What’s New About Space? Scientists at CERN, the large Hadron Collider in Geneva, claim it is impossible for our universe to exist. I can’t help but laugh when I hear statements like this coming from such intelligent people. All they are really saying is they can’t figure out why it exists and that is probably do to the lack of complete knowledge we have about the universe. An example of this is the many different ideas about how the universe formed which have been put forth over the years. These theories work their way up to the current most popular theory which is the universe was formed from a singularity which exploded spewing out matter and it is called the Big Bang theory. While this is the theory which is currently the favorite, there are other theories which have been put forth recently. A new theory is claiming our universe just keeps regenerating itself and has been doing this forever. There is also a theory that states there are multiverses and physics may or may not be different in each one. There is a theory which states our entire universe is like a 3D membrane moving through the fourth dimension. It is on a trip which may not have had a beginning and may never end. The fourth dimension which it is going through is known as the Bulk. This idea goes even further claiming we are not the only 3D membrane flowing through the Bulk and at any given time we could collide with others. I could go on to talk about other things in connection with how the universe was formed but I think it is apparent, we really don’t know and I’m making some fantastic guesses. Some of these guesses are based on relatively new concepts which are not accepted by every physicist, such as string theory. Science has a long history of misconceptions which have lasted for hundreds and thousands of years, so the question is do we have any idea how the universe started or are we just flailing around in the dark? If I were to go into the other theories, they wouldn’t look any less foolish. Since I am talking about the universe, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about an astrophysicist who says he has figured out how to build a machine which would stop us from having to worry about the planet being hit by anything no matter how big. How is this possible, is it some sort of a missile defense system or perhaps a laser system? No, it is neither and when I tell you what his idea is, I can’t help but think you are going to either laugh or believe the man is insane. He claims he has designed a stellar engine which could theoretically move the entire solar system out of the way. This would be quite an accomplishment for society which hasn’t even landed on the nearest planet yet. This is so fascinating I have to tell you a little more about what he says about his machine. The inventor says we would collect hydrogen and helium from the sun and then the machine would burn helium in fusion reactors to generate thrust, he also stated he had a way to make sure the sun didn’t slam into another star. The engine is called the Caplan thruster and the inventor says it will power the solar system at a speed of about 50 light years per 1,000,000 years. The idea here is to move the sun and drag the planets and moons along with it. Near the end of 2019, NASA gathered the media together and told them about its 2020 Mars mission. It still exciting to think we are sending devices to Mars which increase in sophistication as we replace them with new devices. Maybe replace is not the right word, since if the older devices still work at the same time as the new ones, they are still useful. NASA told the crowd they are looking for ancient life. One of the engineers on the project said the following, "We're going to land in the Jezero Crater, which is an ancient river delta, and here on Earth, we know those are hot spots for life. So, we're going to go to one on Mars in hopes of finding life there." Don’t expect NASA to tell us they found intelligent life because obviously they are referring to microbial life. This doesn’t mean they might not find something they are not expecting. The way the 2020 Rover will work is to put samples into canisters and leave them on the surface and hope a future mission will be able to gather them up. Wow, this seems like an awkward way to accomplish something. NASA told of the difficulties of landing a vehicle on Mars and said it was extremely hard to do. The Rover is being sent to Florida for testing and it is believed if all goes well it will be launched sometime between July and August and should reach Mars in 2021. Betelgeuse is a star which is dimming and scientists have suggested might blow up. The star is the second brightest star in the constellation Orion. It is a red supergiant and is the ninth brightest star in the sky. In a way it is kind of funny when scientists ask if it is going to explode since the star is 642 light years away and may have already exploded and the light just hasn’t reached us yet. When we look into the heavens we are looking back in time. We wouldn’t even know if the sun exploded until 8.3 minutes later. The star may not be dimming because it is going to explode, there could be other factors at work. There is no doubt things go on in the universe which we cannot understand and something could be happening with this star we have not experienced yet. Recently an article was written which was maybe even crazier than the idea of moving the sun and planets. It suggested there could be life on the sun. The writer is claiming there is going to be another mission to the sun and he seems to say it will get even closer, if that is possible. Supposedly it’s going to analyze the solar wind. The satellite will still be millions of miles away from the sun. This reminds me of an old joke I heard. An astronaut from a foreign country said he was going to be the first one to land on the sun. Someone asked him how could this be possible? He said he was going to land at night.
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