Tag: Planets

What’s out there?

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There’s something called the Drake equation that hypothesises whether there is other intelligent life out in the universe. I don’t know it and can’t quote it, but I looked it up (see above). The fact that the scientists have even found amino acids in space (the building blocks of life) means that there are possibilities of finding other beings.

The equation looks at how many possible inhabitable planets are out there, whether life could evolve, and whether intelligent life might come about. Then you have to think about time. If an intelligent life form was to exist somewhere else they might send out signals, but it could take millions or billions of years to travel across space before we detected it, and by then they could be long gone. So it would only be possible to communicate if they were closer, tens of years away? But then a conversation with someone even twenty light years away (the distance of a possible habitable planet) would be very boring. One question every forty years, one reply eafter another forty years. And space travel would only be possible at a small percentage of the speed of light, according to the laws of physics. So we might be able to talk but not visit.

It might be great to get a signal, but even if there are other civilisations it doesn’t mean we will ever find out.

What’s out there?

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Worlds, planets, galaxies

We cannot know it all

Universe or multiverse?

Astronomy or astrology?

The latter is not science

But beliefs

Do you follow faith

Or try and ascertain

What is real

Black holes

Neutron stars

Spinning crazily

In infinite space.

Viewed through telescopes

On Earth, in Space.

Thank you Galileo

For your grace.

More random thoughts.

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Chatting with hubby after watching a programme about how the solar system formed and that Jupiter might have migrated inwards towards the sun only to be stopped by Saturn’s gravity causing it to take a grand tack like in sailing back out to its current position. They also talked a out Neptune and Uranus being formed closer to the Sun but being pushed out by Jupiter and maybe another unknown gas or ice giant being flung out of the Solar system entirely. Hubby said this if course discounts the fact that the Solar system could have been created in the current state by God! The thought that he thinks this surprised me! If the Universe is random how can we think (or prove) anything like that? I’m was a bit nonplussed. I think about infinity a lot. If there is a God and it is infinite would it be outside the universe or would it be the Universe with the objects in it being like how atoms relate to us? Some very strange ideas. One for a philosopher not me!

Above

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What is Above? Is it only sky? I have a prompt to draw for and I’m trying to think what to do. I can start with tree branches or tall buildings towering over me. They reach up above me. Basically as I’m short anything above 5ft 6 inches is above me, so that includes kitchen cupboards! Upstairs? That too….

Then the blue sky and clouds are above us. The clouds could be white and fluffy or dark and threatening rain…but mountains can also tower above us. Even hills. The Blackpool tower?

Follow that with planes, satellites, space stations….

Asteroids, meteors, comets, planets, the moon, the sun, stars, the Oort cloud, cosmic rays, the milky way, galaxies, the universe.

I’m starting to feel rather small….

Green world

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Imagine a green world, floating through space. Surrounded by a spherical forcefield that holds air and water in and keeps damaging radiation out. It can only survive where there is bright enough sunlight to allow the vegetation to survive unless it is equipped with power to keep it warm enough and keep artificial lights working for photosynthesis to happen. But plants have a limited lifespan, then they die and with the right biology break down and turn into compost. So the sphere needs to have enough space to keep growing, and enough resources to maintain a steady environment. Maybe there are large bodies of water to supply the plants.

I could be describing little spacecraft that could travel across space and seed new worlds? Or maybe it’s our planet. In either case, the environment needs protecting so that it can survive and thrive. If we imagine earth to be just a small spacecraft, where an imbalance could end its life, then perhaps we might take more care of it. X

A mobile…

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How our vision changes. This was a mobile of the solar system I bought several years ago. Before the further exploration of the planets and based on images from the Voyager probes that happened in the 70’s and 80’s. I added the Space Shuttle model later. Now the James Webb telescope has been launched to take photos in the infra-red of the earliest ages of the universe. It will replace the Hubble Space telescope which took amazing photos of our solar system as well as galaxies and nebulae. It’s greatest image was the hubble deep feild that was a photo of a small, empty looking piece of sky, which turned out to be full of images of some of the earliest ever galaxies. I love astronomy. I might not know facts and figures, but I love space.

Universe

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Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Universe. So I did this doodle. Crystal shapes that represent ancient ideas of the crystal spheres, moons in different phases. A solar system, a sun, a tardis, a wormhole a saturn type planet… Also galaxies colliding and other space stuff.

Black fine liner pen and black felt pens. I had fun doing this.

Sunset

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Only 93 million miles away. The sun sets… But it really set 8 minutes earlier! It’s just that light takes that long to get from the sun to us.

OK, now look up at the stars. Some of them are actual stars and others are nebulae and galaxies.

Light takes time to travel. They talk about light years, some stars are only a few light years away. Some are thousands, or millions, or billions of light years away.

Now think about radio waves. They travel at the speed of light too… So TV and radio signals from Earth started travelling from when we first broadcast radio back in the 1920’s or 30’s? Thats a sphere around the Earth with a radius of about 90 or 100 years. So a planet 90 light years away might just about be hearing our signals. Imagine what they would do. They can’t travel here at the speed of light, but they might reply, but that will take 90 years to reply. Closer stars could have planets that reply sooner. But it’s still going to be a boring conversation!

I do love the sky

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I’m a member of the cloud appreciation society and I love the sky. When it is misty and the sky turns salmon pink, when there are dark storm clouds in the background and bright sunlight shines on the landscape in front of them. We see amazing lightening storms, cumulo nimbus, stratus, cirrus, mammatus, so many sorts of clouds.

I love looking up at the sky, looking at the stars and meteor showers or seeing a satellite tracking overhead. I’ve seen Jupiter and Saturn and Mars and Venus in the telescope.

The sky can keep you occupied for hours x