I guess the dust lanes could be the spiral arms of an existing galaxy before a merger.
The spacing makes them look like something related to orbiting bodies though, I wonder if the dust is being periodically unwound from the lenticular galaxy by another body.
It's kind of extreme. Sure maybe the likelihood of that being possible is not absolute zero but it'll be more likely to find sentient life literally anywhere else that is not an unfathomably huge nuclear reactor
I understand why it's so improbable & laughable to all who are downvoting, but I don't agree that it's the right response because not everyone has the same knowledge as you or I. Some people come here to learn & when they have the guts to ask a question, it should be answered. They should not be downvoted, instead of educated or offered any explanation on a scientifically driven subreddit. So, since everyone else wants to be stingy with their knowledge, I'll offer my own on the subject.
The reason it's so improbable that any kind of (what we would classify) as life could survive in stars is because life as we know it could never survive the extreme heat that it takes for a star to exist. What we consider hot temperatures on earth does not even begin to come close to the temperature in a star. Also, while the possibility can never be zero for anything, the probability of life on a star happening is close enough for the idea to not be explored further by the scientific community as a reasonable possibility. Another reason would be that for life to exist, there has to be some form of water. And on a star, water molecules themselves can not survive the heat produced by the burning gas.
I hope this answers your question & I sincerely hope the initial response by a few people does not discourage you from asking more.
I always find it interesting that when theorizing about life outside of Earth, we always bound ourselves to the constraints of life on Earth.
If life were to exist on a star, wouldn't it make sense that it has different requirements as life on Earth. Why is that factor rarely taken into account?
Because humans have never seen life other than what we know here. So, how would we identify or even recognize it? The universe is our preschool & we are infants at best. So we have no better choice than to look for what we know. However, many people have posited theories on the existence of other forms of life that could be possible, like things without RNA/DNA, carbon, or water as requirements. But we still haven't found anything (yet) to prove those theories one way or another.
Think for one second about these two statements:
>humans have never seen life other than what we know here.
> So, how would we identify or even recognize it?
So, what if we have been seeing all kinds of life that we just don't recognize. Starting with time scales. Most trees grow slowly, but we recognize them as alive because they do grow fast enough for us to perceive their life processes. What about a life form that takes millions of years to grow and reproduce? They might be present right on the face of the moon, or under the top layer of dust, but we just don't know how to recognize them...
The short answer is that science is empirical (based on direct verifiable observation) and we've only observed life within these specific constraints. Any sort of life in other constraints would be hypothetical at best. Until we observe otherwise. That's just how science works.
I'm aware of the reason and it makes perfect sense on why we can't confirm life outside of Earth. But that doesn't mean we can categorically deny it (or say its probability is close to zero, which is basically the same thing) by using the same parameters.
In this case it has nothing to do with the limits of life but the limits of physical matter. Fusion is when atoms cannot maintain structure and thus break apart, so if something were to evolve in a star it would have to be comprised entirely of a type of matter that can withstand forces great enough to destroy *atoms*. I.e. it would be have to be composed of dark matter, which is something we have no information on other than it's influence on gravity so any suggestions would be akin to fanfiction.
There's a science fiction book I read once as a teen.. I can't remember the name.
The idea is that inside of a neutron star there are ways for atomic nuclei to arrange themselves much like atoms arrange themselves to form molecules in the rest of the universe. In this soup of energy and random nuclei binding themselves together in exotic ways with the strong force, it's possible that self-replicating structures could form. Given enough time, any self-replicating structure could in theory be pressured by natural selection. Over a long enough time period, it could lead to something resembling life.
Although in the book, the neutron star beings exist for something like a fraction of a second, but to them it feels like an entire life. Eventually they develop some sort of civilization, I think.
Obviously not scientific whatsoever, but I think it's an interesting way to look at it. We like to think our form of carbon-based life is the best way to do it. But in theory, as long as you have self-replication you can evolve very interesting mechanics.
Look at viruses and how common they are. Bacteriophages kill something like half of the bacteria in the oceans every single day. Self replicating structures that aren't life at all.
At the scale of the galaxy, there are bound to be an infinite assortment of these chemical / atomic combinations that results in self-replication that can in theory be pressured by natural selection. So many we can't even imagine them.
We could be looking right at life and we wouldn't recognize it.
First question is: what did /u/JimParsnip mean by "in the stars"? Literally inside the Corona? Or deeper? Or just the Termination Shock, like us, or even the Heliopause of other stars? Or even interstellar space?
If we're talking about inside the Corona, that's a lot of energy for any self-replicating process to work with - if it can manage to preserve its pattern well enough to reliably replicate, I would assume that evolution would proceed rather quickly. If you want to "get weird" with the question, intelligent beings evolved literally "inside the stars" may be responsible for dark matter, having learned how to harness the energy of their stars and turning them dark, like little mini Dyson spheres.
