Well let’s see. I was a nerdy kid in the 70s, so I should be qualified for this. I have to say though, my wildest dreams set a pretty high bar. I dreamed of cities in space and in the oceans. And on land, we’d build giant fusion-powered arcologies modelled after the space cities that recycled everything we used. We’d spent most of our time in these cities connected by tunnelled maglevs while the rest of the world returned to a more natural state and became a giant wildlife/archaeological park.
But I’m trying to think of what would have blown my mind to learn about back then that actually happened. I think from a technological perspective, I never saw the marriage between computers and telecommunications becoming all that it is today. I had a vague idea of something like a video cell phone, but the idea that you could grab a movie off it from some distant giant computer complex and throw it up on a big screen in your home would’ve made me giddy. And just the quality of the image and the fidelity and depth of sound that could come out of tiny speakers would’ve been shocking. Sound systems were really, really shitty in the 70s. And TVs. Well, let’s just say there was a reason you went to the cinema.
The science nerd in me would also have been blown away by discoveries made since the 70s. Birds are dinosaurs? There were real life hobbits running around on some island in Indonesia? There are ocean moons in our solar system? And if I showed up to explain all this to my kid self, he would not have believed my age when I told him. Medicine is keeping us younger now.
on-demand video bent my grandfather’s brain. He could not wrap his head around it. “What do you want to watch?” “What’s on?” “Everything. You want to watch a particular episode of Dallas? A NASCAR race from 1984? The moon landings? all 47 seasons of MASH? We’ve got a magic VCR. We can always watch anything we want. So what do you want to watch?” “Well what’s on?”
Watching him die of dementia is a major driver of my goal to die young.
Saturn’s moon Titan has liquid lakes on its surface. Those lakes are full of methane, not water.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa are both covered in ice, but it is strongly believed that both worlds have subsurface oceans of liquid water. Europa may contain more water than Earth.
Yeah, if there was any doubt that an outer moon could contain liquid water, Enceladus’ active geysers firmly ended that speculation.
Europa’s ocean may be on the order of 100 km in depth. By comparison, Earth’s average about 4 km. That would make Europa have far more water than Earth despite being smaller than our Moon.
It seems as more data come in, it’s getting more and more likely that subsurface liquid water is common in the outer solar system, and that many other moons have varying amounts of it. Even Titan may have water someplace below its surface lakes of liquid methane. The inner solar system is more of a desert, and we are lucky to have what we have.
If you want more mind-blowing stuff, check out discoveries being made about exoplanets (planets around other stars). These were only detected in the 90s, but there are thousands we know about now, and there are some absolutely crazy examples among them.
The collision that created the moon might have been with an ice planetoid that also left a lot of the water we have here.
And on the topic, I just watched an episode of The Universe, which was just added to netflix but was from 2011. Big thing I noticed was the CG in the show was pretty shitty. But they also made no mention about the moon creating collision despite that episode being the top 10 catastrophies in the solar system (which was also kinda a lame topic for a series about “the universe”, it would be like a series about cool things in the solar system that just focused on cool things on earth). So don’t even have to go back to the 70s for the moon creating collision to not be on the public’s radar at least.
Ah yes, good old Theia! That was quite the reveal wasn’t it? Reminds of when they finally found that the giant object that wiped out the dinosaurs struck somewhere near present day Cancun.
Well let’s see. I was a nerdy kid in the 70s, so I should be qualified for this. I have to say though, my wildest dreams set a pretty high bar. I dreamed of cities in space and in the oceans. And on land, we’d build giant fusion-powered arcologies modelled after the space cities that recycled everything we used. We’d spent most of our time in these cities connected by tunnelled maglevs while the rest of the world returned to a more natural state and became a giant wildlife/archaeological park.
But I’m trying to think of what would have blown my mind to learn about back then that actually happened. I think from a technological perspective, I never saw the marriage between computers and telecommunications becoming all that it is today. I had a vague idea of something like a video cell phone, but the idea that you could grab a movie off it from some distant giant computer complex and throw it up on a big screen in your home would’ve made me giddy. And just the quality of the image and the fidelity and depth of sound that could come out of tiny speakers would’ve been shocking. Sound systems were really, really shitty in the 70s. And TVs. Well, let’s just say there was a reason you went to the cinema.
The science nerd in me would also have been blown away by discoveries made since the 70s. Birds are dinosaurs? There were real life hobbits running around on some island in Indonesia? There are ocean moons in our solar system? And if I showed up to explain all this to my kid self, he would not have believed my age when I told him. Medicine is keeping us younger now.
on-demand video bent my grandfather’s brain. He could not wrap his head around it. “What do you want to watch?” “What’s on?” “Everything. You want to watch a particular episode of Dallas? A NASCAR race from 1984? The moon landings? all 47 seasons of MASH? We’ve got a magic VCR. We can always watch anything we want. So what do you want to watch?” “Well what’s on?”
Watching him die of dementia is a major driver of my goal to die young.
My mom died of dementia. My sympathies. It’s so hard on families. Better to burn out than fade away, as they say.
Just learned it from your post. That is absolutely mind-blowing!
Saturn’s moon Titan has liquid lakes on its surface. Those lakes are full of methane, not water.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa are both covered in ice, but it is strongly believed that both worlds have subsurface oceans of liquid water. Europa may contain more water than Earth.
Yeah, if there was any doubt that an outer moon could contain liquid water, Enceladus’ active geysers firmly ended that speculation.
Europa’s ocean may be on the order of 100 km in depth. By comparison, Earth’s average about 4 km. That would make Europa have far more water than Earth despite being smaller than our Moon.
It seems as more data come in, it’s getting more and more likely that subsurface liquid water is common in the outer solar system, and that many other moons have varying amounts of it. Even Titan may have water someplace below its surface lakes of liquid methane. The inner solar system is more of a desert, and we are lucky to have what we have.
If you want more mind-blowing stuff, check out discoveries being made about exoplanets (planets around other stars). These were only detected in the 90s, but there are thousands we know about now, and there are some absolutely crazy examples among them.
The collision that created the moon might have been with an ice planetoid that also left a lot of the water we have here.
And on the topic, I just watched an episode of The Universe, which was just added to netflix but was from 2011. Big thing I noticed was the CG in the show was pretty shitty. But they also made no mention about the moon creating collision despite that episode being the top 10 catastrophies in the solar system (which was also kinda a lame topic for a series about “the universe”, it would be like a series about cool things in the solar system that just focused on cool things on earth). So don’t even have to go back to the 70s for the moon creating collision to not be on the public’s radar at least.
Ah yes, good old Theia! That was quite the reveal wasn’t it? Reminds of when they finally found that the giant object that wiped out the dinosaurs struck somewhere near present day Cancun.