How Much We Have Learned! How Much We Do Not Know!
A Change of Pace for Today
I am guessing that at least a few of us would welcome spending some time thinking about almost anything besides politics and related issues. OK, let’s go big – really big. Today we reflect a bit on Outer Space, the Universe, and our connections to it all. Is that enough of a change for one try? Let’s see where we can go with this mindset.
A Personal Attraction to Space
I confess that I am a Space junkie. Ever since I can remember, from my very earliest memories, Space has held my attention like nothing else. Its size, power, and mystery challenge our ability to think like nothing else. Some of my earliest memories are of laying on the ground at night and looking at the stars, try to comprehend what they are, where they are, and what all is out there that we cannot see. To this day I find star gazing restful, invigorating, and inspiring.
The home we live in now has a back deck that we considered covering and making into a room. Until we went outside the first night we called this home. We live in something of a small dark spot and the star gazing can be pretty amazing. No one sane, in my humble view, would blog such a few with something as trivial as a roof. The stars call out to us.
Where Are The Aliens?
When one contemplates the vastness of space, something we still do not know anywhere near fully, but we have at least an appreciation, it is natural to wonder where are the aliens that should be out there. President Obama made a few headlines just the other day reflecting on this question.
The question was articulated so well many years ago by the physicist Enrico Fermi, whose Fermi Paradox focused the question. The Fermi Paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. Fermi, who informally posed the question—remembered by Emil Konopinski as “But where is everybody?”—during a 1950 conversation at Los Alamos with colleagues Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York.
The question still is out there, although some are convinced that we have seen aliens and UFOs. We now have a much better understanding of the scale and scope of the known universe, and it is that scope that might provide the answer.
The distances in space are so very vast that while there may be, even likely to be, that there are many millions of civilizations past, present, and future in the universe, the distances between them all is so vast that we are all unlikely to ever even get an indication of the existence of others. For example, it takes a single beam of light over 100,000 years to cross just our galaxy. To come from our nearest neighbor galaxy, a beam of light (the fastest thing known in the universe) would take over 2.25 million years to reach us. A discouraging conclusion, but there we are. The distances are simply too vast to allow any sort of actual communication.
Maybe someday we will learn how to bend time, but at least for now, we are isolated by distance. As some jokesters have said anyway, if a spaceship came by Earth and looked at what all was going on here, they likely would decide to lock their doors and drive on by!
Anything Gained Besides Tang?
The question often arises as to whether the exploration and study of Space is worth the cost, with so many other needs deserving more resources. Besides the invention of Tang, what have we gotten out of all this? I can understand the frustration. Sometimes one has to wonder how much are we gaining from the International Space Station. It seems odd that after almost 50 years of delay, our big upcoming launches are to return to the moon again.
But of course, there is so much value at hand. The telescopes and probes, especially the Hubble and the Webb telescopes, tell us more than we ever imagined. There have been many advances in science and medicine that comes from the Space programs. And perhaps more to the point, this is what humanity does – we investigate, we challenge ourselves, we go to places we have never been before.
I think it was George Will who said it best many years ago: this is what great civilizations do. I cannot imagine watching the two Cosmos tv series and coming out other than committed to doing more exploration as a priority for our species.
Try Wrapping Your Brain Around These Data Points
- Every star you see is just a small slice of what is in just our one galaxy. With the naked eye, one could see perhaps 2-3,000 stars. Just our one galaxy has, at our best estimate, over 400 BILLION stars.
- Using the fastest space vehicle we have ever created, it would take over 12.6 BILLION years just to get to the edge of our own galaxy. Even a beam of light would take over 100,000 years to cover that distance, which is still in our little neighborhood (galaxy).
- We used to refer to “the Universe.” More often today we use the term “Known Universe,” in recognition that there may well be much that we have never seen and have no awareness of, at least not yet. In that known Universe, our best estimate is that there are at least 2 TRILLION galaxies and could be as many as 4 TRILLION of them. Each of them has billions of stars and planets. Still think we are alone?
- Our sun is not all that large, as such entities go in the known universe. Yet it is large enough that it could contain 1.3 BILLION copies of planet Earth. The sun is pretty close to us, as Space things go. Sunlight reaches us in about 8 minutes. If you were to fly that same route in a commercial jet, it would take about years to get there. Using our fastest spaceship to date still takes 3 ½ months.
- A teaspoon of neutron star mass would weigh billions of tons. Now, that is dense!
- This one blows my mind: There are more stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. Think about that. Hold a grain of sand up towards the sky at arm’s length. That little dot covers, on average, about 10,000 galaxies in any direction.