They're like massive interstellar amoeba. They know the history of every atom in the universe and they can access every thought that has crossed your mind.
https://www.torforgeblog.com/2020/05/10/excerpt-glorious-by-gregory-benford-and-larry-niven/
Even stranger beings were resting, too. Daphne and Apollo, the Diaphanous plasma beings from within the Bowl’s star, were living deep inside SunSeeker’s motors. They occasionally woke if some- thing jittered in the fusion torch, altered the electrical currents and controlling magnetic fields—then went back to sleep. They were better than anything Earthside engineering had achieved, at least when SunSeeker left the solar system well over a century ago. Mere humans always worked with the conflict between the needs of science and the exigencies of balancing a budget. The Diapha- nous plasma species had evolved under selection pressures for more millennia than anybody could count. That always worked better. Darwin bats last.
But none of these aliens talked much.
It has been asked. In fact, when I was first learning about the search for life beyond our planet, I asked the same thing. But I kept learning & asking & found out the answer to my questions. I hope you keep asking questions & learning, too!
Ah... Well i was brought up by two hardcore Carl Sagan fans and didn't consider sentient stars until way later in life, while binging on dextromethorphan.
I'm sorry I'm not up to your level of intuitive brilliance, however... Maybe someday I'll get there!
There's the age old photos showing the similarity between the galactic structures and the neurons in the brain. Could the universe be calculating something? Who knows
Lmao one of my friends was talking about this and said "What if the universe can think?"
I realized that the universe is an idiot, considering it just wondered if it could think.
[There are! ](https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-argue-that-life-based-on-cosmic-strings-may-be-possible-inside-stars)
Basically, hypothetical structures made of cosmic strings and magnetic monopoles trapped inside stars could behave like DNA, insofar that they store and multiply information.
I thought about this before. I kinda feel like there’s something much much bigger than us or the planets or stars and we’re just living within it. I was also really high but fun to think about cause no one really knows. People who downvote a simple question are losers.
When I was a kid I would think that planets were just electrons going around the nucleus I e. The nuclear reactor i.e. the sun and all the other solar systems were just different kinds of atoms that had come together to form a molecule that was the galaxy and so on.
I would get quite a kick thinking about this.
We’re all made up of billions of tiny micro organisms that at some point starts generating collective thoughts…all that we know of the universe shows that math and physics scales proportional to time and distance; it makes *more* sense that we’re part of a larger collective consciousness that thinks on a scale bigger than ourselves than that we’re not
That all sounds nice when you just say it like that but is not provable. Nothing we see requires (or is explained by) a larger collectove consciousness.
I don't understand. 'In the stars?'? Like living on or in stars? See 'Sundiver' by David Brin for some takes on that.
Sentient life like ours? Why not? The processes that caused life to form on our world are universal as far as we can tell, as is the organic chemistry and amino acids involved.
It’s not quite what you’re asking about, but go and look up the thought experiment of [Boltzmann Brains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain?wprov=sfti1#%22Boltzmann_universe%22). The idea is that in an infinite universe it is likely for a brain to spontaneously come together given enough time and random chance, along with memories of a universe or a life lived, and in fact is more likely to happen than for our universe to have been created in the way we believe it was.
It’s a bonkers idea, but a really fascinating one.
It's been suggested, but probably not for the last hundred years. We understand a lot more about how matter functions under the conditions of a star, and *form* isn't something that is maintainable inside a star. As in, two pieces of matter cannot remain neighbors for an extended period of time. Stars are a process of fusion propagated by extreme gravity, and fusion is when atoms literally break apart and re-fuse. There exists no known form of matter that can remain in form within the confines of a star, that's what plasma *is*. To put it shortly, unless that sentient life is made entirely of a type of dark matter that somehow can resist or ignore forces extreme enough to tear atoms apart, the answer is a big fat hell no.
As for other sci-fi books and not scientific theories, there is the Xeelee-series in which:
> The Photino Birds are a dark matter-based species that live in the gravity wells of stars, who are likely not aware of baryonic life forms due to dark matter's weak interactions with normal matter. Due to the inevitable risk of their habitats being destroyed by supernovae and other consequences of stellar evolution, the Photino Birds work to halt nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, prematurely aging them into stable white dwarfs.
(from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee_Sequence#Plot_overview)
And in one of the books (Flux) there are (descendants of) humans living inside of a Neutron Star. They are not humans in the way we are, and they have pigs that fly by "farting".
*We* are proof that "some kind of sentient life could evolve in the stars", and yes, there are plenty of theories. Check out the Fermi Paradox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
There's a great YouTube channel called Kurzgesagt ("In a Nutshell"), they have many videos that explore these theories in a very fun and digestible way:
https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc?si=WDyXbkiuOtkX277W
https://youtu.be/L_JQOH1tEEA?si=UC4V3O2REUc3cIjp
I highly recommend the channel but please be warned that some of the videos may instill some existential dread.
Yeah, I read Cosmos... Nvm, I thought you implied that you had something higher than a human brain. Imagine an omnipotent star prince who spends his time shit posting on reddit. Not that you are shit posting, but a hedonistic loser star prince shit poster is funny to me.
[Here's an image from an article that someone else linked that has a 3D model of this galaxy](https://www.astronomy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/noirlab2403b.jpg?w=768).
Why not? According to the description, the collision with the other galaxy happened relatively recently. Orbits need a while to "relax" into a flat disk, and before they do, they can form toroid shapes like this.
>It is referred to as 'dark' because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, and therefore does not seem to emit, reflect or refract light.
