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That is the definition of metals Astronomers use. I just learned it from Dr. Becky. It was shocking at first but makes sense from an astronomical point of view. Still, I will never be comfortable calling carbon or neon a metal.

If you could teleport to the edge of universe, or rather the observable universe, it'd look pretty much exactly what we see where we are. The edge we see is the universe as it was 13.8B years ago, not as it is now.

Your definition of metals is interesting.

Perfect. If you have a tripod: check if you can mount them on it

Gonna dust off my good pair of binoculars from the garage tonight.

Isn't the sun 4.5 bn years old ? What would they see then

Or it'll certainly have an *impact*

542 AU, solar gravitational lens. We could, theoretically, see surface details on exoplanets, directly observing life if it's there.

Oh, but then you'd need a lot of observations in a lot of observable universes to truly confirm isotropy in our universe.Also, the Milky Way image would most likely be redshifted into oblivion, and that's not even talking resolution, but thanks for this answer.

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I agree.

My question was more of the economics of leaving the market in space instead of back to earth. There are very few buyers that have the capabilities of using material produced in space, and none of them have anything in space currently that can utilize that material.

If you make structural steel in space, you can't price it at what it would cost to send it up. There's no manufacturing in space yet. You'd have to price it below what it would cost to send up and build said manufacturing capabilities than it would just sending up the finished product.

The issue still remains, the only profitable market is on earth... for now.

Thanks for asking.

When the OP stated instantaneously placing a space telescope light years away, I assume this also meant information would be instantaneously sent between Earth and the telescope.

I would place the telescope at the edge of the observable universe for two reasons.

• Test the cosmological principle that the universe actually is isotropic and homogeneous everywhere, inside and beyond the observable universe.

• Hopefully, compare the same galaxies at different stages of life. The Milky Way is estimated to have started 160 million years after the Big Bang. It would be interesting to compare early images of the Milky Way from that space telescope with what we see today from Earth.

This was my thinking too… that telescope could point at and observe so many other planets and stars and the data (39 ly away) would be worth the wait. It would need to be automated to imo observe each body — including it’s sun — for at least an earth year. Also, I’d not make it a telescope but a full spectrum receiver (not just visible light).

It would be fantastic some day to create near light speed small automated probes that could reach Trappist 1 and observe all the bodies there, in orbit, endlessly sending back data to earth.

No, the speed of expansion is relative to the observer and the distance of the object, so if looking towards us, it would look like our galaxy was moving away faster, and galaxies near to it would be moving away slower.

Put it somewhere near a black hole, not really to view the BH, but to use its power as a gravitational lens. Could theoretically see a ton of interesting things around it with more clarity.

NASA is like 1/16th of the space market. It is much more diverse than most people realize, and most of it is services, not launch and building satellites.

I used the steel as an example, because it is the same place you would extract the Platinum Group Metals. The first space-mined products are likely to be (a) bulk rock for shielding, and (b) water and carbon compounds for propellants and life support.

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The known universe is so vast that it’s unobservable. And if you placed that telescope at the edge of the observable universe the images wouldn’t reach us for another 14B years. Will you wait? 🧐

The comet is very faint and has a so-called apparent magnitude of around 6. What does it mean?

Small magnitude values correspond to brighter objects. Further, it is a logarithmic scale, but this Infos doesn't matter now. What matters is the following: the naked eye can see objects down to a brightness of 6. So the comet is currently in a state that is barely visible to the human eye. Further, you need a very dark sky without light pollution.

The brightness will change now, going up to 5.5 or even 5.2. But note: it is indeed faint!

He went to the congressional hearings and threw everyone under the bus, then was immediately demoted. Congress had to step in and fight to get his position back

1,533,333,333.33 generations to be exact.

Perhaps in orbit around Proxima Centauri b as it is the nearest planet in a habitable zone, there are other planets present and Alpha Centauri AB isn’t far away.

Or perhaps around one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets as it would probably get a good view of the other six planets as well since they are so close.

Great explanation, but with an oligopsony market, is that structural steel really worth $1m/ton?

Probably would match whatever time zone Mission Control would be. Everyone working the same hours basically.