Telescopes Useless by 2050? 163
Wellerite writes "Gerry Gilmore, from Cambridge University, has told the BBC that ground-based telescopes will be worthless by 2050. This is due to more and more cloud cover caused by climate change and increasing numbers of aircraft vapour trails. It seems to be time to start preparing to launch more orbit-based telescopes."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean?! (Score:2)
Re:What do you mean?! (Score:2)
I find'em pretty bloody useless in 2006! (Score:2, Funny)
But, Cor! Look at the knockers she's got!
Re:What do you mean?! (Score:2)
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:2)
I know that not all of us here area as environmentally minded as me, but at least everyone here can recognize the sillyness of calling global warming something that could just as well apply to a fucking ice age, right?
I mean, just because you dont want to sound like a dirty hippie is no reason to be so imprecise with your language.
its global fucking warming, ok?
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:2)
Re:My verdict on who is right and wrong. (Score:2)
As "the hottest on record" guy, I do have to retract my earlier statement. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, 2005 is, in fact, not THE hottest on record, its tied for hottest with 1998. My bad. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/reco r dtemp2005.html [ucsusa.org]
Now, if you'd like to maybe, i dunno, reference any actual information on which you based your other statements, I'm all ears.
And no, the almight "THEY" did not change global warm
Re:Shut the fuck up (Score:1, Troll)
I also have been here long enough to know that 99.44% of all AC comments are pure fucking stupidity, just like yours is, but I still respond to them.
I have an agenda outside humor in bringing up that message. You should never fucking see it. Slashdot has all the sophistication and grace of a three-rotor difference engine made out of bologna an
Re:Shut the fuck up (Score:1)
Wait, did I miss a point?
-Peter
Re:Shut the fuck up (Score:2)
But /. web pages have really cool colors!
Re:Shut the fuck up (Score:2)
So will a combo of bologna and cheez whiz, if you leave it out long enough...
As much as I can tell...escope (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As much as I can tell...escope (Score:3, Funny)
What would society want more. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What would society want more. (Score:2)
Is this a joke with a reference that I'm failing to associate?
Re:What would society want more. (Score:2)
The "fat lady driving a hummer" is a popular negative stereotype of the common person that (like many stereotypes) didn't exactly appear out of nowhere.
Re:What would society want more. (Score:2)
If by common you mean spoiled upper middle class person, then I'm with you.
Re:What would society want more. (Score:2)
Or at least a nickel.
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm one of those type of people. I don't think we need to give up our technology. I know people like that, and I think they're pretty lame. You can't maintain a large population without technology. Of course, most of those people are planning for the aftermath of a crash of civilization, not working to actually improve what we have here.
What we need to do is use our technology. There's technology decades old that we're not using today because corporations are able to lobby politicians to feed 'em pork and step on their competition for them. Rudolf Diesel ran his first demo engine on peanut oil but here we are burning dino juice. We could be using oils extracted from hydroponically grown algae - topsoil-based fuels are damaging to the environment.
However, I agree that the fat chick in the H2 is an excellent example of the conspicuous consumption that's contributing to the destruction of the biosphere. Or at least, noticable changes that are making things worse for living organisms that we're interested in, not least of all ourselves. For example, humans put out like 500 times as much CO2 as volcanoes every year. The system is self-balancing, sure, but part of that balance may involve crushing humans, if we keep going the way we're going.
The H2 is a heavy piece of shit that's good for nothing whatsoever. The best "off-road" feature is that it's got locking differentials, which you can get for just about anything that's not front wheel drive. It's just a fucked over rebadged tahoe. And being fat means you're eating too much, or the wrong things, but usually too much. Food has to come from somewhere. Agriculture has done more damage to the biosphere than anything else, ever. Egypt used to be green! And meat - which I happen to belive in - with our current methods of food production, it's horrible as well. Overgrazing leads to the depletion of native grasses which hold down the topsoil. This leads to the soil washing away into rivers. This causes the rivers to be choked with silt, causing fish to die. Once enough of the dirt washes away, it means that less rain can soak into the soil, so more of it runs off, leading to increased flooding.
Still think the fat chick in the gas-guzzling H2 is AOK?