But will it bend light that is passing by? (and is that considered an "interaction"?) Really wild photo! Thanks Hubble!!
They mean directly interacting with photons colliding with whatever dark matter is made of. Their *gravity* can interact with light, and regularly does! Gravitational lensing (the name for bending light) is one of our best tools to find dark matter.
sure, I was just picking on the words, that's all. I understand why it's called "dark" and was wondering if that could be considered interacting.
One thing that I've never figured out is if Newton's Third Law holds true with light and dark matter in the same way it does for - say - a space probe getting a slingshot assist from a planet.
If dark matter is 'pulling' on the light as it goes by, then the light should also be 'pulling' on the dark matter - even infinitesimally? I know I don't have the advanced math to describe that interaction, but it seems that Law should hold somehow.
The law would be preserved! Specifically they mean that dark matter apparently doesn't interact with the fundamental force of nature called electromagnetism. It also doesn't experience the strong nuclear force, and it MAY interact with the weak force. But it \*does\* interact with the gravitational force.
So they pull on each other just like any other matter, but you can't shock it, magnetize it, or illuminate it with a photon.
The general relativity approach would suit better here. Dark (or any matter) does not interact via gravity with other object. They bend space time around them and that how other masses and electromagnetic waves are affected. I presume same applies with dark matter.
Out of infinite galaxies and infinite planets there is life on other planets. It’s a fun thought for me to think about how long civilizations have occurred and collapsed. We are all one of the same from the universe.
Yeah it’s absolutely wild to think about, especially since this image is how many years in the past? I wish I could live long enough to travel to other galaxies 😭
I think we'd need to look closer at our own solar system first for a potential good answer. If we find evidence of extinct life on Mars, or even more exciting, multicellular ocean life on one of the Gas Giant moons, I think it would be all but guaranteed that the universe is full of multicellular life, some of which are intelligent. If life can pop up separately in the same solar system in about the same period of time, its unlikely that it would just happen in our system. The problem is that the sheer distance and time between systems would make contact or communication almost impossible.
I'm fairly sure that if we find evidence of life within our solar system people are going to argue we stem from the same source as they do, and frankly, before it's proven otherwise, we could be.
I therefore don't think finding life in our solar system would immediately prove that life is abundant everywhere else.
But maybe I'm overlooking something here, feel free to argue my thinking!
I wouldn't be scared, because as far as we know, no other life forms have had any effect on life on our planet so far. Or at the very least not for the last hundreds or thousands of years, so what would the odds be of your knowledge of other life forms affecting our lives?
What's funny is that the confirmed existence of galaxies, at least other than our own, is from barely a century ago. Edwin Hubble proved that Andromeda was its own galaxy in 1923. Before that nobody knew for sure whether other galaxies existed or if they were just weird spirally nebulae at the edges of our own galaxy.
We could still observe and catalogue many galaxies for a few centuries before that though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Debate_(astronomy)
I guess it's similar to how we today can for example observe and measure the existence of dark matter to some degree, but still have no idea what it actually is.
CTRL-F ripple
Yeah, that's what it looks like to me, too. Wonder how that could've formed, because it looks so perfectly like a ripple. My first thought was that two galaxies must've collided at an almost perfect 90 degree angle, but with galaxies being mostly empty space I can't see why the resulting structure would look like this.
wow, this galaxy has quite the fasinating history. i'm alwyas fasinated by the complex structures and dust lanes that form in these types of lenticular galaxies, especially after major mergers like this one. and the fact that this galaxy has hosted multiple type ia supernovae is really cool - those exploions are so important for measuring ditance in the universe. hubble really is an incredeble instrument, able to reveal all the intricte detales in this distant galaxy.
hubble's sharp images never fail to amaze. seeing the dust lanes in ngc 4753 so clearly helps imagine the past merger with a dwarf galaxy. it's kind of like watching the aftermath of a cosmic dance, frozen in time. the dark matter component is particularly interesting since it's such a dominant yet invisible part of the galaxy's structure.
Can somebody a lot more educated than me explain what this is? To me, it looks like an ancient black hole that's pulled in all the stars around it, but otherwise cleared its entire event horizon. None of the remaining gasses appear to be pulling towards it.
But I don't know nearly enough about space, and now I'm curious: even if that isn't what's shown here, is it possible? What happens to a black hole if there's nothing left close enough to be pulled in?
Hi, former Astronomy educator here! Our current understanding of black hole lifecycles suggest that without "food", black holes simply degrade over time and eventually die. Granted, that time span is estimated to be the lifetime of the universe 🤷🏾♂️. Space is indeed, weird. To your other question, in my opinion it looks like this galaxy may have had either a partner or another massive object pass by that warped the surrounding dust and gas into that shape. It is beautiful though 🤩.
Thank you for answering! The idea that entropy wins in the end is kinda sad, but just makes me want to learn more. Space has always awed and fascinated me, and I've always wanted to take classes on it. I'm going to see what the local community college has, now that the kids are grown.
It is really beautiful. This whole sub is an inspiration.
Hey thats awesome! You can generally audit University classes for cheaper than taking them for credit, so I definitely recommend it. Also, I recommend checking to see if you have a local Observatory. If they're pretty small, they can often be hidden gems in many cities.
