Perhaps you've seen other pictures of the Horsehead Nebula, which you can find just below the center.  But, a wide view shot of the surrounding area reveals an intricate tapestry of gaseous wisps and dust, which have been molded into these shapes, over eons, by stellar winds and suprnovas.  This enormous cloud, including the Horsehead nebula, can be found in Orion's Belt.

Vela Supernova Remnant

The explosion that left this bubbly mess, occured 11,000 years ago.  The explosion created a strange point of light, that was visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history.  In the center of this remnant you will see a pulsar.  This star is as dense as nuclear matter and can completely rotate more than 10x in a single second.

The Rosette Nebula 

Had this marvelous creation been given a different name, I don't think it would look as sweet.  Within this flowery nebula lies an open cluster of infant stars.  The ultrviolet light from these beaming, young, hot stars is what causes the surrounding nubula to glow.

The Carina Nebula

This Tyedye Nebula, as I have dubbed it, is located in one of the brightest parts of our Milky Way galaxy.  Carina Nebula is home to massive stars.  The Eta Carinae, which is the most energetic star in the cloud, used to be one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830's, but then mysteriously faded dramatically.

Double Supernova Remnants

       The flapping butterfly displaying its Lakers pride, is actually two different supernovas.  Their remnants are colliding with each other.  It's not an actual butterfly in the sky, but its just as beautiful.  This galactic insect is 160,000 light years away and 140 light years across.

I hope you all enjoyed viewing these pictures as much as I do.  Stay tuned for my newest article, due out in the near future.  I promise it'll be just as captivating, if not more.

M20, Trifid Nebula

9,000 light years away is this coral like cloud of gas and dust, called the Trifid Nebula.  You can see it's bright red offspring, which also gives it its glow, in the center of the image.  Nebulae are what they call star nurseries, because of the fact that they give birth to new stars in our universe.  This part of the cloud is 10 light years across, so you can imagine how gargantuan this thing is.  Point your giant telescope towards the constellation Sagittarius to find this one.

SN1006 Supernove Remnant

This galactic eyeball in the sky is known as the SN1006 supernova remnant.  X-ray data, optical data, and radio image data bring this blue, red, and yellow marble to life.  This supernova, which happens when a dying massive star explodes, lit up our Earthly skies in the year 1006 AD.  Because this supernova remnant is 7,000 light years away the explosion actually happened 7,000 yrs. before its light reached Earth in 1006 AD.

 

The Fox Fur Nebula

This galactic beast is also made up of gas and dust.  It's amazing, the stars that these immense clouds breed, are the very stars that bring these clouds to life with vivid colors.  Without the dust and gas the light from these stars would have nothing to reflect.

Cat's Eye Nebula

Staring at us from about 3,000 light years away is the Cat's Eye Nebula.  As the one of the most famous nebulae in the space, the Cat's Eye represents a brief yet wondrous phase in the life of a sun-like star.  As we gaze into the Cat's Eye, we may well be seeing the future of our own sun, destined to enter this very same phase in its evolution... in about 5 billion years.

NGC6334: The Cat's Paw Nebula

Nebulae are as famous for being named after familiar shapes, as cats are for letting their curiosity get the best of them.  We have yet to identify the enormous feline that left this print behind, but witnesses say its, "Huge, fluffy' and cute."  The Cat's Paw visible in the constellation Scorpius, is known to have given birth to stars 10x the size of our sun.

Much like humans, stars go through stages in their lives.  These clouds are their mothers who nurture them and raise them.  Stars go from infancy, to adulthood where sometimes they care for their own planetary system.  To maturity where they die and leave behind a glorious legacy so that they may not soon be forgotten.

Precession has been recorded and noted down a few times in history, with the ancient Egyptians for example. During precession planets can align themselves exactly in front of each other to create an eclipse. This was considered an unholy rage from the gos by the Egyptians as they could not comprehend why the sky had suddenly turned black. After this across the world races and cultures started creating pyres, effigy's, temples and so on as to appease the sun god in hope that an eclipse would never happen again, fortunately for them there would not be another eclipse unless they can live for 25,765 years.

