The Current Cosmos

Astronomers looking out into space are using more powerful telescopes all the time. As they look at this amazing cosmos of ours they are not always seeing what is, but as they look further out they are seeing what was. The reason for this is related to the speed of light. Light travels about 286,000 miles per second. That speed is what limits the time frame for what we are seeing. When we observe our sun we are seeing how it looked in the past. To be exact 8 minutes and 17 seconds in the past because that is how long it takes the light from the sun to reach our eyes. The sun could have exploded and we would not know it for the 8 minutes and 17 seconds it would take for us to see that explosion. In terms of distance to the earth, the sun is very close to us as compared to other solar systems and galaxies. The light from the next closest star is Proxima Centauri and is about 4.22 light years from earth. In cosmic terms this is right next door and yet if Proxima Centauri blew up we wouldn’t know about that for 4.22 years because of the speed of light.

Some scientists are saying there may be a phenomena happening in space which is warping time and space and that is the collision of black holes. This idea was brought about by two black holes which were found which are headed for a collision. I think it is safe to say no one knows if black holes are what we think they are and we certainly don’t know what would happen if they collide. Incredible forces could be unleashed the power of which has never been observed before. They could be so incredible they could destroy the galaxy they could just come together. If time and space are warped this brings up all sorts of possibilities such as would this have an effect on a surviving planet which has a population of intelligent individuals? If time was changed one has to wonder if intelligent beings would even know it. Sure it does depend on how time is changed, but for now let’s say some planet was plunged into its past. Would the inhabitants even know they were once in some future time or would this wipe out any memory of it? I couldn’t help but think about the earth and how we have found modern objects in stones millions of years old. Could it be a similar event happened right here on earth? I guess anything is possible. One estimate of the power which would be released by the collision of the two black holes is energy in the amount of 100 million supernova explosions. This is enough to destroy the galaxy the black holes are in and also to release gravitational waves which the scientists think would affect time. Here is the thing however, this has happened already billions of years ago and we are waiting for the light to reach us.

Here is what I find interesting, if it takes light billions of years to reach us from parts of the universe, maybe after a certain point there is nothing there anymore. How do we know there is not some sort of matter eliminating area in space where everything which reaches it is destroyed? We have to realize everything is traveling outward, including the earth and if there is something out there like a belt of anti-matter or something similar, eventually we are going to reach it. Maybe this has something to do with the idea of a holographic universe. It has been said by some scientists that they have proved the universe is just a holographic projection. The proof has to do with certain ways rejoined laser beams which are aimed in space recombine and vibrate. The real reason this might happen is it is not because the universe is a hologram, but because the target for the beam no longer exists and it is just the past light reacting to the beam.

One new theory states the universe may not have as much life in it as once thought. According to the Drake equation the universe should have a lot of life in it based on the amount of habitable planets available, but according to a recent theory this is not how we should base our assumption of life on. The reason stated is that massive catastrophes occur all the time in the universe, making life very unlikely. One of the main reasons for this is the ultra-destructive gamma rays which are released all over the universe and reach almost everywhere. This is caused by some stars which burn up their fuel and then have a gamma ray explosion. One of these explosions is detected every day on average and it is just by the grace of God they don’t reach us. These explosions are so powerful we can detect them in galaxies billions of light years away. These explosions can destroy life on planets a few thousand light years away. Taking this into account, one could have taken place already which would wipe out life on earth and we just don’t know about it yet since the light Β and Gamma waves haven’t reached us yet and we are seeing the star as it was thousands of years ago. If we were to get into interstellar space would we have to dodge millions of gamma ray streams as we traveled along?

Speaking about ripples in time in space brings me to another part of the subject. Some scientists think these ripples might reveal some very strange things in space, things we never suspected existed. One of these things is stars which are made of stuff which is entirely different than what anything is made of now. Scientists have been predicting another kind of matter which is made from particles known as strangelets. The scientists believe this matter would be heavier than our ordinary matter. We have not yet been able to produce this type of matter in the lab. Scientists think it might be created inside a neutron star. Neutron stars are extremely dense. An example would be a teaspoon full of matter from a neutron star would weigh hundreds of millions of tons.

Scientists are still wrestling with the problem of the universe not having enough stars, according to their calculations we are about 70 percent short of mass according to NASA so that amount must be dark matter. As time goes by we might just find out our ideas and measurements are incorrect for some reason and dark matter may not exist at all. We might even find out many of the stars are indeed composed of strangelets and that is where the missing matter is.
The wonders of space never cease to amaze. Within one hundred years we will have accumulated so much more data about the universe it could show we were wrong about many of our assumptions about the universe.