It’s hard to talk off topic when the country is experiencing so much conflict, but life must go on.

I always have to laugh when scientists try to measure things which are really unmeasurable, at least for our current technology. One of those things is the age of the universe. Recently a scientist stated the estimate of the age of the universe which is 13.2 billion years old was off by about 1.2 billion years and the universe was only 12 billion years old. I can’t help but think there is a distinct possibility the universe was always there and it is just the stars and planets that come and go. Measuring the current crop of stars and planets for their age may not yield the true age of the universe itself.

It is true we keep finding out more about the universe and its contents every year. Last year, 2019, was the first time a black hole was ever photographed. This sounds like an oxymoron because we can’t see a black hole because supposedly no light can escape from one. They say this about a black disregarding the fact light was seen coming out of one once. Anyway, if we were to examine the photo of the black hole, we would find we still can’t see it, but we can see what is known as the event horizon. That is the area where the debris is circling the black hole as it is being sucked in due to the terrific gravity of the black hole.

We also found out something pretty strange thanks to photography. There is a connection between galaxies and it is because hydrogen gas connects all the galaxies. These thin wisps of gassy fingers seem to connect every galaxy to every other one. This came as a complete surprise. It makes you wonder what is the purpose of this gas, because it seems everything in space has a purpose, sometimes we just don’t understand what it is.

There is a lot of gas in space. Every time something explodes there is usually some amount of gas released. Sometimes this causes what is known as gas bubbles. The temperature of this gas varies and can sometimes reach millions of degrees. This could be a danger to future spacecraft if they get too close. There are theories on why these gas clouds formed, but it usually always leads back to someone saying this is left over from the Big Bang, the most popular theory on how the universe formed. There have been many popular theories over the years on how the universe formed, this proves the current theory of the Big Bang may itself prove to be wrong in the future. Theories are not proof and they are often modified or discarded.

We found out there is a violent area at the edge of our solar system and it seems to be composed of plasma. It was detected when the Voyager spacecraft encountered it on its journey. It might be a lucky thing for us it is there as some scientists think it stops the majority of radiation from outside the solar system from reaching us. When you think about it, isn’t it a truly strange coincidence we have this barrier and the earth also has a barrier which protects us. Does this seem to you as too much of a coincidence?

One of the things which I think is fascinating is rogue stars. There are also rogue planets and probably rogue asteroids. You may be thinking what the heck am I talking about? On rare occasions stars and planets are violently struck by very large object and knocked out of their orbits so hard they leave their solar systems and speed through space. This is truly a wonder. Can you imagine if we were unlucky enough to have this happen to us? I guess the impact would probably kill everyone on earth, but if it didn’t the planet would become an airless rock either traveling forever or until it also crashed into something, perhaps a star.

Space is said to be a vacuum. Everyone knows in the vacuum of space there is no sound, and yet they would be wrong. There are all kinds of sounds in space and some call it space roar. Scientists do not know where the sound is coming from, but as usual they have several theories. Some blame radiation. They claim when the universe was first created the first stars created the noise with their radiation. I don’t buy this if anyone cares. Stars are being created all the time so if star creation is responsible it might be the continued creation of stars. There are lots of signals in space coming from everywhere, I am not talking about signals from intelligent beings, but signals created by incredible energy releases. Perhaps even black holes are responsible.

To show how much we don’t know about space, scientists have been wondering if there are multiverses. That would be other universes in different dimensions where the rules of physics as we know them may not apply. There have been some weird theories about this. Some scientists think there is a chance there could be copies of everything in these universes. In other words, there would be a copy of you and everyone you know. I shouldn’t use the word copy since we could be the copies and not know it. As far as I can tell there is no real proof to think multiverses even exist.

Most exoplanets have never been seen; they are being discovered by changes in light intensity of their star as they orbit in front of  it. Therefore, it could turn out there was no planet and something else was causing the star to dim periodically. It could be something like a dense gas cloud in orbit. It could also be some other type of object we are yet to discover. Remember we are new at this and there is probably a lot of undiscovered objects in space we know nothing about.

There are quite a few important space related mysteries we are going to have to solve in the future. One that comes to mind is the question of holographic space. Some scientists think they have proof space after a certain distance from earth is a holographic fantasy. If this were true it could mean we were all part of some super computer program, I’d hate to think they were right on this  one. Things are just going to get more interesting as time goes by.