Simply Amazing

[hollodero]

(07-24-2022, 01:03 PM)basballguy Wrote: I enjoy these images, but I also wonder "what's the point?"  We spend billions of dollars to see star systems that may never even exist anymore...and if they do, we'll never visit them.  

If for entertainment, then sure I get it.  But at this point why even bother trying to (as stated by NASA):

-find first light in the universe
-study the birth of stars/planets
-find? (i guess) the first galaxies in the universe

If we're going to invest in the universe, maybe we should start looking at travel and places much closer?

A colossal waste of time and money IMO...though I'll still marvel at the pictures anytime they come out

The answer to these questions matter because they give scientists a better understanding of the nature of things. Which is always the first step towards any innovation. Answering questions about the universe can lead to breakthroughs on many fields that might look unrelated at first glance, including quantum physics for example. I am not too versed in these fields to make an air-tight case about that, but I had enough of a glance to know things are often way more complicated, entangled and relevant than they appear for the outsider, determining what is a waste of resources and what isn't.

Just heuristically, the sun does fusion power, something we'd very much like to adapt. Studying the sun and the birth of suns could very well point to say a catalyst of sorts, or to a set of circumstances that starts the solar oven, something we can learn from. Or not, I don't know. But one won't know unless one tries to understand, hence trying to understand as much as possible seems to be a logical goal for humankind to me.