
The Oldest Galaxies in the Universe - Hooke
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-oldest-galaxies-ever-glimpsed/412300/?single_page=true
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hoorayimhelping
Every atom in your body was forged in a star. The iron in your blood, the
oxygen and carbon that make up the proteins and fats that allow complex
organisms to exist, the copper and gold we use for wiring, the uranium we're
splitting for energy; all of it was made by a star that had used up all its
hydrogen and started fusing heavier elements.

Nearly all of the energy we use on earth (a small fraction is from nuclear
decay) is stored sunlight. The gasoline we burn? That was sunlight that got
converted into a plant, which was converted into a growing dinosaur that ate
plants, which died and was converted into oil over billions of years of heat
and pressure.

Thinking of that always makes me smile at how somewhat accidentally right
ancient people who worshiped the sun as a god were.

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hyperpallium
Used very little, but there's also tidal and geothernal power.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Tidal movement of the oceans is generated by the pull of the moon and sun.
Given the Earth / Moon system is only exists because the of the Sun, they're
both arguable solar also.

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codyb
This is a spurious comment but how neat to be blasted by photons which have
travelled for _billions_ of years.

I presume, if they're hitting the telescope they're probably hitting me (which
does make me feel a little self centered).

I wonder how long they will keep traveling?

The cosmos have been super interesting lately with those weird formations
orbiting one star and the SETI project being refocused on another after
detecting a strange sequence of lights. (I am barely a lay man here so bear
with me if I'm making an ass of myself astronomers). And of course the Mars
rover and those beautiful shots of Pluto.

I look forward to a tremendous amount more. I've got a book on Einstein's
Theory of Relativity, and a beautiful illustrated copy of Stephen Hawking's
most famous work (I cannot seem to remember the title). After Catch-22 I
believe I'll check them out.

If anyone has any other suggestions for understanding the cosmos I'd be
indebted.

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hoorayimhelping
A Brief History of Time is the book by Stephen Hawking. It's really
approachable and easy to read. I also liked The Elegant Universe by Brian
Greene. That was the first book I read where the author was able to explain
both the standard model of physics and special and general relativity in ways
that made sense to me.

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rootbear
Agreed about both books. The Elegant Universe explains clearly how Relativity
and Quantum Mechanics conflict, and how String Theory solves that problem. I
should reread the Hawking book, I haven't read it since college.

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biot
The James Webb Telescope has a planned mission life of up to 10 years. At some
point after that, it will fail. Given that it's going to be parked at L2, what
happens at the end of its life? Presumably it'll just sit there waiting for a
future salvage ship to come along and scoop it up for parts?

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melling
Although the Webb telephone will be 100x better than Hubble, you gotta wonder
if it wouldn't be useful to keep Hubble around for a few more decades. Surely,
there's enough work for both.

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iwwr
Absolutely, Hubble can see in the optical and near-UV, while James Webb will
be limited to the infrared. "Limited" is one way of putting it, it'll be
immensely valuable in finding astrophysical phenomena and also distant Solar
System objects (Perhaps yet bigger Pluto's orbiting in the distance).

We also need specialized spacecraft in the vein of Terrestrial Planetary
Finder and definitely a follow-on mission of Kepler, as well as ground-based
planet-finding telescopes like Colossus: [http://the-
colossus.com/](http://the-colossus.com/) .

We could also use a systematic search for solar systems similar to [KIC
8462852]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852)).

