"With their radio telescopes they can capture wisps of radiation
so preposterously faint that the total amount of energy collected from outside
the solar system by all of them together since collecting began (in
1951) is 'less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground' in
the words of Carl Sagan."
Again, this is one of those "wow" quotes. What is the energy of a snowflake hitting the ground? Probably some microscpopic amount, and yet we are able to fill in the blanks of the cosmic map with that energy. It's astounding how finely sensitive these instruments are. To the untrained eye, the big, hulking sattelite dishes look anything but sensitive. But of all the detection instruments on earth, they must be some of the finest.
It's also interesting to think about how much energy we know is out there in space, and know how little of it actually comes to our lonely little corner of the universe. The facts really put our loneliness into a rather depressing perspective.
I find that really interesting as far as how much energy is in space. Half of the energy we cannot even see, and have no way currently to measure the substance. We actually do not even know for sure if dark energy is there we just assume it because there is nothing else there.
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