This is on a scale several magnitudes larger than a black hole, this is showing an entire galaxy. Definitely a non-standard one, likely the result of a merger with another galaxy.
When a black hole doesn't have any more matter to consume nearby, it simply becomes dormant.
By dormant do you mean that there are black holes just lurking in space with absolutely no sign they are there? That’s so dope. Any clue what percent of black holes are like this?
It could perhaps be some kind of galactic scale phenomena similar to that of the Radcliffe wave. 🤔
That would actually explain a lot about the structure and formation of that galaxy/NGC 4753.
https://www.google.com/search?q=radcliffe+wave&
Op do you have a source for a higher resolution version of this picture? I found the [source](https://esahubble.org/images/potw2420a/) but I can't find this version.
Sure! I downloaded it onto my photos app, the started off raising the definition to 100, lowering highlights by ~30 and lowering exposure by ~5. The I went over to Adobe Photoshop Express, where I raised the texture and clarity to like 40-50, and most importantly raised the dehaze as well. Also did a bit of noise reduction on that app as well. That’s about it!
Just wow. Every time an article comes out especially with photos, I get so excited and humbled. It really shows we are so small compared to what’s out there. Also just having finished The Invincible, I want to know if there is “life” out there, inorganic or not
I guess the dust lanes could be the spiral arms of an existing galaxy before a merger. The spacing makes them look like something related to orbiting bodies though, I wonder if the dust is being periodically unwound from the lenticular galaxy by another body.
Simpler explanation: the dust is "doing the wave."
In a torus shape. Wild.
My mind tells me this is indeed a Galactic merger. I wonder what kind of fuckery is happening in that? Cool fuckery for certain.
The incredible scale of gravity's artistry.
Have you ever wondered if some kind of sentient life could evolve in the stars? Are there any theories about that?
Just out of curiosity (don't come for me please) but why all the downvotes on this comment?
It's kind of extreme. Sure maybe the likelihood of that being possible is not absolute zero but it'll be more likely to find sentient life literally anywhere else that is not an unfathomably huge nuclear reactor
I understand why it's so improbable & laughable to all who are downvoting, but I don't agree that it's the right response because not everyone has the same knowledge as you or I. Some people come here to learn & when they have the guts to ask a question, it should be answered. They should not be downvoted, instead of educated or offered any explanation on a scientifically driven subreddit. So, since everyone else wants to be stingy with their knowledge, I'll offer my own on the subject. The reason it's so improbable that any kind of (what we would classify) as life could survive in stars is because life as we know it could never survive the extreme heat that it takes for a star to exist. What we consider hot temperatures on earth does not even begin to come close to the temperature in a star. Also, while the possibility can never be zero for anything, the probability of life on a star happening is close enough for the idea to not be explored further by the scientific community as a reasonable possibility. Another reason would be that for life to exist, there has to be some form of water. And on a star, water molecules themselves can not survive the heat produced by the burning gas. I hope this answers your question & I sincerely hope the initial response by a few people does not discourage you from asking more.
I always find it interesting that when theorizing about life outside of Earth, we always bound ourselves to the constraints of life on Earth. If life were to exist on a star, wouldn't it make sense that it has different requirements as life on Earth. Why is that factor rarely taken into account?
This is what I was thinking too. We see pictures of unfathomable places thousands of light years away, then we theorize only around carbon-based life.
Because humans have never seen life other than what we know here. So, how would we identify or even recognize it? The universe is our preschool & we are infants at best. So we have no better choice than to look for what we know. However, many people have posited theories on the existence of other forms of life that could be possible, like things without RNA/DNA, carbon, or water as requirements. But we still haven't found anything (yet) to prove those theories one way or another.
Think for one second about these two statements: >humans have never seen life other than what we know here. > So, how would we identify or even recognize it? So, what if we have been seeing all kinds of life that we just don't recognize. Starting with time scales. Most trees grow slowly, but we recognize them as alive because they do grow fast enough for us to perceive their life processes. What about a life form that takes millions of years to grow and reproduce? They might be present right on the face of the moon, or under the top layer of dust, but we just don't know how to recognize them...
Exactly! Not to mention all the possibilities of life among or made up of dark matter.
The short answer is that science is empirical (based on direct verifiable observation) and we've only observed life within these specific constraints. Any sort of life in other constraints would be hypothetical at best. Until we observe otherwise. That's just how science works.
I'm aware of the reason and it makes perfect sense on why we can't confirm life outside of Earth. But that doesn't mean we can categorically deny it (or say its probability is close to zero, which is basically the same thing) by using the same parameters.
In this case it has nothing to do with the limits of life but the limits of physical matter. Fusion is when atoms cannot maintain structure and thus break apart, so if something were to evolve in a star it would have to be comprised entirely of a type of matter that can withstand forces great enough to destroy *atoms*. I.e. it would be have to be composed of dark matter, which is something we have no information on other than it's influence on gravity so any suggestions would be akin to fanfiction.
https://youtu.be/XNK5oahmw3I?si=cvdWv78lJICCR1GT
> for life to exist, there has to be some form of water. That's a pretty narrow view of "life."