ObDisclaimer/Disclosure: I am a 320lb. American male who occasionally eats fast food. I drive a 1981 MBZ 300SD, which is a 3500 lb turbo diesel 4-door sedan getting 25mpg real-world mileage. (I got 26.25 on my last tank, actually, but it tends to bounce between 24 and 26 depending on driving habits.) I intend to convert my fuel system to heat and inject WVO, but it's not free...
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
I believe in meat too, but what about the fat chick in the 1981 MBZ 300SD? Is that your girlfriend?
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
If I switched to a Golf TDI today, not only would I be looking at the road from between my knees because I'm 6'7", but it would probably be at least a decade before I saw any cost savings, and god knows how long before there were any energy savings.
See, someone has to build cars. They don't just coalesce out of the ether. That takes energy. We're talking about two tons (well, if it's a little shitbox VW, one ton) of s
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
-7 points for false assumptions.
A) My car is 12 years old, and although I haven't put quite as many miles on it as you have on yours, rest assured that it has seen more than its share.
B) It weighs well under 1 ton, with me in it.
C) It runs on gasoline, not diesel. I considered diesel alternatives when I bought it, but nothing really stood out at the time.
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
So you've either got a hybrid, or a motorcycle. From your comment about endangering your life, I would guess motorcycle, but you did say car. Most hybrids are pretty dinky... Hell, I wouldn't trust my life to a civic on a regular basis. An accord is pushing it already.
Well, guess what? Your batteries are subsidized by the automaker, which is willing to take a loss on them on the assumption that you will probably bring your specialized vehicle to the dealer since few non-dealer shops know how to deal wit
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
PS: My car completely paid for itself in gas savings in less than a year. Zero net cost, and dropping into t
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
No, but damn near every car under a ton is a deathtrap. Put a little thought into it, think of what they are, and you'll see. From a Fiat 1600 to a CRX, they're not crashworthy at all.
A car doesn't have to be a land yacht to be safe. In fact, the old full-frame cars are considerably less safe than a modern mi
Re:Could be a joke but more likely... (Score:2)
Re:What would society want more. (Score:2)
False dilemma (Score:2)
You either give up your cheap trips to Majorca, or you give up astronomy. You can't do both
False dilemma ... actually you can do both. Technology is not inherently dirty - it's possible to create and use cleaner technologies.
I don't believe this (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways, I guess a little more cloud cover and vapour trails combined with "light pollution" will make today's designs less efficient, but I can't see how there is any way that ground based telescopes will become obsolete.
Re:I don't believe this (Score:2)
Re:I don't believe this (Score:2)
It's not that simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, light pollution isn't just a localized problem. Light bends and reflects in the atmosphere very effectively. So much so, in fact, that the moon is still very clearly visible in a full lunar eclipse (it has a rusty brown colour) and car headlights are forever being mistaken for UFOs at a distance.
Personally, I think we should have giant space telescopes anyway. Enough of the 9' junk we call Hubble, we need a good 100' optical space telescope. The mechanisms we use to compensate for atmospheric effects should work just as well for the distortion in space due to dust and crystalline particles in interstellar clouds.
Actually, the way I'd do it is to have a set of giant space-based telescopes on a polar orbit around the moon such that they were always visible from Earth. Less atmospheric drag, so won't have as many problems as Hubble, and the orbit is much less crowded.
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2)
As for the 100' optical space telescope in orbit around the moon. I hope we have the technology and funding for that withing my lifetime, but I can't see that being too cheap!
Who cares about cheap? (Score:2)
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2, Funny)
. . . whoa, I'm like the Grammar un-Nazi over here.
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Large telescopes also tend to be built high on mountains, both because there's less atmosphere to look through, but more importantly because they're above the clouds.
Big space telescopes would be cool all right, but it's kind of tr
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2)
Definitely cool projects when we get that infrastructure though.
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2)
Of course, if you
Re:It's not that simple. (Score:2)
BUT... it doesn't help you out at all for seeing dim objects. A lot of the exciting astronomy, cosmology, looking back to the origins of the universe, etc. requires high light sensitivity, for which you absolutely need light gathering power, meaning lots of area.
Interferometers are great, but they won't even come close to replacing large tele
Antarctica? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
Yes, and a climate that happens to include a significant portion of time well below freezing. IANA Astronomer, but temperatures that cold would probably have an impact on the mechanics of a telescope.
