The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 29, 2021 by derrick37027

Ever since humans have first become interested in space, the inevitable question of “does life exist outside of Earth” has loomed over us. However, as technology has progressed and humanity has trekked deep into space, the question remains unanswered. This brings about a certain paradox regarding the existence of alien life. The universe is almost infinitely large and has existed for billions of years. Additionally, though a world that can support intelligent life requires very specific conditions, our Universe is so large that there must be many many occurrences where these conditions are met. Therefore, by the law of large numbers, life outside Earth must exist. This is the first part of the paradox. The second part relies more on the nature of intelligent life. From birth, intelligent life will have a tendency to be curious, explore, and overcome scarcity. Assuming these aliens are somewhat similar to humans, they too will wonder about the stars and eventually progress to a point where they travel space to learn or to acquire resources. These two key “facts” contradict each other. If our Universe is so large that alien life must be inevitable and it has existed for so long, why haven’t we seen any evidence of alien life anywhere in our galaxy? Surely aliens from millions/billions of years ago would have traversed our solar system in search of resources.

Enrico Fermi

Unfortunately, I am not able to provide a solution to this paradox but I will provide my own personal thoughts on it. While yes, the Universe is almost too large and old for us to comprehend, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that alien life MUST exist. Furthermore, since the universe is so old, there very well could have been extraterrestrial life at some other stage in our universe’s life. The overall probability must decrease when we take into account that humans have only been a millisecond in the universe’s life span. There is not guarantee that two lifeforms exist at the same time.

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The Northern Lights

Posted on April 28, 2021 by gracelearnsspace
Source

The northern lights are one of Earth’s beautiful sights that everyone wants to see. However, little people actually know how they occur. The northern lights, which are aurora, are caused by electrified gas from the Sun getting caught by Earth’s magnetic field which leads to the North and South poles. These particles from the sun interact with gases in Earth’s atmosphere (Oxygen gives off green and red light and Nitrogen gives off blue and purple light). Since auroras are caused by a magnetosphere and atmosphere, other planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, can have them too! Have you ever seen the northern lights, and if so, where?

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Explore Giants

Posted on April 28, 2021 by kjackson1456

Earth may seem special to us, but it is just one of a near countless number of planets in our universe—a rather small one at that. Giant planets are those planets that dwarf Earth in size. They are gaseous bodies, meaning that they are primarily composed out of a swirling combination of gasses held together by the gravitational attraction of their solid cores. Consequently, they do not have solid surfaces like Earth and are not inhabitable. In our solar system specifically, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all classified as gas giants.

The graph below from Pearson Education, shows all of our giants along with their mass, density, composition, and distance from the sun.

Gas Giants: Facts About the Outer Planets - YouTube
Pearson Graph

These planets spin much faster than terrestrial planets do and as such they experience far shorter days/nights than we do here on Earth. For instance: an entire day on Jupiter is only about 10 hours on Earth. Due to their massive size, giant planets attract more orbiting objects such as moons and rings. Though all of the giants in our solar system have rings, Saturn’s rings are the only ones visible from Earth.

Interesting Fact: Jupiter, being the largest of all the planets in our solar system, can hold more than 300 Earths inside of it!

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Life in Libra

Posted on April 28, 2021 by kjackson1456
Libra constellation star
Libra Constellation during June

Libra season is defined as the time when the when our sun passes through the libra constellation. This period starts on September 23 and ends on October 23. It is believed that balance is best achieved during this time as the Libra Zodiac is said to represent balance, justice, and harmony. Also, Libra is believed to bring with it an energy of rational and reflective thought. Consequently, this may also be a time when certain personally held truths may come into question or be challenged, though Libra also welcomes change—so long as it makes logical sense.

Libra season occurs during the start of fall. Historically speaking, libra’s association with balance draws both from its perceived shape of scales and the fact that during the autumnal equinox the times of day and night are equal ,or balanced, in length. Furthermore, this time was also thought to signify dramatic change as the weather grows colder and life becomes less vibrant. Changes such as these, though somewhat unpleasant, were welcome and thought to be a natural part of life as they are necessary for some things (such as plants or people ) to grow and evolve.

