# What Does 200 Billion Stars Really Mean?



## bullethead (Oct 12, 2014)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...to_the_galactic_center_by_robert_gendler.html

There is a pretty awesome pic included in the article.
It is not pro or con god/religion, it just shows a small portion of the amount of stars in the Galaxy that includes us.


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## swampstalker24 (Oct 12, 2014)

I always find myself gazing up at the stars, wondering whats out there, its at time very mind boggling.....

Whats even more mind boggling are the Hubble Deep Field images, which cover just one 24 millionth of the sky, but shows more than 3000 GALAXIES!  Each one possibly containing 200 billion+ stars!  And each star possibly having multiple planets orbiting it!   All I can say is I hope mankind has the ability one day to explore the universe!


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## drippin' rock (Oct 12, 2014)

To boldly go where no man has gone before.....


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## oldfella1962 (Oct 12, 2014)

It tells me that there is no way (mathematically) that our planet can be the only one with life. You can't beat the odds of one-in-infinity.


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## Treedup (Oct 13, 2014)

oldfella1962 said:


> It tells me that there is no way (mathematically) that our planet can be the only one with life. You can't beat the odds of one-in-infinity.




I always like it when someone says something like this. So, I like to look at it this way: 

Mathematically the more galaxies, universes, stars, planets, moons, suns or whatever you want to call it that there are....shouldnt it be that much easier to find more life? I mean, 200,000,000 stars and we have to search with a fine tooth comb to find life, in 1 planet? I wonder if is that what people want? If there were life on another planet would they want there to be life in 10 more planets? Would everyone be happy if we found life in JUST 1 more planet or do they want an entire galaxy of livable planets?


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## WaltL1 (Oct 13, 2014)

Treedup said:


> I always like it when someone says something like this. So, I like to look at it this way:
> 
> Mathematically the more galaxies, universes, stars, planets, moons, suns or whatever you want to call it that there are....shouldnt it be that much easier to find more life? I mean, 200,000,000 stars and we have to search with a fine tooth comb to find life, in 1 planet? I wonder if is that what people want? If there were life on another planet would they want there to be life in 10 more planets? Would everyone be happy if we found life in JUST 1 more planet or do they want an entire galaxy of livable planets?





> we have to search with a fine tooth comb to find life, in 1 planet?


As advanced as we may think we are our search capabilities are still in the infantile stage in the grand scheme of things. 
Our fine tooth comb still only has one tooth 
The odds suggest its out there we just cant find it YET.


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## TripleXBullies (Oct 13, 2014)

That comb with one tooth can really only tell that there is no life on the other planets in our own solar system. It has a hard time ruling it out on anything outside of that.


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## centerpin fan (Oct 13, 2014)

Very cool pic.


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## bullethead (Oct 13, 2014)

The distances are so vast it takes all we can do to get a craft to another planet in our own solar system. Life could be plentiful but the distances in between may be to great to overcome.


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## EverGreen1231 (Oct 13, 2014)

Beautiful picture. I have an artist friend, Marie Green, that painted a series of starscapes. They were all exceptional. 
Images like this make me feel overwhelmingly insignificant: It's humbling.


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## Israel (Oct 14, 2014)

drippin' rock said:


> To boldly go where no man has gone before.....


Maybe we can't go till we observe the Prime Directive here.


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## StriperrHunterr (Oct 14, 2014)

Israel said:


> Maybe we can't go till we observe the Prime Directive here.



Now THAT would be a beautiful little spot of behavioral evolution, right there. 

I take 200 billion stars as 200 billion ways for us to demonstrate our ignorance about the true possibilities that lay out there.


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## atlashunter (Oct 20, 2014)

bullethead said:


> The distances are so vast it takes all we can do to get a craft to another planet in our own solar system. Life could be plentiful but the distances in between may be to great to overcome.



Yeah people have a hard time comprehending the distances involved. Here is another mind blowing picture showing how far a radio signal transmitted from the earth a hundred years ago would have traveled by today.