There has also been a previous debate as to a Mayan prediction that the planet will line up with the galactic plane on 2012. This is a known fact that will happen, nd scientists do not know how the Mayan people could have predicted this so accuratley without equipment. The debate is to what will happen when the planet lines up with the galactic plane. Religion has been completely ruled out of this topic as it would have caused far too much meaningless debate but scientists are indefinite as to what will happen during the allignment. Some theories include, ice age, ultraviolet planetary obliteration, black holes, unstable dark matter. Currently you can read up on a subject i have wrote on dark matter aka space dust to get some insight as to what this is.

During the 'Big Bang' so much energy was created that a rough scientific estimate has been calculated that for seconds there was around between 10-100 gigatons of pressure exerted per square inch or perhaps even per square centimetre as where most of the energy was produced. The energy was produced by atoms basically being smashed against each other at a tremendous rate and today this has been replicated by the particle accelerator aka the large hadron collider.

During the big bang so much energy was generated that dark matter has been considered by scientists to have been able to have been viewed for only a few seconds because so much pressure is being exerted on such a small area that the dark matter atoms cannot cope with this and a reaction occurs and light is produced. How the light is produced is far too advanced to explain in simple termanology but today scientists believe that dark matter can be seen in nebulae but it would be nowhere near as powerful as when it could have been during the big bang (Scientists are not definite on this fact).

There are many theories into what dark matter can do and one of the common theories is time travel. This is basically the thought that if such an unbelievable amount of power could be generated into an incredibly small area that perhaps that area would cease to exist and that any matter that went into this area could change to a time scale of 1 second in the area is the equivalent of 10 years in normal time. The time travel theory is plausable but there is not so much hope for the ability to travel backwards in time. This theory is quite long but i will explain it.

The theory of being able to travel back in time involves believing that the entire universe has been divided into miniscule segments like the film on a camera and if it is played in consecutive order it will create a slideshow. That is the same basis of what time travel backwards is, that each fraction of an infinite of a second is recorded in the universes particles and if somehow negative particles could be genereted it would allow a person to travel backwards through each of these segments and replay a part in time. This theory has been widely discredited as it involves the belief in 'cellular memory' which has no prrof to which it can but also cannot exist but because there is no evidence it has almost been ruled out.

These are just some of the details of 'Space Dust' and if you would like more information please feel free to research it by all means necessary but this is as far as i can explain without taking many pages of information that is highly advanced. 

*below is a picture of 'Space Dust'*

Image credit: CNN.com

The credit being the first animals sent into space goes to fruit flies. They were sent into space in 1947 in V2 rocket launched by US at the height of 170 kilometers above the earth to explore the effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes.

Monkeys

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Monkeys were sent into space after implanting sensors to measure vital signs. Many of them were under anesthesia during launch. The first monkey that was sent into space is Albert I in 1948. But it died due to lack of breathing. Since then every monkey that was sent to space was named after Albert. The second monkey Albert II had successfully gone up to 134 km. height, but died in the return journey. 32 monkeys were sent into space from 1948 to 1961 and in 1969 and 1985 by America, two times in 1967 by France, from 1983 to 1996 by Russia. The first monkey which returned alive from the space is Albert VI. It went to space in 1951 along with mice. It died after two hours of its arrival from the space. The female monkey Baker which went into the space in 1959 along with another monkey lived 25 years after its return from the space.

Dogs

Image credit: Thinkquest.org

Russians sent 57 dogs into the space during 1950 to 1960. The first animal in orbit was the dog Laika, launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 space craft in 1957. Laika died during the flight and at least 10 other dogs were launched, which died, before Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space. Two Russian space dogs Veterok and Ugolyok were launched aboard Cosmos 110 in 1966 and they spent 22 days in orbit.

Tortoise

Image credit: Perrbear.com
The record of spending longest duration in space goes to tortoises. They spent 90 days in  Space when they were sent in 1975.

