Does anyone else have an interest in this subject? I love it because it's not like most jobs where things are already figured out and the job becomes about effeciency. With astronomy it's the unknown, and the more we learn the more fascinating it becomes. For those of you who don't know much about space I'll list a few things you might not have known:
The speed of light travels 86,287 miles per second.It is the fastest known force in existance.
When you hear the term "light year" that means light traveling at the speed of 86,287 miles takes an entire year to get from point A to point B.
Our galaxy (The milky way)has over 2 billion stars in it and is roughly 90,000 light-years across.
The visible universe is 15 million light years across.
If you traveled any faster then the speed of light you would be going backwards.
Einstien proved that time is relative. The faster you move the slower time goes.
Space and time have a shape. Picture a sheet pulled tight at all four sides and imagine setting a bowling ball in the middle. The sheet would sink down. That is just how space works only planets and stars are the bowling balls (when using this analogy). That is why light curves towards planets.
Black holes are stars that have used up their energy and begin to implode in on themselves. A black holes gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
some argue that we'll never go across the universe, because even if we go as fast as light it would take 15 million years (probably much longer). That is where worm holes come in. Going back to the bowling ball analogy and how space and time have a shape...If you had that sheet and put an even heavier bowling ball in it and then heavier and heavier eventually the sheet would tear. That same thing can be applied to space. By tearing into space you could theoretically cause a rip in space time and jump from point A to point B directly without covering the distance in the traditional sense of the word. Of course that is way beyond our technological capabilities...
Scientists at stanford, in a contained lab, accelerated particles faster through a tube. The idea was to break them through thin sheets of paper at the end of the tube and front of the tueb. These particles accelerated faster then the speed of light and the end of the tubes sheet was broken before the front of it meaning the particles were going backwards...Time travel may be possible.
String theory, in the most simplest of terms I can think of, is the idea that there is a infinite ammount of univeres all piled up on eachother in a sense where every possibly outcome has/is happened/happening. It's really confusing.
Anyway I guess I kind of am rambling now but jesus shit this stuff interests me.
[ July 27, 2005, 01:02 AM: Message edited by: Repugnant Abomination ]
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