SPACE

Space

Chad W

Introduction

Space is amazing. The sheer size and complexity of it has intrigued me since a young age. The thought of going to space and being able to see all these marvelous things is mind blowing, and just the idea of the universe expanding in all directions, no up or down, just a massive slate of nothingness is a constant source of fascination for me. How big is the universe? Does alien life exist? What else is out there that we just can’t see yet? What lies beyond the edge of the plane of existence and time itself? What wondrous things lie waiting to be discovered? How did time itself begin? And most importantly, will we ever be able to explain these questions ?

What is space?

From our perspective, space begins when you travel so far up into the atmosphere that there is no gravity to hold you back and where oxygen is non-existent. It is the massive expansion in which every single thing, living or non-living, exists. Space began to exist due to the Big Bang. Space is so big that humanity will most likely explore all of it. Space just continues to expand rapidly, and it isn’t slowing down.

The Universe is so vast that it is, at this point in time, physically impossible to chart the entirety of it.

Space and time is so incredibly complex that the human brain cannot comprehend it. The Fourth Dimension is one such idea. The Fourth Dimension is so vastly complex that our human minds cannot begin the comprehend what something from the Fourth Dimension would physically look like. The Fourth Dimension would hypothetically be seen as multiple 3D objects intertwined in seemingly impossible ways to create objects that would be very strange and complex, seemingly changing shape and form every second. The Fourth Dimension is the time in which an object appears at a certain area.

What is in space?

Many people already know the basics of what is in the Universe. Planets, moons, suns, galaxies, solar systems, and possibly even alien life. However, space contains much more than just a few standard objects. Some things that have been spotted in space are unbelievably massive and interesting. Space has so many different objects in it that we might never discover all of them.

Black holes are something not many people have heard of. Black holes are monsters of space, sucking in everything around it with so much force that not even light itself can escape its gravitational pull. Due to the fact that no light can escape them, they are almost impossible to detect, as they give off no light. The reason nothing can escape it is due to the intense gravitational pull. Black holes form when a star collapses in on itself, going supernova. It becomes so small that the gravitational pull becomes impossible to escape. Nebulas are another thing not many people know about.. Some are the birthplace of stars. They are massive formations of gas and dust. The nebula Pillar and Jets HH 901/902 is a massive pillar of gas and ice.

How big is space?

Space is massive. In fact, nobody knows exactly how large our universe is. Is it billions of trillions of light years, or is it infinite? A good question for an answer we may never know. Currently, humanity does not have the technology to measure the universe’s size, and we most likely never will. You see, space is strange. Not because of what we know is in space, but because of what we don’t know. Consider this: The closest measurement of how fast and far the edges of the universe are expanding is about 68 km/s per megaparsec (a megaparsec is roughly 3.3 million lightyears). Now take into consideration that the universe itself has existed for about 15 billion years.

That translates to 473,354,280,000,000,000 seconds. So the universe has existed for roughly 473,354,280,000,000,000 seconds. Now look back at how many kilometers per second the universe is expanding. Now back at how many seconds it has existed. Now if somebody were to do the math to figure out what that number was, it would be a lot. Now that this has been brought to attention, let’s recap. The universe is expanding at roughly 68 km/s per megaparsec and has existed for about 473,354,280,000,000,000 seconds. That is a lot of kilometers. Now again, nobody can actually determine how large the universe actually is. It is expanding way too rapidly to find an answer. But now you can understand why humanity will probably never figure it out.

How did everything begin to exist?

The story of how everything began to exist is highly controversial, but very interesting.. However, this article will not be covering the many religious explanations. The current and best explainable theory is the Big Bang. About 15 billion years ago, a massive explosion occurred, creating the center of the universe and time itself. Before the Big Bang (theoretically), absolutely nothing existed. Then, in a matter of milliseconds, time and space began to exist. Billions of particles of dust were flung out in every direction, and the universe immediately began expanding in every direction. Eventually, many particles would assemble and begin to create planets, moons, asteroids, etc. Over the course of millions of years, life would eventually begin to exist on a unique planet that had just the right conditions to support life: Earth. However, what if the Earth had been a little ways away from the distance it currently rests at? Most likely, the gravitational pull would throw off the rotation of some planets, and the temperature would become much hotter or colder, rendering life hard to come by.

The results of off-balance gravity would have devastating effects on the solar system.

Exploration of space.

Space exploration is something every child dreams about at some point. Climbing into a rocket ship, blasting off and departing from Earth, traveling throughout all of the universe exploring planets, battling aliens, and seeing all sorts of awe-inspiring things. However, space exploration is very complicated and bizarre. Humanity has already overcome many challenging obstacles when attempting to launch humans to the moon during the Apollo Project, and succeeded in doing so. Now, a new project has arisen in an attempt to land the first humans on Mars: Mars One. In 2026, after extensive years of training, the first Mars One crew will depart for Mars and land in 2027. Then in 2028, the second crew will depart and then arrive on Mars in 2029, and so on. However, by the time they , the technology to bring them back won’t exist. Every two years, cargo missions will take place for the next crew. In 2024, the cargo for crew one will be launched and waiting for them when they arrive.

Around the same time crew one departs from earth, the cargo for crew two will be launched. Two years after the landing of the first crew, the second crew will launch, and soon after, the cargo for crew three. This will continue on at two year intervals. Eventually, a massive permanent colony of humans will be thriving on mars, and more and more humans will come and go to colonize. And soon, cities will be on mars. From there, space exploration will advance, and humanity will see even more impressive things found in space.

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