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## Asath (Oct 20, 2014)

For a bit of perspective, an old short film (1977), called ‘Powers of Ten,’ is readily available on the net – the state of the art, in both directions, has changed quite a bit since then, but the overall concept behind the thought remains all too valid.  A rather longer video readily found on YouTube, by a fella who calls himself phil hellenes  (a name that only a cursory bit of research will serve to reveal his seriousness) called ‘Science Saved My Soul,’ will likely cause quite a bit of education to be condensed into a very short burst.  (I warn that the latter video contains a swear word at the very end of it, and so is not altogether family-friendly if one is worried that one’s children may grow up to use your own words, and is perhaps in all regards too intense for children in any event, scrolling imagery that they have no chance of understanding.)

     Space is well named, just as the ocean is, and unless you’ve been in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a 40 foot boat, and finally understood the vastness of what you are facing in this universe, and finally come to grips with the singular truth (and, to the religious zealots an unpopular truth) that the problem isn’t that the planet and the universe is so unimaginably large and hostile, but rather that we are so small, you can’t really help but be egocentric, and think that the planet and the universe was designed to suit you.  It wasn’t.  ‘Mother’ Nature will kill you without a single second thought or pang of conscience.

     That the conditions to support living things exists on other planets in a universe so vast that we have to measure it in terms of how far LIGHT can travel in a few billion years is virtually a certainty.  That those conditions might, somewhere, be so condign and stable as to have supported the evolution of advanced and intelligent life is a conjecture based on odd math, where infinity itself becomes a factor in equations, yet undefined as a factor.   Infinity can no more exist than eternity can exist, but for our purposes, from our tiny perch in the unfashionable western spiral arm of one puny galaxy, the idea of the universe as infinity itself serves our purposes here and now, mathematically,  well enough to land a spacecraft on an asteroid, and reliably receive signals from the surface of Mars.  If actual intelligent life may have arisen elsewhere, our equal or better, it hardly matters -- our chances of encountering them, ever, across the distances involved are exactly zero. 

     All politics are local, it is observed, but the same, so is all measurement.  We can only see what we can see from our tiny locality, and what we see from here is mind-bogglingly vast.  This ought to make us humble, rather than trotting out endless superstitious nonsense, designed to put US at the center of the universe, ignoring the truth of it. 

     200 billion stars isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.


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## ambush80 (Oct 21, 2014)

Asath said:


> For a bit of perspective, an old short film (1977), called ‘Powers of Ten,’ is readily available on the net – the state of the art, in both directions, has changed quite a bit since then, but the overall concept behind the thought remains all too valid.  A rather longer video readily found on YouTube, by a fella who calls himself phil hellenes  (a name that only a cursory bit of research will serve to reveal his seriousness) called ‘Science Saved My Soul,’ will likely cause quite a bit of education to be condensed into a very short burst.  (I warn that the latter video contains a swear word at the very end of it, and so is not altogether family-friendly if one is worried that one’s children may grow up to use your own words, and is perhaps in all regards too intense for children in any event, scrolling imagery that they have no chance of understanding.)
> 
> Space is well named, just as the ocean is, and unless you’ve been in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a 40 foot boat, and finally understood the vastness of what you are facing in this universe, and finally come to grips with the singular truth (and, to the religious zealots an unpopular truth) that the problem isn’t that the planet and the universe is so unimaginably large and hostile, but rather that we are so small, you can’t really help but be egocentric, and think that the planet and the universe was designed to suit you.  It wasn’t.  ‘Mother’ Nature will kill you without a single second thought or pang of conscience.
> 
> ...



How does this information inform whether or not I should cheat on my taxes or kill someone I don't like?  Seems like it could go either way.  I've got my own ideas but I'm interested to hear others.


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## atlashunter (Oct 21, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> How does this information inform whether or not I should cheat on my taxes or kill someone I don't like?  Seems like it could go either way.  I've got my own ideas but I'm interested to hear others.



It doesn't. Do as thou wilt. But be prepared to accept the consequences.


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## oldfella1962 (Oct 21, 2014)

TripleXBullies said:


> That comb with one tooth can really only tell that there is no life on the other planets in our own solar system. It has a hard time ruling it out on anything outside of that.



Exactly - the infinite number of stars/planets are too far away. We are pretty much limited to what we can reach, that being our own solar system. I'm quite sure everyone else in the universe is in the same boat we are. 