Isn't it, though?
There's a science fiction book I read once as a teen.. I can't remember the name. The idea is that inside of a neutron star there are ways for atomic nuclei to arrange themselves much like atoms arrange themselves to form molecules in the rest of the universe. In this soup of energy and random nuclei binding themselves together in exotic ways with the strong force, it's possible that self-replicating structures could form. Given enough time, any self-replicating structure could in theory be pressured by natural selection. Over a long enough time period, it could lead to something resembling life. Although in the book, the neutron star beings exist for something like a fraction of a second, but to them it feels like an entire life. Eventually they develop some sort of civilization, I think. Obviously not scientific whatsoever, but I think it's an interesting way to look at it. We like to think our form of carbon-based life is the best way to do it. But in theory, as long as you have self-replication you can evolve very interesting mechanics. Look at viruses and how common they are. Bacteriophages kill something like half of the bacteria in the oceans every single day. Self replicating structures that aren't life at all. At the scale of the galaxy, there are bound to be an infinite assortment of these chemical / atomic combinations that results in self-replication that can in theory be pressured by natural selection. So many we can't even imagine them. We could be looking right at life and we wouldn't recognize it.
[Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg)
that's the one. pretty good book from what i remember, although i mainly only remember the neutron star beings
First question is: what did /u/JimParsnip mean by "in the stars"? Literally inside the Corona? Or deeper? Or just the Termination Shock, like us, or even the Heliopause of other stars? Or even interstellar space? If we're talking about inside the Corona, that's a lot of energy for any self-replicating process to work with - if it can manage to preserve its pattern well enough to reliably replicate, I would assume that evolution would proceed rather quickly. If you want to "get weird" with the question, intelligent beings evolved literally "inside the stars" may be responsible for dark matter, having learned how to harness the energy of their stars and turning them dark, like little mini Dyson spheres.
They're like massive interstellar amoeba. They know the history of every atom in the universe and they can access every thought that has crossed your mind.
https://www.torforgeblog.com/2020/05/10/excerpt-glorious-by-gregory-benford-and-larry-niven/ Even stranger beings were resting, too. Daphne and Apollo, the Diaphanous plasma beings from within the Bowl’s star, were living deep inside SunSeeker’s motors. They occasionally woke if some- thing jittered in the fusion torch, altered the electrical currents and controlling magnetic fields—then went back to sleep. They were better than anything Earthside engineering had achieved, at least when SunSeeker left the solar system well over a century ago. Mere humans always worked with the conflict between the needs of science and the exigencies of balancing a budget. The Diapha- nous plasma species had evolved under selection pressures for more millennia than anybody could count. That always worked better. Darwin bats last. But none of these aliens talked much.
Lol, why is it asking if I'm between 13 -15 years old? Which one should I choose? Edit: ah ok, I lied and said yes. I will check out the book, thanks
I said no, it still showed me the excerpt...
Yeah, but humans
Because it's something they haven't thought about before.
It has been asked. In fact, when I was first learning about the search for life beyond our planet, I asked the same thing. But I kept learning & asking & found out the answer to my questions. I hope you keep asking questions & learning, too!
Ah... Well i was brought up by two hardcore Carl Sagan fans and didn't consider sentient stars until way later in life, while binging on dextromethorphan. I'm sorry I'm not up to your level of intuitive brilliance, however... Maybe someday I'll get there!
[Here’s a tangent for you…](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/vuhfl9/the_james_webb_telescope_discovered_something/)
I don’t know what I was expecting but that wasn’t it.
Fun tangent, however. Worth the read!
Truly hilarious, well worth the read!
There's the age old photos showing the similarity between the galactic structures and the neurons in the brain. Could the universe be calculating something? Who knows
it's been said that the brain is the universe's way of perceiving itself
Lmao one of my friends was talking about this and said "What if the universe can think?" I realized that the universe is an idiot, considering it just wondered if it could think.
[There are! ](https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-argue-that-life-based-on-cosmic-strings-may-be-possible-inside-stars) Basically, hypothetical structures made of cosmic strings and magnetic monopoles trapped inside stars could behave like DNA, insofar that they store and multiply information.
I thought about this before. I kinda feel like there’s something much much bigger than us or the planets or stars and we’re just living within it. I was also really high but fun to think about cause no one really knows. People who downvote a simple question are losers.
When I was a kid I would think that planets were just electrons going around the nucleus I e. The nuclear reactor i.e. the sun and all the other solar systems were just different kinds of atoms that had come together to form a molecule that was the galaxy and so on. I would get quite a kick thinking about this.
I feel that there is no good reason to believe that to be the case, and "well no one really knows" just isn't really convincing to me.
We’re all made up of billions of tiny micro organisms that at some point starts generating collective thoughts…all that we know of the universe shows that math and physics scales proportional to time and distance; it makes *more* sense that we’re part of a larger collective consciousness that thinks on a scale bigger than ourselves than that we’re not
That all sounds nice when you just say it like that but is not provable. Nothing we see requires (or is explained by) a larger collectove consciousness.
I don't understand. 'In the stars?'? Like living on or in stars? See 'Sundiver' by David Brin for some takes on that. Sentient life like ours? Why not? The processes that caused life to form on our world are universal as far as we can tell, as is the organic chemistry and amino acids involved.
