NASA Creates an Alien's Eye View of Solar System

Flash Modin writes "Using the Discover supercomputer — which is capable of 67 trillion calculations per second — astronomers at NASA Goddard have created a series of images of what our solar system would look like to an alien astronomer at various points in time. Their simulations track the interactions of 75,000 dust grains in the Kuiper Belt, and show that while the planets would be too dim to detect directly, aliens could deduce the presence of Neptune from its effects on the icy region. Strikingly, the images resemble one taken by Hubble of the star Fomalhaut. NASA has put out a cute video to go with the announcement as well."

Comments

Press release

[symes]

You can find NASA's press release and video here

Carl Sagan on interpreting images

[nroets]

"Strikingly, the images resemble one taken by Hubble of the star Fomalhaut." Be careful in drawing conclusions from the above statement. In 'Cosmos', Carl Sagan summarizes one of the flawed arguments he came across : "Looking at Venus, what do you see? Just clouds. Not a single thing. Conclusion? Dinosaurs"

Re:Carl Sagan on interpreting images

[The_mad_linguist]

Yes, but everyone knows there's a giant mirror exactly halfway between us and "Fomalhaut".

Re:Carl Sagan on interpreting images

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I see your point, but I don't think such a ridiculously unsupportable conclusion is being drawn from the image comparison. As it is though, I see it as interesting, but probably needs more investigation. Weren't some moons initially discovered because of disruptions in Saturn's rings? At the very least, it sounds like interesting parallels.

As if

[spoonist]

Yeah, right. As if computers could possibly do this kind of calculation.

This is obviously real data from aliens that have been in contact with the US Gov't for decades.

Silly US Gov't... didn't they realize that with this data we, the general public, can now extrapolate where the aliens came from?

Re:And the point is...?

[hcdejong]

Right; what good could astronomy possibly do? We don't need to know about outer space! [/sarcasm]

This 'little Photoshop session' helps astronomers better understand what they observe. It's part of the process that started with Copernicus.

Re:And the point is...?

[Jarik C-Bol]

The Citizens of the United States Spend more on Cell Phones each year than the total budget for NASA. Its no wonder we've not been anywhere cool.