For example, why is it important to know what the universe was like a billion years ago or what it will be in a billion years. What benefit do we get by doing those things?|||Besides what the other people have answered, we are always at risk of being hit by an asteroid or comet. Knowledge of this in advance could potentially allow us to devise a solution, like preparing for a minor/moderate impact, or slowly changing the orbit of an asteroid.
The WISE (infrared) space telescope recently completed it's first extensive sky survey, and astronomers discovered 25000 new asteroids in only 6 months, a few tens of which happen to have orbits relatively nearby to that of the Earth.
Also, the Sun continuously continuously ejects 'solar wind', composed of charged particles. These particles interact with our geomagnetic field. Sometimes the Sun emits relatively large quantities of mass (but still very small as compared to the mass of the Sun) in events called coronal mass ejections. Other events, called solar flares, emit large quantities of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation, which interact with our ionosphere.
These events produce beautiful auroras but also can produce big-scale shut-downs of power grids and other communications systems, including satellites. This has already happened, for example in Canada, in 1989. It produced a blackout by affecting Hydro-Quebec, the power grid servicing the Qu茅bec province. (http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/1/3/12鈥?/a>
Studying other stars also helps us understanding some aspects of the behavior of our own Sun.
The discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, a fundamental signature that supports the Big Bang theory, was discovered while trying to solve a "persistent problem of interference" in radio communication systems. Turns out that the associated temperature of this always-present signal was not far from the predictions made years before, based on the cosmological models of the time.
You can read a short article of it titled "Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation" in Wikipedia.
As a side effect, the study of our universe can also bring advances to other fields, like medicine. I'll quote a part of an abstract from the article "Opportunities for the transfer of astronomical technology to medicine" by S. Hughes, from the journal 'Australasian Physical %26amp; Engineering Science in Medicine', Vol 30, No. 4, 2007:
"There are many examples of technology transfer from astronomy to medicine, for example algorithms for reconstructing X-ray CT images were first developed for processing radio astronomy images. In more recent times, X-ray detectors developed for the Hubble Space Telescope have been used in a fine-needle breast biopsy system. Software originally developed to mosaic planetary images has been incorporated into a system for detecting breast cancer."
You can read more examples in the 'NASA spinoff' web page.
Another story: SN1987A was a supernova which had as a progenitor a giant star located about 160000 light-years away, in a small satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Three hours before the visible light reached Earth, an unusual burst of neutrinos (a very light particle that barely interacts with matter and often moves at almost the speed of light) was detected by neutrino detectors on Earth. Decades ago, it was predicted from physical stellar models that high-mass stars (larger than about 8 to 10 solar masses) would end their life in an explosion that would produce large quantities of neutrinos. Three hours after these events, astronomers accidentally discovered a supernova in this galaxy, matching pretty well with the predictions that could be made knowing the distance and type of star. It was even visible to the naked eye!
The three hours of difference between the neutrino burst also agreed with the model, which predicts a delay as the light from the explosion in the central region travels to stellar surface, to later continuing its travel unimpeded through space. Since the neutrinos barely interact with matter and travel so fast, they can reach us first.
Indeed, the neutrino burst should have lasted 10 seconds, from the stellar model. It lasted 13 seconds, from observations!
Nowadays, an urgent e-mail will be sent immediately from neutrino observatories to astronomers if they happen to detect something similar.
Last, but not least, astrophysics allows us to have a consistent account of what we can observe, like comets, supernovae, auroras, our own Solar System, etc., thus replacing mythology and superstition with verifiable knowledge, and even producing successful predictions, as you can see from the last example.
These are only a few other aspects of how valuable is astrophysics, besides providing us incredible amounts of knowledge and satisfying our curiosity.|||There are no tangible benefits to answering these questions. They are simply 'curiosities' that aid the development of theories.
There ARE tangible benefits to the methods that are utilized in the pursuit of these answers, though. The telescopes that are built, the satellite technology that is built, the engineering expertise that is developed... These things will, in the long run, lend themselves to commercial applications that provide a real benefit for mankind. For example, modern communications satellites are based on early exploratory satellites and, for many years satellites were the only thing that sustained the development of solar panel technology.|||whoever said there are no benefits to this, they are just curiosities is dumb
There are always benefits - because first of all, thats not the only thing the look for. They develop cutting edge technology which always falls back into things like computers ect... so eventually their innovations fall back to the general public, and we can use the new technology to make computers faster or better, more efficient, along with many other technological things.
There are also benefits in simply understanding the universe because think about it - if we knew how to locate and find planets that can sustain life, then we can populate space, ensuring the survival of the human race forever - because sooner or later if we stay on one planet, we will end up extinct.
Carrying on our species forever is extremely important.
I mean I dont really feel like going into it, but if your looking arouind for people who waste money - (and first of all Astrophysists do not often spend billions of dollars) but what about government who spends over 600 billion in defense?
Sure, defense is VERY important - but some of those jets cost 10's of millions each - I think we have enough for now. and 600 billion (which is what they tell us, who knows how much it REALLY is, is a little much. We are not being invaded right now - if a real war breaks out then sure - but in the meantime, 300 billion is PLENTY to stay ready.
and what about wasteful things like Golf Courses, that take up tons of space that could be used for so many better things - and they waste tons of money too.
I mean the list goes on and on - but the applications for furthing technology (which runs our world) and for finding answers that could lead us into space, develop certain cures for disease, new propulstion systems, new particles that we could use to time travel or create worm holes - and those are just a few of the more MAJOR things - there are endless things they do - and they dont spend billions in Tax-Payer money like the rest of the wasters out there
They do get some government grants but most of it is privately funded, so its not a big deal because even if it is a waste, they are wasting someone elses money|||The amount of money spent on the space program is made up of projects that let people go and visit the moon, or watch our planet from the space station.
I doubt the project on what you asked, is the major part of the space budget, but is just a part of the space project to let the people with the right math background to be able to measure what they see, and this may lead them to better understand other projects that are they are working on, such as, what results do you get when you match different items together.
I think the main reason they want to study so far away is, they think they maybe able to understand how a galaxy is formed.
As i mentioned above, the amount of money spent on the space program is made up of many different projects, and the project of studying what you mentioned above, is probably not a very significant amount of dollars, and even though the goals of the project may not ever be reached, the people who work on that project will probably use what they learnt from that job, to help them do other jobs on other projects that much more better.
I think that most people think if there were no benefits other than people viewing an exhibit of art that has not had its portrait painted, then, you would have to think that the cost of the space program being spent elsewhere, would have an inflationary affect on the items people might have bought instead, because the people who spend money on the space programs would end up making items that people buy to sustain their way of life.
My guess is, people will learn that what they see so far away are items that makes galaxies, and as people learn how to measure what they see, we will be able to improve on what we use to make what we buy to sustain our way of life.|||I don't know man. Why don't you open up a book about this nifty little thing called 'The Space Race'. I heard it's supposed to be really interesting.
500 years ago, people probably asked Copernicus "What does is matter weather the sun revolved around us or we revolve around the sun?"|||What is the benefit of studying history? or for that matter Archaeology, Anthropology, or anything to do with the past? We understand ourselves better and where we are going, by understanding where we came from.|||What were the benefits of exploring anything? Technological advancement! If no one explored, we'd still be beating each other with clubs.|||Knowledge.
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