What animals see in the stars, and what they stand to lose
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It was a new perspective for me and I wondered if whales ever see the night sky like that.
Your comment reminded me of a similar experience I had almost eight years ago. I went camping in the desert with a few friends of mine, and in the evening we slept inside these caves that looked out into sky instead of into the horizon--as in the cave entrance was vertical instead of horizontal.
In the evening, from inside the caves, I laid down and looked up and felt a sensation like the one you're describing--"weightless" is definitely the right word. It felt like I was looking into infinity, a literal ocean of stars. The cave was completely pitch black except for the opening that looked out into the sky. I don't have the right words to describe it, but I felt like I was almost pleasantly "falling" into that opening and out onto the star field, despite literally laying in the dirt in the middle of cave in the middle of nowhere.
I quite literally am not smart enough to conjure up the right words for how I felt--and still feel about, all those years later--but I felt this odd comforting sensation that the universe is much larger than me and here I was just sitting in its cradle.
I wonder why I haven't pursued it again after all these years. It would just require driving a few hours out of town, nothing too crazy. Like another commenter here mentioned, it would be good for all of us, especially we who work in front of screens all day, to do this more often.
EDIT: Your username is excellent haha.
The first time I travelled to the southern hemisphere and looked up to the night sky, it was full of unknown structures - but I also found my old friend Orion - upside-down. I turned my head to get the familiar feeling back.
Obviously, it was not the stars but me that were upside-down - the most definite sign of Earth's shape I have ever seen. And yet, it is hard to grasp. The world looks the same, solid, flat and steady beneath me. It is rare to get a glimpse of the world's three-dimensionality. Usually we live in only 2.5d.
Spent time in the remote Australian desert for many weeks, it was the first time I realized that the Earth is the best space ship we could ever hope to have.
I felt the same type of weightlessness and experienced "the dome" for many nights on end. Every night was a wonderful gift.
There is so much we don't know, and so much of what we do as humans is arbitrage to trade something away from someone before they know what they have. Or to sell something only accounting for one dimension of value or worth.
Then, the first time I spotted Saturn and Jupiter with my telescope in my driveway I was struck with fresh awe. I had seen them before, in larger telescopes and higher resolution, but to track it with your own, to see them and try to comprehend how big they are in order order to be seen from so far away... I still get chills.
Even worse is how these "security" lights destroy one's night sight from long distance. If I'm in sight of one of my dumbass neighbors' houses, I have to be careful not to look anywhere near them, because these devices shine their awful-colored rays in all directions. I'm sure this is even more of a burden for nocturnal animals. I know it is for my livestock.
These lights operate all night long, every night. Those who consent to their installation are typically inside their houses, watching TV or sleeping. These lights' only function is to illuminate the front lawn for a couple of seconds a few times each evening when someone wonders "is the security light still on?" Anyone who needs actual illumination outside uses flashlights, headlights, etc. when they actually need the illumination.
Even though I lived in one of the worst light-polluted cities in the region, I found that if I stood in the right place, so that I didn't have a streetlight in my face — like under an eave — and I just waited, my eyes would get used to the dark and I could see maybe 10 or 15 stars. Enough to make it interesting. All it takes is a little patience.
Eventually, I started going out and getting the mail before she came home so I'd have more star time, and it wasn't too long before some of them became familiar friends, and I noticed how others changed position from week to week.
It doesn't take much effort to appreciate the stars. But it's more effort than many people are willing to expend.
This is the saddest thing on this thread.
The moon will also stop them seeing the Milky Way.
At best, they use the Milky Way on moonless, low cloud nights, the time of year when it's observable.
As a human it's incredibly interesting to know if beetles actually use the Milky Way. For AI research it is also relevant.
But we are sitting so close to stupid, there needs more proof.
It does mean the proof matters. For the occasions a beetle could see the Milky Way did it's little brain come with pre-existing programming? or can store the Milky Way's image?. Which of the two is it, or is it something else?
Unfortunately logic is it's just not true, or a boring it stores any old big blob. It would be interesting from a vision perspective, they don't need lidar or night vision better than blobs. Moonlit clouds makes far more sense, and the anti-fighting theory still works for a somewhat consistent moving grid of clouds. Maybe there are no clouds where they are.
Like we're supposed to have hope for the future, but shit like this makes that increasingly difficult.
Curvature of the Earth, buildings, mountains, hills, valleys, canyons. The way that radio waves actually move around and through an area. You can only get a tower to see so far.
https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ - that's their coverage map
Note that there are still a lot of uncovered areas. The cost of getting towers into those areas and providing full coverage is massive. Remember, as I said in my previous comment, it's also not just towers and antenna. You need fiber running to every single one of them.
For specific examples of areas that are not covered on the map: north west maine. Nobody lives there. There are no incorporated towns north or west of Rangley or south or west of Alagash. It is private forestry company land.
Death Valley.
A part of east texas near the LA border. I am not too familiar with this area but I believe it is part of the area called the "Big Thicket" it is very sparsely populated.
The Nevada test site, Nellis AFB, Area 51. I am sure the military has its own radio coverage here where it needs it.
Other Parts of Nevada and Eastern Oregon and Washington and North Central Idaho. These areas are sparsely inhabited deserts or mountains.
First their launch costs are quite low at a small fraction of historical prices. Small satellites means they get economy of scale and fit several per launch. Being in the sky they get coverage of valleys for free, thus large coverage area means the little bandwidth is wasted as you can still communicate with satellites over the ocean, or low population areas like deserts. Spectrum, a point to point connection can reuse the same frequency while talking to every satellite in the sky. And finally it’s more than just radio masts they avoid maintaining long redundant fiber fiber connections to each mast by locating down stations in convenient locations. Also, after global coverage you get better than linear increases in bandwidth from linear increases in the number of satellites as you can focus on the most useful orbits.
Net, result it’s much cheaper to get global coverage this way than buy spectrum in every country, rent cell towers, and built and maintain fiber connections to each of them.
Actually, I got around the paywall[0] and ctrl+f starlink returns 0 results.
> The satellites are sometimes visible in the first few minutes after sundown and before sunrise when the sun is below the horizon, but the satellites are high enough to reflect direct sunlight.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spacex-ufo-starlink...