SPACE AND UNIVERSE

Space and Universe: A Glimpse of the Infinite

Repeating this every day in the evening reminds me of how vast space is. It is so staggeringly vast—with trillions upon trillions of objects scattered across the countless galaxies and their myriad planetary systems—that our human brains cannot even process it. The vast emptiness of space looms above us every night as we stand on the surface of our tiny blue planet, reminding us just how small and insignificant one could be.

We live in an amazing universe, and we ask important questions. What do you notice when you look into the sky? Have you ever thought that we are the only life in the universe? What do we really know about our place and universe? What if somewhere out there were alien worlds, bizarre dimensions beyond our reach? Our understanding of the universe indeed keeps changing, but even then, many unsolved mysteries remain.

The universe is a mysterious place, full of once unimaginable things. It is enormous and beautiful, but really—how big? Does the universe have a boundary, or is it infinite in extent? Every day, countless new discoveries are made in the quest to answer these questions.

Ponder our Cosmic Address: Sydney Observatory, 1003 Upper Fort St, Millers Point… The Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Cluster—Virgo Super-Cluster, Universe… and out into the beyond. This address underscores us all facing the large unknown of what is to come. Even with our most powerful technology and greatest scientific minds, much of the sky still lies beyond observational capacity. Astronomers make new advances every year, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is poised to herald a whole host of fresh insights.

The spectrum of outer space is all the more vast—everything beyond our planet and in between other heavenly objects. It’s not as if it is entirely empty, but there are gaps. Less than one hydrogen atom per cubic meter, and a little helium (HII) plasma, as well as magnetic fields, electromagnetic radiation such as light, etc., from stars, galaxies, dust, cosmic rays, databases, and neutrinos. Space is defined by the residual radiation from the Big Bang at –454 °F (–270 ºC) or 2.7 kelvin, what scientists call a temperature of virtually absolute zero. Though extremely tenuous—typically with less than one hydrogen atom per cubic meter, even between galaxies—hot plasma forms a majority of ordinary matter processed in the universe and reaches temperatures well into millions of degrees Kelvin.

Most intriguingly of all, though, other research suggests that up to 90% of the mass in many galaxies is comprised not of ordinary stars and dark matter, but of unknown stuff called (drum roll:) ‘dark matter’. Because dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, it only interacts with other matter gravitationally. Moreover, some 74% of the total energy density is believed to be in dark energy—a type ranging from cosmological constant (just due to it being non-zero) up through vacuum derivatives from quantum mechanics that are still very poorly understood. There is plenty of space within galaxies and star systems to be sure, but that’s about it.

The universe will show us itself as we push further into the cosmos, and it is up to our understanding to keep up with that. Join us as we rummage through the cosmos trying to solve its mysteries that are kept secure in those buckets of space.

Let’s check out some amazing facts about our extended universe

Ø FASTEST

Mercury is the fastest planet in our solar system. It zips around 170,000 kilometers per hour around the sun which is about 65,000kmph faster than earth. A year on mercury is equal to 88 days of earth

Ø SLOWEST

Venus is the slowest planet in our solar system, rotating for about 243 days

Ø BIGGEST

Ceres is the largest, most massive body in the main asteroid belts between

 Mars and Jupiter, total about a third of the total mass of the entire belt. But Ceres is the smallest of the dwarf planets, which include Pluto and Eris, and the only dwarf planet that resides in the asteroid belt.

Ø TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE  

If we could stand at the equator of Martian (mars), the temperature at our feet would be like a warm spring day but when it comes to your head it would be freezing cold

Ø WINDEAST

         Neptune’s winds are the fastest in our solar system 2,575kmph (1,600 miles per hour). Neptune’s large hollow surface giant, spinning storms can swallow Earth  

Ø SIGNALS

A spacecraft's radio signal to contact Earth has no more power than a refrigerator light bulb. And by the time the signal has traveled across space, the signal is only one billionth of one-billionth of one watt! To detect those tiny signals from space, the Deep Space Network uses dish antennas with diameters up to 70 meters (230 feet). That’s almost as big as a football field.

Ø LARGEST

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system almost all 1,300 Earths can easily fit in  Jupiter. After all, it is a small world!!!!!!!!!

Ø LONGEST DAY

A Venus day is approximately 243 Earth days. The bad news we have to wait for 3 years for weekends that is because a day on Venus is longer than its year

 

The average temperature on Venus is more than 480 degrees Celsius (about 900 degrees Fahrenheit) — hotter than a self-cleaning oven.

Ø GRAVITY

The gravity on Mars is approximately one-third that on Earth. Yes, chances are you’d be able to dunk the basketball on the Martian court

Ø MOON

The footprints on the Moon will be there for 100 million years. The Moon has no atmosphere, which means there is no wind to erode the surface and no water to wash the footprints away. This means the footprints of the Apollo astronauts, along with spacecraft prints, rover prints, and discarded material, will be there for millions of years.

Ø SO MANY STARS

We basically have no idea how many stars there are in the universe. Right now we use our estimate of how many stars there are in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. We then multiply that number by the best guesstimate of the number of galaxies in the universe. After all the math, NASA can only confidently say that there all zillions of uncountable stars. A zillion is any uncountable amount