But just one other planet with no doubt about it life (or proof there once was life) would suffice. Bear in mind just because a planet is lifeless now it will remain that way forever. If aliens landed on Earth billions of years ago it would have been lifeless. But conditions change over time.


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## ambush80 (Oct 22, 2014)

atlashunter said:


> It doesn't. Do as thou wilt. But be prepared to accept the consequences.




You mean the consequences imposed by man, right?


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## atlashunter (Oct 22, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> You mean the consequences imposed by man, right?



Or nature.


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## WaltL1 (Oct 22, 2014)

> Originally Posted by ambush80 View Post
> You mean the consequences imposed by man, right?





atlashunter said:


> Or nature.


Or maybe -



In which case you would be rewarded


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## Israel (Nov 9, 2014)

What does 200 billion stars really mean?

You may know the name of each.
If you care to.
And who named them.


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## bullethead (Nov 9, 2014)

Israel said:


> What does 200 billion stars really mean?
> 
> You may know the name of each.
> If you care to.
> And who named them.



I'll tell you what, just as a good faith gesture on your end to show us that your relationship is not just a one sided fantasy, could you do us a favor since you are so close with the "one who names" and get the list of those names of the Stars and post them here?
Thank You.


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## lowroller1 (Dec 20, 2014)

bullethead said:


> I'll tell you what, just as a good faith gesture on your end to show us that your relationship is not just a one sided fantasy, could you do us a favor since you are so close with the "one who names" and get the list of those names of the Stars and post them here?
> Thank You.



*Nothing but crickets chirping, which seems to indicate that it is all a one-sided fantasy and that it's the human imagination that's behind all of this "god-stuff". Here's my theory: Of all of the animals, man is the only one, as far as we know, capable of forseeing our own demise, even from youth. This naturally produces a degree of fear, so we develop a NATURAL fight/flight response. In this case, of course, it's "flight", so our brains concoct an escape scenario where we change forms, but (since it's a supernatural imaginary experience, anything's possible!) somehow retain our memories, our intellect and our awareness. This escape scenario allows us to emotionally deal with the reality of the finality of death. Its dysfunction takes the form of the paranoia that comes from a belief that someone is always watching you and reading your private thoughts for the purpose of using this information against you in an afterlife tribunal to determine if you're going to be subjected to eternal torture or not. It's my approach that it's more healthful and beneficial to deal with the true nature of things rather than to develop artificial coping mechanisms that can have some pretty awful residual effects of a dysfunctional life.*


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## Israel (Dec 21, 2014)

lowroller1 said:


> *Nothing but crickets chirping, which seems to indicate that it is all a one-sided fantasy and that it's the human imagination that's behind all of this "god-stuff". Here's my theory: Of all of the animals, man is the only one, as far as we know, capable of forseeing our own demise, even from youth. This naturally produces a degree of fear, so we develop a NATURAL fight/flight response. In this case, of course, it's "flight", so our brains concoct an escape scenario where we change forms, but (since it's a supernatural imaginary experience, anything's possible!) somehow retain our memories, our intellect and our awareness. This escape scenario allows us to emotionally deal with the reality of the finality of death. Its dysfunction takes the form of the paranoia that comes from a belief that someone is always watching you and reading your private thoughts for the purpose of using this information against you in an afterlife tribunal to determine if you're going to be subjected to eternal torture or not. It's my approach that it's more healthful and beneficial to deal with the true nature of things rather than to develop artificial coping mechanisms that can have some pretty awful residual effects of a dysfunctional life.*


Healthful and beneficial are not matters of which apostles are unfamiliar.
The facing of "hard" questions that can lead to equally hard replies are for all men.


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## oldfella1962 (Dec 21, 2014)

atlashunter said:


> It doesn't. Do as thou wilt. But be prepared to accept the consequences.



But do these "consequences" extend into the afterlife (heaven versus hades)? 
In other words if I am an evil, murderous person and get caught and sent to prison, is prison the only consequence?
When I die do the consequences continue? 
I think one selling point of many religions is "justice."
You are mean to me and I can't stop you or punish you, but you will be punished when you die - but I the trod upon poor good guy will have paradise.


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