Astronomically speaking, Libra season is simply the time when the sun is “in” libra. This means that the particular positioning of the Earth, sun, and stars is aligned in such as way that the sun appears to pass through the libra constellation as it crosses our sky. The greater meaning or associations we give to particular celestial positioning or motions such as this are what we call astrology.

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ExploreSol

Posted on April 28, 2021 by kjackson1456

It might surprise you to know that the sun is over 90 million miles away from us! That’s right: something that far away is able to provide us with life-saving light and warmth. A process called nuclear fusion is responsible for the sun’s tremendous heat and brilliant shine. Though it may look different from other stars in our sky, the sun is actually a star as well. Specifically, the sun is classified as a yellow-dwarf, main sequence star. This means that it is middle-aged and relatively small in comparison to other active stars in the universe. It was once believed that Earth was located at the center of our solar system. However, we now know that the sun is actually located at the center of our solar system. Interactions between the sun and earth influence our cycle of seasons, tides, and so much more. This graph from Nasa explores interactions between solar wind and various celestial bodies in our solar system.

Solar Wind Infographic
Nasa (Solar Wind)

Astrologically speaking, the sun is one of the most critical elements of someone’s birth chart. Across numerous cultures, the sun plays a crucial role in developing the more dominant/obvious traits a of a person’s character/personality. In western astrology, the sun sign is supposed to sign is supposed to signify ( or at least generalize ) your identity.

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 27, 2021 by gracelearnsspace
Aliens?

The Fermi Paradox is the paradox that while there are probably other intelligent life forms in the Milky Way, none have have made any communication with Earth. Since Earth is a younger planet of the Milky Way, if intelligent civilizations existed they would likely be much older, meaning they would have the technology to communicate with Earth and the time to have done it. The explanations for this paradox are aliens have not come/communicated because of lack of technology, because they didn’t want to, or they have come and we have not noticed. Personally, I believe it is likely aliens have come in the past, explaining things like the great pyramids and stone hedge. Perhaps they do not want us to know they came and do not want to come again. What do you think is the explanation for the Fermi Paradox?

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Thermus Aquaticus

Posted on April 27, 2021 by ben141414
Sources: Wikipedia and Bacteria: Thermus Aquaticus

Thermus Aquaticus is an extremophile that can survive extremely hot temperatures. It is a species of bacteria, whose scientific classification is Bacteria, Deinococcus-Thermus, Deinococci, Thermales, Thermaceae, Thermus, Thermus Aquaticus (Domain, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). Thermus Aquaticus is a chemotroph, which means it obtains food through chemosynthesis. The species was first discovered in 1969 at Mushroom Spring in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park by microbiologists Thomas D. Brock (Brock died on April 4, 2021, rest in peace) and Hudson Freeze.

Prior to their groundbreaking discovery, it was thought that the limit for any life was around 73o C or 163o F. But, contrary to that thought, this bacterium cannot live much below that temperature. Temperatures colder than 50o C, or 122o F, might destroy Thermus Aquaticus. A bacterium that lives at higher temperatures than most species on Earth, Thermus Aquaticus thrives at 65-70o C, or 149-158o F, and can survive extreme heat up to 80o C or 176o F.

Amazingly, bacteria like Thermus Acquaticus are responsible for the beautiful colors at Yellowstone. Many different species of bacteria create the contrasting colors because they reflect different colors. Since the discovery in Yellowstone, Thermus Aquaticus has been found in several other high-temperature environments.

Taq polymerase is a DNA polymerase that is extracted from Thermus Aquaticus. It was first discovered in 1976 that Thermus Aquaticus is very suitable for DNA sequencing due to its ability to withstand a wide range of high temperatures and protein denaturing. Taq polymerase is one of the most versatile polymerase enzymes available.

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Blog 6 Aristotle’s cosmology

Posted on April 23, 2021 by zvrec

In this blog, I would like to introduce Aristotle’s model of the universe. The cosmic theory from Aristotle is clearly wrong from the view of modern science. However, before modern astronomy was developed, Aristotle’s ideas about our world dominated people’s belief for thousands of years. It was embraced by scholars, philosophers, and religious leaders as a foundation for their principles.