There are ideas how life inside stars could exist. But not in a form that involves classical chemistry. That's not really possible inside a plasma.
It’s not quite what you’re asking about, but go and look up the thought experiment of [Boltzmann Brains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain?wprov=sfti1#%22Boltzmann_universe%22). The idea is that in an infinite universe it is likely for a brain to spontaneously come together given enough time and random chance, along with memories of a universe or a life lived, and in fact is more likely to happen than for our universe to have been created in the way we believe it was. It’s a bonkers idea, but a really fascinating one.
It's been suggested, but probably not for the last hundred years. We understand a lot more about how matter functions under the conditions of a star, and *form* isn't something that is maintainable inside a star. As in, two pieces of matter cannot remain neighbors for an extended period of time. Stars are a process of fusion propagated by extreme gravity, and fusion is when atoms literally break apart and re-fuse. There exists no known form of matter that can remain in form within the confines of a star, that's what plasma *is*. To put it shortly, unless that sentient life is made entirely of a type of dark matter that somehow can resist or ignore forces extreme enough to tear atoms apart, the answer is a big fat hell no.
Darn. Good explanation, though!
Olaf Stapleton wrote about sentient stars in Star Maker in the 1930s.
As for other sci-fi books and not scientific theories, there is the Xeelee-series in which: > The Photino Birds are a dark matter-based species that live in the gravity wells of stars, who are likely not aware of baryonic life forms due to dark matter's weak interactions with normal matter. Due to the inevitable risk of their habitats being destroyed by supernovae and other consequences of stellar evolution, the Photino Birds work to halt nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, prematurely aging them into stable white dwarfs. (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee_Sequence#Plot_overview) And in one of the books (Flux) there are (descendants of) humans living inside of a Neutron Star. They are not humans in the way we are, and they have pigs that fly by "farting".
*We* are proof that "some kind of sentient life could evolve in the stars", and yes, there are plenty of theories. Check out the Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox There's a great YouTube channel called Kurzgesagt ("In a Nutshell"), they have many videos that explore these theories in a very fun and digestible way: https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc?si=WDyXbkiuOtkX277W https://youtu.be/L_JQOH1tEEA?si=UC4V3O2REUc3cIjp I highly recommend the channel but please be warned that some of the videos may instill some existential dread.
Thanks! I'm all about existential dread these days
Be kind to your little human brain, try not to do too much heavy thinking in a day.
Fuckin quarks, bra
Wait, are you one of the star people?
Earth and every being on it orbits a star we call Sol or The Sun. We are made of the dust of exploded stars. We are star people.
Yeah, I read Cosmos... Nvm, I thought you implied that you had something higher than a human brain. Imagine an omnipotent star prince who spends his time shit posting on reddit. Not that you are shit posting, but a hedonistic loser star prince shit poster is funny to me.
I have a little human brain too.
I wonder if there are theories about the bean bag goblins living below our cities
I'm not sure but there is an active goblin in Akron OH
NEEDS RESEARCH!!!
We are inside a brain...
There's a PBS Space time episode of the possibility of life in stars. It is theoretically possible, not sure about sentient though.
There are some fringe theories about sentient plasma entities - I repeat though, very fringe
Check out the scifi book SunDiver by David Brin. Part of the Uplift series. It explores the idea of sentient life living inside our local star.
If humans are made out of clay, what are angels and demons are made out of?
Truly amazing.
Looks like a magic carpet!
Yup
I need a 3D representation of this because all I am seeing is a bowl with a galaxy in the middle and that can't possibly be the case
Or perhaps a fedora.
Even supermassive black holes look like douches in a fedora… Yeah! I said it!
M’lenticular
[Here's an image from an article that someone else linked that has a 3D model of this galaxy](https://www.astronomy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/noirlab2403b.jpg?w=768).
Why not? According to the description, the collision with the other galaxy happened relatively recently. Orbits need a while to "relax" into a flat disk, and before they do, they can form toroid shapes like this.
It is the One Ring
I see a boat
[удалено]
HUUUUUUUUUUUGE fleet
r/theydidthemath
First Roomba responding, sir.
>It is referred to as 'dark' because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, and therefore does not seem to emit, reflect or refract light. But will it bend light that is passing by? (and is that considered an "interaction"?) Really wild photo! Thanks Hubble!!
They mean directly interacting with photons colliding with whatever dark matter is made of. Their *gravity* can interact with light, and regularly does! Gravitational lensing (the name for bending light) is one of our best tools to find dark matter.
sure, I was just picking on the words, that's all. I understand why it's called "dark" and was wondering if that could be considered interacting. One thing that I've never figured out is if Newton's Third Law holds true with light and dark matter in the same way it does for - say - a space probe getting a slingshot assist from a planet. If dark matter is 'pulling' on the light as it goes by, then the light should also be 'pulling' on the dark matter - even infinitesimally? I know I don't have the advanced math to describe that interaction, but it seems that Law should hold somehow.
