Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by mrlonglong on Monday April 18, 2022 @02:15PM
(#31074393)
I'd recommend reading the book https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engines_of_God
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by cercatrova on Monday April 18, 2022 @03:17PM
(#31075167)
I'd also recommend The Three Body Problem trilogy, specifically the second book, The Dark Forest.
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by gigaflop on Monday April 18, 2022 @04:17PM
(#31075908)
I'm about halfway through, and can second the recommendation. I think I see a potential twist, but I want to see how it actually plays out in the end.
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by est31 on Monday April 18, 2022 @02:13PM
(#31074383)
I wonder how you steer that thing. As in, earth is a pretty small target from a few light years away. In the case where you want to visit some planet peacefully, you spend the second half of the journey decelerating so you can do the needed corrections easily due to your lower speed, but if you are close to your target at a significant fraction of light speed, it's hard to change your course.
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by pacoWebConsult on Monday April 18, 2022 @01:43PM
(#31073994)
I've watched Armageddon. All you need is a nuke and Bruce Willis.
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by sophacles on Monday April 18, 2022 @01:55PM
(#31074159)
Mr Willis is 67 years old. I suspect that any incoming attack asteroids are more than 13 years out (it just seems statistically improbable that one will show up sooner than that - I don't have any data on incoming bogies), and asking a >80 yo person to go take out asteroids seems like a plan destined to fail.
Point being, we should hurry up and create a bunch of Bruce Willis clones before it's too late. The future of humanity depends on it!
Re:James Webb telescope's coldest instrument reaches operati...
by Tr3nton on Monday April 18, 2022 @03:19PM
(#31075180)
Please keep comments like this on reddit. Thank you
A civilization powerful enough to make mega-structures is almost certainly able of landing on one of its endemic large meteors, attach thrusters and over the course of decades accelerate it towards us in a collision path with the earth at a decent fraction of the speed of light.
By the time we'd notice it would essentially be impossible to stop.