Re:Antarctica? (Score:3, Informative)
How in heck can that work? (Score:2)
Once you open the dome for observations, you allow outdoor air to come in contact with indoor air. You're going to get turbulence and fog. If you put a layer of glass in the middle, you get dew or even frost. (and you still get turbulence, because the glass will be either warm or cold and thus not equal to the air on one side or the other)
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
It's a fuzzy number, but the amount of dark current generated _entirely within_ a CCD sensor doubles approximately every 7 degrees celsius when near room temperature.
Associated with d
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
Hubble, being in orbit, sees lower temperatures (and greater variations of temperature) than anything at the south pole ever would. There's nothing in terms of engineering that prevents the building of a telescope in sub-zero temperatures.
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
SP-500 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SP-500 (Score:2)
Re:SP-500 (Score:2)
" By 1990 the number of people spending the winter in Antarctica had risen to 1,145." (from http://www.antarcticaonline.com/antarctica/history /history.htm [antarcticaonline.com]).
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
Re:Antarctica? (Score:2)
At the equator, the entire celestial sphere is visible at night at some point during the year. So if you want to study a certain object or field at an equatorial observatory, you can figure out what time of year it's up at night, and put that time constraint in your proposal. If your target is overhead at noon now, it will be overhead at midnight in six months.
In contrast, at the poles, hal
Perhaps with a satellite internet connection... (Score:2)
You don't necessarily need to be at the telescope to control the telescope [sonoma.edu].
Simple Solution (Score:3, Funny)
WTF?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, yeah, let's treat the symptom and ignore the cause!
Re:WTF?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or better yet, moon or mars based telescopes. The happy side effect is that a few astronomers will survive for awhile on the moon/mars after the earth becomes uninhabitable.
Actually if you think about nearly every problem we have, we almost always concentrate on the symptoms instead of the cause. Which brings us back to why a few astronomers on the moon/mars would be a good thing....
Re:WTF?!? (Score:2)
Heh, mod parent Insightful!
Evil Alien Conquerors! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh NOES! (Score:2)
Remember, in 50 years deserts and mountains won't exist because of GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!1!
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
I get no traction trying to speak to others about global warming either. The idea is considered blasphomy that it may simply be part of a larger cycle, that the earth gets warmer, then cooler, regardless of what we humans are doing. I have no idea, but for so many to ignore it shows the true agenda. I would LOVE to know the truth, instead of having "dirty hippies" tell me I am a horrible human for even asking the question.
For many (not all) i
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
I am attempting to make this planet as habitable as possible for future generations, and I dont see the concessions as being so grave as to ju
Safest path (Score:2)
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
But what about the fact that the sun, which drives all the earth's weather, has been steadily getting warmer since at least the late 70s [space.com], if not earlier? Heck, I doubt any sane person could blame that on the usual idustrialization, America, SUV driver, or whatever the scapegoat du jour is.
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:3, Insightful)
Strong regulations against pollution will not destroy America. On the other hand, the apparent warming of the Earth will not incinerate us all.
There are many people invested in the idea that we alone are to blame for this "crisis." Respected scientists publish graph after graph showing that the temperature is rising with the ris
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
The Sun's luminosity is continously monitored both on the ground and from satellites, and is known at better than 0.1% precision. If there was more light coming in, we would know immediately.
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
It would seem the smartest idea would be to take a long term approach, lowering the allowed amount of pollution over a long time, which would actually HELP th
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:2)
Yes, there are a lot of bozos on either side of the "debate". The fact that idiots agree with me doesn't invalidate my opinion, though.
> there really are millions out there who think they are smarter than the rest of us,
Statistically, there are millions of people that are smarter than the rest of us. It's the beauty of the bell curve
> and think we should all live like they want us to live, whether
Re:Oh NOES! (Score:1)
Hawai'i close to capacity (Score:2)
While there may be problems with future air traffic growth around the world, Hawai'i may not necessarily be involved in those problems. According to this article at CNN [cnn.com] Hawai'i is close to capacity. There may or may not be significant growth in air traffic to the islands.
Re:Hawai'i close to capacity (Score:2)
Re:Hawai'i close to capacity (Score:2)
Re:Hawai'i close to capacity (Score:2)
That's how the Polynesian natives in Hawai'i spell it. I work with someone that has a "Hawai'i Pacific University" ID-Card holder strapped around their neck, so I see it that way every day (FYI-I live in Pennsylvania).