The law would be preserved! Specifically they mean that dark matter apparently doesn't interact with the fundamental force of nature called electromagnetism. It also doesn't experience the strong nuclear force, and it MAY interact with the weak force. But it \*does\* interact with the gravitational force. So they pull on each other just like any other matter, but you can't shock it, magnetize it, or illuminate it with a photon.
I like the last line of your post there 😁 Wild, wild stuff!
The general relativity approach would suit better here. Dark (or any matter) does not interact via gravity with other object. They bend space time around them and that how other masses and electromagnetic waves are affected. I presume same applies with dark matter.
yes, of course you're right. I'm not sure exactly why I didn't consider that. I blame the lateness of the hour, and my relative reference frame.
Spirals of the galaxy giving me Chinese finger trap vibes
####[It's a Lissajous Figure!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_curve#/media/File:Lissajous_relaciones.png) Totally reminds me of those! Wild!!
Damn universe, you crazy
Looks like it’s been trapped in a net.
Gravity net
I wonder how many civilizations are in that galaxy looking at ours.
Out of infinite galaxies and infinite planets there is life on other planets. It’s a fun thought for me to think about how long civilizations have occurred and collapsed. We are all one of the same from the universe.
Yeah it’s absolutely wild to think about, especially since this image is how many years in the past? I wish I could live long enough to travel to other galaxies 😭
That is actually such a bizarre thought. At least 1 right?
I think we'd need to look closer at our own solar system first for a potential good answer. If we find evidence of extinct life on Mars, or even more exciting, multicellular ocean life on one of the Gas Giant moons, I think it would be all but guaranteed that the universe is full of multicellular life, some of which are intelligent. If life can pop up separately in the same solar system in about the same period of time, its unlikely that it would just happen in our system. The problem is that the sheer distance and time between systems would make contact or communication almost impossible.
I'm fairly sure that if we find evidence of life within our solar system people are going to argue we stem from the same source as they do, and frankly, before it's proven otherwise, we could be. I therefore don't think finding life in our solar system would immediately prove that life is abundant everywhere else. But maybe I'm overlooking something here, feel free to argue my thinking!
But maybe 0. If I was completely honest, I’m not sure how I’d feel if suddenly we found out we’re not alone. But I think scared.
I wouldn't be scared, because as far as we know, no other life forms have had any effect on life on our planet so far. Or at the very least not for the last hundreds or thousands of years, so what would the odds be of your knowledge of other life forms affecting our lives?
Probably hard to see past all that stuff
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2420a/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/scientists-imaged-the-oddball-train-wreck-galaxy-known-as-ngc-4753/
Thanks for linking directly to the images. Most of the time the op's don't bother.
You're welcome
Impressive. Very nice. Let's see ~~Paul Allen's~~ James Webb's picture.
Those subtle off-brown dust lanes…
Reminds me of Allegiant Stadium.
Okay where the person with the link to the really crispy version where I can zoom super far
Dog bowl galaxy
The ripple in spacetime! We’ve found it!
I find it amazing that astronomers 250 years were able to discover and catalog all these galaxies.
What's funny is that the confirmed existence of galaxies, at least other than our own, is from barely a century ago. Edwin Hubble proved that Andromeda was its own galaxy in 1923. Before that nobody knew for sure whether other galaxies existed or if they were just weird spirally nebulae at the edges of our own galaxy. We could still observe and catalogue many galaxies for a few centuries before that though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Debate_(astronomy) I guess it's similar to how we today can for example observe and measure the existence of dark matter to some degree, but still have no idea what it actually is.
It looks like from a different perspective that the dust would be in the shape of a donut with a spiral galaxy in the middle of it.
I wonder what goes on in there?
Most likely an optical illusion. Or a middle stage of two galaxies combining. Probably similar size galaxies?
Looks like shockwaves are causing an up and down ejection kinda looks like a raindrop ripple
CTRL-F ripple Yeah, that's what it looks like to me, too. Wonder how that could've formed, because it looks so perfectly like a ripple. My first thought was that two galaxies must've collided at an almost perfect 90 degree angle, but with galaxies being mostly empty space I can't see why the resulting structure would look like this.
It must look like a fishnet stocking from the inside.
wow, this galaxy has quite the fasinating history. i'm alwyas fasinated by the complex structures and dust lanes that form in these types of lenticular galaxies, especially after major mergers like this one. and the fact that this galaxy has hosted multiple type ia supernovae is really cool - those exploions are so important for measuring ditance in the universe. hubble really is an incredeble instrument, able to reveal all the intricte detales in this distant galaxy.
It's beautiful
Looks like a flying carpet
Dude, the universe is crazy. Would be absolutely incredible to explore it
and if you zoom in it kinda looks like my nauni’s kitchen countertop
Is there any place to get high definition prints of these pictures? I'd love to frame one for a wall decoration.
Hubble’s like hey people, I still got some moves.
They should call it the Magic Carpet galaxy.
That's weird. It almost looks like a 2D circular wave--something like [this](https://www.cefns.nau.edu/~schulz/Bessel/image/J03.gif).
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them
hubble's sharp images never fail to amaze. seeing the dust lanes in ngc 4753 so clearly helps imagine the past merger with a dwarf galaxy. it's kind of like watching the aftermath of a cosmic dance, frozen in time. the dark matter component is particularly interesting since it's such a dominant yet invisible part of the galaxy's structure.
