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Earth's Universe |
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Contact & More
Quantum Universe
These man-made objects circle Earth in orbits that range from as near as 150 miles (240 kilometers) to 22,500 miles (36,200 kilometers) away. Satellites in low-Earth orbit, or LEO, stay within 500 miles (800 kilometers) and travel extremely fast—17,000 miles an hour (27,400 kilometers an hour) or more—to keep from being drawn back into Earth's atmosphere. Most satellites around Earth are found in the LEO range.
 Tit-bit-of-info
The Earth’s atmosphere extends out to 10,000 km
The atmosphere is thickest within the first 50 km or so, but it actually reaches out to about 10,000 km above the surface of the planet. This outermost layer of the atmosphere is called the exosphere, and starts about 500 km above the surface of the Earth. As already said, it goes all the way up to 10,000 km above the surface. At this point, free-moving particles can actually escape the pull of Earth’s gravity, and be blown away by the Sun's solar wind. 75% of the Earth’s atmosphere is contained within the first 11 km above the planet’s surface.
Medieval illustration of a peasant looking through to what lay beyond the Stars
Tit-bit-of-info
A year on Earth isn’t 365 days it’s actually 365.2564 days. It’s this extra .2564 days that creates the need for leap years. That’s why we tack on an extra day in February every year divisible by 4 – 2004, 2008, etc – unless it’s divisible by 100 (1900, 2100, etc)… unless it’s divisible by 400 (1600, 2000, etc).
 Recommended Book
A Briefer History of Time is an update and rewrite of Stephen Hawking's 1988 A Brief History of Time.
In this book Hawking and Mlodinow try to present quantum mechanics, string theory, the big bang theory, and other topics in a more accessible fashion to the general public. The book is updated with newly discovered topics.
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Earth is the largest terrestrial planet and one of the most geologically active planets in the Solar System.
It is the only world where temperatures allow surface water to exist in solid, liquid and gaseous forms...at least as far as we know.
And also ...as far as we know...it is the only planet that supports a wondereful diversity of life.
Again...oh, how times have changed.
Because, you see, the accepted laws of Physics and Quantum Physics just didn't add up, or perhaps compliment each other would be a better phrase. So Scientists had to re-evaluate the single (or uni) verse theory, and it seems that by adding in the theory of multi-Universe's then they were on the right track in coming up with a marriage between all branches of Physics.
Space Debris
The skies above Earth are teeming with manmade objects large and small. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network uses radar to track more than 13,000 such items that are larger than four inches (ten centimeters). This celestial clutter includes everything from the International Space Station (ISS) and the Hubble Space Telescope to defunct satellites, rocket stages, or nuts and bolts left behind by astronauts. And there are millions of smaller, harder-to-track objects such as flecks of paint and bits of plastic.s
In January 2007, China sparked controversy across the world by using a missile launched from the ground to destroy one of its own weather satellites. The new cloud of space junk significantly adds to the amount of debris already orbiting our planet between 780–970 km altitude. Researchers at the EISCAT Scientific Association (of which the UK is a member), have been monitoring the debris field left behind by the satellite’s destruction.
Gravitational pull will ensure that anything we've ever put in orbit will eventually make its way back to Earth. And though thus far no one has ever been killed by reentering space debris, NASA estimates on average one piece returns to Earth each day.
What is a MULTI-VERSE?
The multi-verse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible Universe's (including our Universe) that together comprise everything that physically exists.... the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws constants and constraints that govern them.
The different Universe's within the multi-verse are sometimes called Parallel Universe's.
The structure of the multi- verse, the nature of each Universe within it, and the relationship between the various constituent Universe's, depend on the specific multi-verse hypothesis considered.
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What are Parallel Universe's?
Recent discoveries in Quantum physics (the study of the physics of sub-atomic particles) and in Cosmology (the branch of astronomy and astrophysics that deals with the Universe taken as a whole) shed new light on how mind interacts with matter. These discoveries compel acceptance of the idea that there is far more than just one Universe and that we constantly interact with many of these “hidden” Universe's.
So, Scientists now believe there may really be a Parallel Universe In fact, there may be an infinite number of Parallel Universe's, and we just happen to be living in one of them. These other Universe's contain space, time and strange forms of exotic matter. Some of them may even contain you, in a slightly different form ...taller perhaps?
Astonishingly, some scientists believe that these Parallel Universe's exist less than one millimeter away from us. In fact, our Gravity may just be just a weak signal leaking out of another Universe into ours.
So it just well be that:
In another Universe.... Germany won the 1st World War, never mind the second.
In another Universe.... Ireland won the 1990 World Cup ....yeah.
In another George Bush never got to be President.
And in yet another John F Kennedy never got assassinated and so on and on...
Hugh Everett first put forward the theory of "Parallel Universes" in 1957.
David Deutsch, a research fellow at the Department of Astrophysics, Oxford, and a professor at the University of Texas, tells us:
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I think it's safe to say that there is a very large, probably infinite, number of these Universe's. Many of them are very different from ours, but some of them differ only in some minute detail like the position of a book on a table, and are identical in every other respect. |
Serious scientists dismissed all this speculation as absurd. But now it seems the speculation wasn't absurd enough. Parallel Universe's really do exist and they are much stranger than even the science fiction writers dared to imagine.
Bubble Universe's
It all started when super-string theory, hyper-space and dark matter made physicists realise that the three dimensions we thought described the Universe weren't enough.
They believe that there are actually 11 dimensions. By the time they had finished they'd come to the conclusion that our Universe is just one bubble among an infinite number of membranous bubbles which ripple as they wobble through the 11th dimension.
Each Universe may exist as a bubble with its own laws of Physics.
Imagine what might happen if two such Bubble Universe's touched. Neil Turok from Cambridge, Burt Ovrut from the University of Pennsylvania and Paul Steinhardt from Princeton believe that has happened.
The result?
A very big bang and ...yes you guessed it ...a new Universe was born - our Universe.
The idea has shocked the scientific community; has turned the conventional Big Bang theory on its head. And it may well be that the Big Bang wasn't really the beginning of everything after all. Time and Space all existed before it.
In fact Big Bangs may happen all the time.
Of course this extraordinary story about the origin of our Universe has one alarming implication... if a collision started our Universe, could it happen again?
Anything is possible in this extra-dimensional Cosmos of ours.
Perhaps out there in multi space there is another Universe heading directly towards us - it may only be a matter of time before we collide.
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Tit-bit-of-info
Nearly all of the information that falls into a Black Hole escapes back out, a controversial new study argues. The work suggests that Black Holes could one day be used as incredibly accurate quantum computers - if enormous theoretical and practical hurdles can first be overcome.
Recommended Links
astronomy.ie
Astronomy Ireland is without the most popular Astronomy club in Ireland. Their onward goal of popularising Astronomy has been a great success.
The NASA web-site brings you images, videos and interactive features from the unique perspective of America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, great downloads, super-dooper interactive pages etc.
The Sky at Night Sir Patrick Moore first presented this program in April 1957, and it became the longest running television program in the world, well loved by professional, amateur and arm-chair astronomers alike. The fact that the site is no longer been updated by the BBC doesn't make any difference as far as I can see. The wealth of information on past occurrences in Astronomy makes the site well worth visiting, for research as well as nostalgia. |
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