This is Pure BS (Score:2, Insightful)
It is possible that cloud cover will increase in some places, and I can believe that jet contrails reduce the visibility of astronomical objects, but unless cloud cover increases to 100% over the entire surface of the earth and/or atmospheric jet travel increases by many orders of magnitudes, there will still be plenty of cloudless night sky on the pl
There's a silver lining (Score:4, Funny)
Evil Geniuses planning to build a super laser and extort the world for billions of dollars on a budget rejoice!
Re:There's a silver lining (Score:2)
Alas due to inflation that will be like asking for 1 million dollars in 1997.
Re:There's a silver lining (Score:2)
Hmmm, what does this remind me of? (Score:2, Offtopic)
nature of research (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's observing time available on a 10-meter ground-based telescope, you'd better believe there will be competition for that observing time, and papers will be published. But if really amazing things are going to be discovered, it's probably going to come from techniques that are a big leap ahead of what we have now, like telescopes in space. Telescopes in space can have apertures as big as you like without buckling under their own weight, they can probe parts of the spectrum that don't get through the atmosphere, and they're not affected by issues like clouds and contrails.
I don't find it hard to believe that contrails could be a major issue. Every time I go backpacking and spend a lot of time in a remote spot in the Seirras looking up at the sky, that's what I see a lot of -- jet contrails. If ground-based astronomy is already being pushed to the limits of what it can do, then presumably they're often working at levels of sensitivity a gazillion orders of magnitude beyond the naked eye, so I can easily imagine that contrails that would appear to the naked eye to have completely dissipated could be an issue.
Re:nature of research (Score:2)
Re:nature of research (Score:2)
Now the rest of the world will live like Seattle (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
and by 2080... (Score:2)
Time to think of a solar-orbit telescope?
Buyers Guide to Major telescope sites (Score:2)
comparing and contrasting three sites for a new major telescope facility. Suffice it to say that the top of an unclimbed mountain in the middle of Antarctica is the MOST pleasant and accessible of them.
Useless, or obsolete? (Score:2)
Re:Complete and utter rubbish... (Score:3, Informative)
I have two points to make here.
One: clouds go pretty high. The telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii are situated at ~14,000 feet. They get clouded out relatively frequently, roughly 20% of the time.
Two: Contrails form in the atmosphere. The atmosphere moves. Therefore contrails move, and can affect locations where there aren't any flightpaths.
Re:Complete and utter rubbish... (Score:2)
That means its still 300 days per year of viewing. That's not "relatively frequently" unless you compare it to the telescopes situated in the Atacama desert in Chile. It's above the inversion layer and so doesn't get "clouded out" that often. That's why the site is so important in astronomy.
Two: Contrails form in the atmosphere. The atmosphere mo
Re:Skepticism is well and good, but... (Score:2)
I've been a very active and skilled observer of the night sky for over twenty years. Just recently I looked over my observing logs from 15 years ago and noted I was out observing about the same number of nights and seeing roughly the same detail through the telescope that I'm seeing today.
If the conditions are such for clear skies, then the moisture from contrails aren't a problem becaus
Re:Skepticism is well and good, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Simply put, I should not have trouble making out 2 out of 4 of the Trapezium on a perfectly clear winter night, 15 miles outside of town. But that HAS been the case, at all of my regular observation spots, whereas it was not 10 years ago.
Maybe
Re:Skepticism is well and good, but... (Score:2)
Re:Skepticism is well and good, but... (Score:2)
The pros are more and more often beating atmospheric seeing with technology. Look at the resolution the 8-meter ESO scopes in Chile are getting, not to mention WYIN and other new generation pro scopes - they are routinely putting the post WWII generation of large scopes to shame, especially at longer wavelengths. Amateurs have mastered technology to combat atmospheric seeing - that's
Re:Ground-based scopes are old technology (Score:2)
Compare that to a whole bunch of ground based telescopes that do all sorts of things, from the hundreds of little whole sky cameras for watching the aurora and meteors to the big scopes.
For some applications you just have to have the huge apertures of ground based telescopes that we don't know how to build in space yet.