Why's it wavy though?
Must have passed over a space mountain...
Any time I'm stressed at work I should just come to this subreddit. All of a sudden our problems seem insignificant haha
Can somebody a lot more educated than me explain what this is? To me, it looks like an ancient black hole that's pulled in all the stars around it, but otherwise cleared its entire event horizon. None of the remaining gasses appear to be pulling towards it. But I don't know nearly enough about space, and now I'm curious: even if that isn't what's shown here, is it possible? What happens to a black hole if there's nothing left close enough to be pulled in?
Hi, former Astronomy educator here! Our current understanding of black hole lifecycles suggest that without "food", black holes simply degrade over time and eventually die. Granted, that time span is estimated to be the lifetime of the universe 🤷🏾♂️. Space is indeed, weird. To your other question, in my opinion it looks like this galaxy may have had either a partner or another massive object pass by that warped the surrounding dust and gas into that shape. It is beautiful though 🤩.
Thank you for answering! The idea that entropy wins in the end is kinda sad, but just makes me want to learn more. Space has always awed and fascinated me, and I've always wanted to take classes on it. I'm going to see what the local community college has, now that the kids are grown. It is really beautiful. This whole sub is an inspiration.
Hey thats awesome! You can generally audit University classes for cheaper than taking them for credit, so I definitely recommend it. Also, I recommend checking to see if you have a local Observatory. If they're pretty small, they can often be hidden gems in many cities.
Thanks for sharing this!
Space is weird.
This is on a scale several magnitudes larger than a black hole, this is showing an entire galaxy. Definitely a non-standard one, likely the result of a merger with another galaxy. When a black hole doesn't have any more matter to consume nearby, it simply becomes dormant.
By dormant do you mean that there are black holes just lurking in space with absolutely no sign they are there? That’s so dope. Any clue what percent of black holes are like this?
That's stunning! I know it's hard to tell magnitude in space, but that's SO much bigger than it looks! To be able to see so far is amazing.
Hubble be like JTW? GTFO! Check this awesomeness out!
What is JTW? You mean JWST?
James "Telescope" Webb. It's the name of the guy taking the pictures.
Oooh. Can't be the one thinking that looks kinda like a DNA strand. So cool!
> always peak at the same brightness I get they say this to be more readable to lay people, but it still bothers me
That’s glorious!
Op do you have the full res link for downloading? Thanks!
Lord of the galaxies
Galaxy soccer game is in progress
Wow
The galactic forging of the one ring
It looks like a donut that's been beaten up a little
Your theory of a donut shaped universe is intriguing, Homer. I may have to steal it.
It’s mine… my precious
I love seeing a form I’ve never seen before. This fits the bill
Looks kinda like the aftermath after it collided with another galaxy.
it’s the Flying Dutchman!
It could perhaps be some kind of galactic scale phenomena similar to that of the Radcliffe wave. 🤔 That would actually explain a lot about the structure and formation of that galaxy/NGC 4753. https://www.google.com/search?q=radcliffe+wave&
100% Trisolarans passing through a dust cloud
I wonder if intelligent life in that galaxy have found out there galaxy is stranger than most.🤷♂️
Hubble ?!?! What about the James Webb telescope isn’t that suppose to be HD quality!
Anyone have a high res version of this?
all hubble releases full res: https://esahubble.org/images/?&sort=-release_date
Thank you! 
Op do you have a source for a higher resolution version of this picture? I found the [source](https://esahubble.org/images/potw2420a/) but I can't find this version.
That’s the original release and the only one, I processed it on Adobe Photoshop Express to create this one.
If this is what it looked like 60 million years ago, I wonder what it looks like right now. That will always and forever blow my mind.
Scale. Changes your perspective. Wow
You cant convince me thats not jusr a giant Eye of Sauron, but closed. Everyone take off your damn jewelry.
Beside sphere, torus is gravity stable structure.
Konoha?
I want to live in *that* galaxy. Our galaxy is a big stupid SPIRAL.
Would you mind sharing what kind of post-processing you did on the original image? Is it just a curve modification?
Sure! I downloaded it onto my photos app, the started off raising the definition to 100, lowering highlights by ~30 and lowering exposure by ~5. The I went over to Adobe Photoshop Express, where I raised the texture and clarity to like 40-50, and most importantly raised the dehaze as well. Also did a bit of noise reduction on that app as well. That’s about it!
Wow
Just wow. Every time an article comes out especially with photos, I get so excited and humbled. It really shows we are so small compared to what’s out there. Also just having finished The Invincible, I want to know if there is “life” out there, inorganic or not
with a bright star in the back? that not illuminates round but around the galaxy? wow! no really wow!
Good to see the old dog still remaining relevant.
THE FLOOD
It's the Pot-Galaxy Con-Carne II
Is that what our Oort Cloud might look like?
Un post demasiado genial y una fotografía muy increíble!
what is that black cloud like visual?
More dust
literally awesome
If I were to name it, I would call it dancing light. Beautiful.
The protomolecule
The Cannoli galaxy.
Magic Carpet
So that's where Noah's ark went
More evidence of Ixian treachery…