- Because our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, is 2.25 BILLION light years away, the light we see from it today began its journey before our species and its predecessors even began to exist, by a factor of 8. Just to send a message out and get a reply from this nearest neighbor would take 5 ½ BILLION years. Choose your words carefully! Want to go to that next door galaxy? Take our fastest space vehicle to date and you could arrive in about 70,000 years. And that is our next-door neighbor.
- Pioneer I is the fastest thing mankind has ever launched. It is moving along at 61,000 kilometers per hour. It has been travelling for about 50 years. The distance it has covered would be covered by a beam of light in one day. Reaching Andromeda with this little speed demon would take 44 BILLION years.
Still With Us? Contemplate A Few More Points
9. Feel like you are standing still? Not so. The earth is spinning on its axis at about 1,670 kilometers/hour. Our planet is orbiting the sun at about 107,000 kilometers/hour. The entire solar system is orbiting the center of our galaxy at about 828,000 kilometers/hour. And the entire Milky Way galaxy is moving through space at about 2.1 million kilometers/hour. Feeling dizzy yet?
10. The largest black hole we have found so far3 is so dense that it would weigh more than all the stars in our galaxy combined. It is 66 BILLION times heavier than our son. If placed where our sun is now, its mass would stretch out beyond Pluto. And it is only 18.2 BILLION light years away.
11. The vast majority of the Universe, more than 90%+, is thought to be Dark Energy and Dark Matter. What we could see is just a small fraction of the whole. Scientists are quite sure that both these dark factors exist and influence the rest of the galaxy mightily. We just don’t know what they are and how they operate. Over 90% of the Universe and they remain a mystery to us.
12. The Hubble telescope confirmed that the Universe is expanding at an ever increasing speed. The Webb telescope confirmed and refined that conclusion. Everything in Space is moving, expanding the Universe much, much faster than anyone had predicted. We have no idea why all this accelerating and towards what, if anything, are we accelerating? If something pulling everything its way?
The Connection
It is certainly possible to feel diminished by the scale and magnificence of the known Universe. I am surely the least religious person you likely know, but I feel the spiritual and physical connection we have to all of this.
As near as we can tell, the Universe never loses anything. Elements of matter or energy will move and/or evolve into other forms of energy or matter but never just disappear. As Carl Sagan so eloquently remined us, we are all made of star dust. The atoms and molecules that came together to become you may be millions, even billions of years old. Once you and I die, those molecules and the energy that animates us will return to the Universe at large and become part of something else. You may, in a sense, give birth to some remarkable creature or entity a thousand or millions of years ago.
Some have observed that the layout of the known Universe looks remarkably like the pattern of synopsis in the human brain. Coincidence? Maybe? Seeing something that is more opinion than fact? Perhaps. But the concept that we are all connected to everything in ways we do not understand or even perceive as yet makes a lot more sense to me than all the religions our species has created in a feeble effort to explain everything. There may well be some form of consciousness that connects everything and everyone, but it surely would not be one of the gods man has created. The very concept of such a universal consciousness/connection is well beyond our feeble abilities to comprehend, but let’s keep working on it.
Now, Do This
Do that thing I mentioned we all probably did in childhood but seldom do now. Find a comfortable spot outdoors on a clear night devoid of artificial light and clouds. Stretch out flat and contemplate the Universe you see; think about how you connect with all that. Do it long enough to clear your brain of clutter and work that connection to the Universe. With luck, you will be, at once, both humbled and exhilarated.
Have fun.
Closing With A Joke
I saw a cartoon years ago that still delights me. Two aliens on a distant world were at their breakfast table, reading the morning paper. We cannot see them behind the papers but get to eavesdrop on the conversation. One of them notes with surprise that they have found a somewhat intelligent species on another planet, one called Earth. The other replies yes, that seems to be the case but disgustingly, these creatures appear to be made out of meat! Gross!
See you next week.
Likely we will focus back on life on this tiny little planet we are fortunate enough to occupy.
Bill Clontz
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Let’s grow our circle.
Loved this post! Learned a lot and brought back memories of watching falling stars as we laid flat on our backs on our deck long ago. Thank you for the info and the memories!
What about the term “multiverse” rather than, or along with, “known universe?”
An interesting point to raise and a good topic I should have mentioned. The idea of multiverse is really quite different, in that it posits that our universe (known or otherwise) may well be just one of many universes. Blows the mind, doesn’t it?
We astronomy nerds get snippets of articles on various space subjects over time, but it’s good to see all the basic data in one place. It sure puts life on our little blue dot in perspective.
I was in Astronomy class in college when Sputnik was launched (1967) and the professor stopped the lecture and lamented this was only the beginning and space near earth would someday become a junk yard. And so it has.