From the planets to the stars and out to the edge of the unknown, history and science collide in THE UNIVERSE. With ground-breaking new discoveries and even more mysterious questions arising with more we know, it’s a wondrous yet deadly adventure through space and time. Fifty years have flown by since man first ventured into outer space, but the heavens are only now yielding their greatest secrets. Like the destructive impact on Jupiter reported to be by a comet or asteroid nearly the size of Earth, new phenomena are being discovered almost daily. Scientists are finding new planets and views into the deepest reaches of space, breaking new ground in understanding the universe and its mysteries. In this article, readers will be transported to new and mysterious places including ones we didn’t even know existed a year ago—some harboring deadly forces that may forever impact life on Earth.
The Birth of the Universe
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The more we discover the more we realize how little we know of the universe
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There are many ways to consider and discuss the past, present, and future of the universe, but one, in particular, has caught the fancy of many astronomers. First published in 1999 in their book The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity, the authors divided the universe's life story into five eras:
- Primordial era
- Stelliferous era
- Degenerate era
- Black Hole Era
- Dark era
PRIMORDIAL ERA-
This is where the universe begins, though what came before it and where it came from are certainly still up for discussion. It begins at the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe had cooled enough that the first stable atoms capable of surviving began forming. With electrons thus occupied in atoms, photons were released as the background glow that astronomers detect today as cosmic background radiation.
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The Big Bang gave birth to the universe
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STELLIFEROUS ERA-
The era we know, the age of stars, in which most matter existing in the universe takes the form of stars and galaxies during this active period. A star is formed when a gas pocket becomes denser and denser until it and matter nearby, collapse in on itself, producing enough heat to trigger nuclear fusion in its core, the source of most of the universe's energy now. The first stars were immense, eventually exploding as supernovas, forming many more, smaller stars. These coalesced, thanks to gravity, into galaxies.
DEGENERATE ERA-
Next up is the Degenerate era, which will begin about 1 quintillion years after the Big Bang, and last until 1 duodecillion after it. This is the period during which the remains of stars we see today will dominate the universe. Were we to look up — we'll assuredly be outta here long before then — we'd see a much darker sky with just a handful of dim pinpoints of light remaining: white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, and neutron stars.
BLACK-HOLE ERA-
For a considerable length of time, black holes will dominate the universe, pulling in what mass and energy still remain. Eventually, though, black holes evaporate, albeit super-slowly, leaking small bits of their contents as they do. Plait estimates that a small black hole 50 times the mass of the sun would take about 1068 years to dissipate. A massive one? Only 1 followed by 92 zeros.
DARK ERA-
We can sum this up pretty easily. Lights out. Forever.
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The universe is a orderly model veiled under the guise of a chaotic one
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Earliest Conceptions Of The Universe
All scientific thinking on the nature of the universe can be traced to the distinctive geometric patterns formed by the stars in the night sky. Even prehistoric people must have noticed that, apart from a daily rotation, the stars did not seem to move with respect to one another: the stars appear “fixed.” Early nomads found that knowledge of the constellations could guide their travels, and they developed stories to help them remember the relative positions of the stars in the night sky. These stories became the mythical tales that are part of most cultures.
Exploration voyages undertaken
Beginning in the 1960s, a number of countries launched satellites to explore cosmic phenomena in the gamma-ray, X-ray, ultraviolet, visible, and infrared regions. More recently, space-based radio astronomy has been pursued. In the last decades of the 20th century, the United States embarked on the development of a series of long-duration orbital facilities collectively called the Great Observatories. They include the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990 for observations in the visible and ultraviolet regions; the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991; the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, launched in 1999; and the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003. Europe and Japan have also been active in space-based astronomy and astrophysics. Europe’s Herschel infrared observatory, launched in 2009, studied the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies. A telescope aboard Japan’s Akari spacecraft, launched in 2006, also observed the universe in the infrared spectrum.
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Space Exploration is humanity's unconquered frontier
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Tonight, I suggest, you guys take a bit of time-out and look up into the sky and be grateful for where we are, and at what point of time we are, where we are. That might help us realise that The Creator is watching over us in The Creator's own unique way and has some plans for us.
That's it for now. Stay Safe. Stay Healthy.
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