Aristotle

In Aristotle’s cosmology, the universe is made up by multiple celestial spheres. Earth is located at the center of the universe. Same as his teacher Pluto, Aristotle also believes that the universe is constructed by basic elements. However, Aristotle thinks that besides the four basic elements, which are earth, fire, air and water, there exists one extra dominating element, called aether. In his view of the world, the universe contains two realms, the terrestrial realm and the celestial realm. The former one naturally covers the internal celestial sphere. The entire amount of fire, water, earth, and air makes up the terrestrial sphere. According to Aristotle, we can discover from natural observation that these four basic elements undergo transformations and interactions. Thus, this characteristic determines that all things in the terrestrial realm are material and perishable.

Aristotle’s cosmology model

On the other hand, the outer celestial sphere is made up of only one element, aether. Aristotle states that aether is ungenerated, unalterable, and indestructible. The features of aether leads to Aristotle’s conclusion that all stars in the outer sphere are made up by aether. They are eternal and without a beginning, so does the universe itself. Being similar to Pluto, Aristotle’s model demonstrates his worship to circular motions. He considers stars in the heaven doing perfect circular motions around Earth. For him, circle represents perfectness and fulfillment to the natural purpose of the universe.

Aristotle’s cosmology was viewed as undoubtable truth throughout the most history of humanity. One important reason is that his cosmology was created based on his physics, and his physical theory was tightly connected to the very basis of his philosophy. In past time, people readily found Aristotle’s ideas correct, because many of his thoughts were quite intuitive if people just take into consideration of their senses and their daily observations to the nature. More crucially, there was no advanced scientific tools to prove that Aristotle was incorrect. A key loophole of Aristotle’s geocentric model was the existence of stellar parallax. Nevertheless, no competitive telescope was invented to successfully observe stellar parallax until 1838.

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Comet Swift-Tuttle

Posted on April 21, 2021 by miichellewang
Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle (Source)

Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle (which is unfortunately not named after Taylor Swift) is just one of the several thousand comets that are known to astronomers. The “P” in its name stands for “periodic comet”, which means that it has an orbital period of less than 200 years. It was separately discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, hence the name. It takes around 133 years to orbit the Sun and has a diameter of 16 miles or 26 kilometers. For reference, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was estimated to have a diameter of only around 10 kilometers. Because of its massive size, some have said it has potential to wipe out humanity in a couple thousand years!

Another fascinating aspect of the Comet Swift-Tuttle is that it is actually responsible for the Perseids meteor shower, which peaks around the middle of August each year. Its name comes from the constellation Perseus, which is where the meteor shower appears to come from in the sky. Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through dusty trails left behind by comet particles and bits of asteroid pieces. When this happens, the particles disintegrate in the Earth’s atmosphere and create bright streaks across the sky. Hopefully the next time August rolls around you’ll be able to catch the Perseids meteor shower happening in the night sky.

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How Moons Get Their Names

Posted on April 20, 2021 by solarcecily

With advancements being made in telescopy allowing astronomers to use the astrometric, Doppler, and transit methods to unparalleled accuracy, we can’t let ourselves get behind in naming these fascinating new worlds. Before we were discovering extrasolar planets, however, we were classifying small worlds and satellites within our own Solar System. Some of the more notable bodies were given clever names hailing from Greek and Roman mythology, like the Galilean moons of Jupiter (see below) all being named after characters who interacted with the ancient deity.

Source: Wikipedia

Today, all moon naming is under the discretion of the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN). Moons we’ve known for a while now have been given names as homages to figures in antiquity, but new satellites are given temporary names by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). This provisional name is a combination of the year the moon was discovered plus a number. The number corresponds to the order which that object was discovered in that year. So for example, if we discovered a new moon today, in the year 2021, but this is the 15th discovery we’ve made this year, the name would include the numbers 2021-15. Until 2013, all moons were given names, even if it was just a temporary one, but there is no longer a requirement for all of them to have names, so some satellites remain nameless.

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