Unfortunately this is a rather open ended question. We’re constantly discovering new things. The James Webb Space Telescope has only been fully functional for a short while but has already provided tons of new info.
Generally knowledge like this is similar to starting with a really low res photo that gets progressively more high res with each decade.
For example, the band of the Milky Way galaxy we can see in the sky was suggested to be made of stars itself in 5th Century BC by Democritus. In 964 AD, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi recorded observations on the Andromeda Galaxy and Large Magellanic Cloud. 1610, Galileo confirms the Milky Way band is indeed made of stars. 1923, Edwin Hubble proves galaxies are “island” clusters of stars.
We’ve also had to rely on Newtonian Physics to describe things for a long time, but then it started being noticed that while consistent for practical things on earth, they couldn’t accurately predict things on the scale of the universe. Einstein’s general theory of relativity helped explain most of this, but still has some gaps.
Black holes were proven in the last century, but we got the first visual confirmation just a few years ago. Redshifting proving that galaxies are moving away from each other is also in the last century.
So at this point we have measurements on the general chemical make up of the universe, its size, its rate of expansion, the formation of galaxies, and how old it is starting from a specific event.
These measurements are ranges though, and those ranges get more narrow the better our instruments and the new info we get. It’s like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. Your first guesses can be way off because you have to eyeball, but then you’re allowed to measure the volume of the jar and the volume of a single jelly bean. You’ll be way closer than before. Then you’re allowed to measure the weight of that jelly bean and that jar. You’ll probably be a little closer. Then you’re given a variety of jelly beans to measure, so you get averages instead of basing everything on a jelly bean that might be an outlier.
So, in a binary way we don’t have the exact right answer for a lot of the universe, but each new discovery trends toward us being more correct than we were before.
It’s reflected light from the Sun as they orbit, not lights installed on them. Maybe they can use a non-reflective coating or something for new ones though
I have no answer but I want to help the post gain attention by putting a comment in here.
I would be super interested in the answer as well, though again I have no idea what it might be or even what factors go in to the equation. I may be off in my assumption (and you may have already accounted for it) but I imagine the calculations for a satellite orbiting the body whose horizon is the subject must be different by at least one term from the calculations of governing a body orbiting the same mass as the horizon-owning-body
I think it will never not blow my mind that south Texas is a legit space port. (That’s assuming it plays out as planned, of course. I think we still have to see if environmental concerns outweigh the development opportunity?)
Well, there’s a balloon launch site further up the coast in Wharton, I think, that they were calling a space port, but I always thought that was a little bit of humor. It’s different for me to imagine driving down to the valley to see a monster rocket go to Mars.
I’m not a biologist. The only context I have regarding rapid cellular reproduction in space is the 2017 movie “Life” where a fictional alien implies doom for humanity and all of Earth as we know it.
Are there any positives to this news? My understanding is that multi-celled organisms have a hard time repairing themselves in microgravity; bones in particular being affected among other processes. Hoping the research being conducted here helps advance medicine on that front.
I can only imagine what having the runs is like in space. Super powered E. coli coursing through your gut sounds extra…you know 💩
Could potentially be used to create better strains of “good bacteria” such as the extremely important ones that make up the human gut microbiome. I could see it maybe being useful for the development of antibiotics and vaccines too!
The fact that most of our signals for extra-terrestrial life are based on life on earth has always made me concerned we'd miss something. This has made me reconsider a little. We would miss life unlike earth's with our approach, but without an analogy like this to draw on, how could we know?
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