times and learn facts about the history of our planet.


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    #11
    Aidan1985
    Registered Users Posts: 15 ✭Aidan1985


    It's awesome to think that this is an actually possibility and not science fiction. When we become advanced to a level where were can view all places in the universe in great detail, we will begin to discover great things. More solar systems and surely at some point, life. Well I hope so in anyways. Who knows what is out there, millions and millions of light years away in terms of possible life.


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    #12
    Is this my name?
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭Is this my name?


    I think it will be very frustrating and taunting if we do find life. it will likely be 10 000+ light yrs away, and therefor we can never get to it. since even with very advanced technology if we could somehow send something at light speed, it would take 10 000+ yrs to get there.


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    #13
    Calibos
    Registered Users Posts: 7,807 ✭✭✭Calibos


    Is this my name? wrote: »
    I think it will be very frustrating and taunting if we do find life. it will likely be 10 000+ light yrs away, and therefor we can never get to it. since even with very advanced technology if we could somehow send something at light speed, it would take 10 000+ yrs to get there.

    Agree with the bolded part, but not for the reason you think. Its actually economics and human nature that will prevent it not Physics or the human lifespan.

    The laws of physics preclude a ship travelling at lightspeed but there is nothing that says we can't build a ship capable of a high fraction of lightspeed. Say for example 50% of lightspeed. So if our nearest technological neighbour is in a star system 10,000LY away the law of relativity means that while from our point of view here on earth the mission there would take 40,000 years (20,000 years there and 20,000 years back), from the crews perspective on the ship it might take 10 years.

    This is where politics, economics and human nature rear their ugly head.
    First you have to have the worlds governments decide to invest a significan't proportion of world GDP to the endeavour for god only knows how many years. They have to convince the worlds population that its worth diverting money from everything that is important to them and then at the end tell them, By the way, We won't see the pay off for 40,000 years. Just think about what humans were like or were doing 40,000 years ago. If the Neanderthals were a technological species 40,000 years ago, the ship they sent off to this star system would only be arriving back about now. The Neanderthal crew would only be 10 years older and yet not only is their immediate family dead, their country long gone........their WHOLE RACE!! is dead and they find their home planet filled with 7 billion different albeit related hominids.

    The answer from the worlds populace will be, "actually do you know what, the knowledge that they are out there but we can never visit them isn't so bad after all.

    Never going to happen unless we discover a way to circumvent the laws of physics with FTL drives like Star Trek, Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

    (BTW, when you get to lightspeed the journey takes no time at all. For instance from the photon that left the Andromeda galaxy 2,000,000 years agos' perspective, the journey to earth in Andromedas neighbouring galaxy the Milky Way took less than a second.)


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    #14
    oriel16
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭oriel16


    AugustusMinimus wrote: »
    Ah. Prob Sirius. Never noticed it before.

    Most certainly it is Sirius if you follow the line of 3 stars.It disappears for a few months behind the glare of the Sun ,basically a line of sight effect due to the orbital motion of the Earth and its emergence as a distinct point of light from behind the Sun is the basis for the calendar cycle we use today -

    "..on account of the precession of the rising of the Divine Sothis [Sirius] by one day in the course of 4 years, and other festivals celebrated in the summer, in this country, shall not be celebrated in winter, as has occasionally occurred in past times, therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day as feast of Benevolent Gods [the pharaoh and family] be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the New Year" Canopus Decree, 236 BC


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    #15
    Rubecula
    Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭Rubecula


    Was out on the airfield on Friday evening and the sky was clear and well lit with stars.

    The Sun of course is the brightest object in the sky. But on Friday evening numbers two (the moon) and three and four (Venus and Jupiter) were all there in a nice straight line. The line went close to Orion. So it is feasible the OP saw either Jupiter or Venus up that way. I am only guessing though as I was not there with them at the time.


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    #16
    coylemj
    Registered Users Posts: 25,429 ✭✭✭✭coylemj


    Rubecula wrote: »
    Was out on the airfield on Friday evening and the sky was clear and well lit with stars.

    The Sun of course is the brightest object in the sky. But on Friday evening numbers two (the moon) and three and four (Venus and Jupiter) were all there in a nice straight line. The line went close to Orion. So it is feasible the OP saw either Jupiter or Venus up that way. I am only guessing though as I was not there with them at the time.

    Jupiter was 60 degress from Orion's belt on the night of Feb 12/13 when the OP noticed the star so I doubt it. He said it was in line with the belt so it had to be Aldebran or Sirius.


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