Chimpanzee

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

American Chimp Ham was sent in 1961 in a Mercury capsule aboard a Redstone Rocket. It was trained to pull levers to receive rewards of banana pellets and avoid electric shocks. Its actions were observed on the computer monitor. Later another Chimp Enos was sent to the orbit in the same year in another Mercury capsule, an Atlas Rocket. It was the first non-human primate in orbit.

Many other animals like amoeba, flies, cats, pigs, rabbits, rats, spiders, fishes, frogs, silkworms, ants, cockroaches, locusts were sent to space too.

Hard training: Before sending the animals into space they are given a hard training. Dogs are made to stand on two legs in a narrow box and tested how many days they can bear this position. They are kept in a revolving pressurized space cabins and observed how much pressure they can bear. Chimpanzees are given electric shocks in small doses to train them to operate levers. If they are successful they are rewarded with bananas. While travelling they have to bear the pressure 38 times more than the pressure on the earth.
Due to the sacrifices of these animals entering the space became easier than otherwise. Isn't it?

We already have launched interstellar probes such as Pioneer 10 and 11 as well as Voyager 1 and 2. These probes have already completed their missions within the solar system and will be making their closest approach to another star as early as 32,600 years from now. Their primary function however was to explore our own solar system so they aren't taking the most direct route to our nearest star.

Traveling at the speed of light a 4.3 year trip to Proxima Centauri wouldn't be so bad. However, given where our technology stands and according to what we know we can't come close to the speed of light. Starship speeds are measured in hundredths of the speed of light. By our standards today a ship that made it to 0.06 times the speed of light would be awesome, but it would take years to accelerate to this speed so the average speed would be much lower. A short interstellar trip, by many estimates, could take centuries. While a probe might not care about such a trip, humans would have difficulty making such a journey.

Since before the first orbital flights, planning for interstellar spacecraft has been under way. Many different designs have been brought forward, some based on optimistic predictions about our future science and technological capabilities, but others are based on known technologies and construction techniques. Like designs for simpler vehicles, plans for starships are subject to trade-offs among size, fuel requirements, and speed. In the Apollo program, rockets such as the Saturn 5 were used and such rockets have immense power. However unless we are willing to settle for near-star flybys that will take thousands of years, modern chemical rocketry is lacking in sufficient strength to do the job.

Nuclear rockets are without question the most promising near-term propulsion system. The first studies of nuclear propulsion began in the mid-1940s. Since then we have learned a lot about how nuclear fuel offers compact, portable, inexhaustible, and enormously powerful source of energy. Such an energy source would be capable of overcoming limits imposed by chemical systems. In the 1950s some scientists looked to change the current studies from chemical rockets, with weight restrictions and limited ranges, to nuclear rockets, which would be able to deliver massive payloads over great distances. The 1960s saw major investments being made to develop plans and prototypes. In 1970, NASA was planning to use a rocket called NERVA (nuclear energy for rocket vehicle applications) for robot and human crewed missions in Earth and lunar orbits plus missions to Mars.

Nuclear rockets would either be fission or fusion. Common plans for fission rockets would have nuclear reactors to heat gasses to very high temperatures and the exhaust released out the back push the rocket forward. The reactor core might be solid, liquid, or gaseous. Liquid and gaseous core reactors create higher temperatures, increasing speed and strength. Another type of fission rocket was the Orion. The Orion was designed to explode a rapid succession of atomic bombs behind the starship to propel it forward. The basics of fission rocketry are well known and we could start building such a craft today.

Fusion rockets are possible extensions of the research to develop fusion reactions for generating electricity. Magnetic fields would contain vessels or bottles and direct plasma from one end of the bottle. This leak would be controlled and the resulting exhaust would propel the starship. Fusion reactions produce about four times as much energy and twice the velocity of fission reactions. Such an improvement could cut interstellar travel times in half. One recommended version is called a pulse fusion propulsion systems or PFPS. The PFPS would use an electron beam or laser to detonate small pellets of fissionable material propelling it forward by a succession of hydrogen bombs, which could achieve higher rates of speed than contemporary fission rockets. However, whether fusion or fission, the fuel cost would be enormous for anything larger than an automated probe. On missions, a short radioactive half-life would cause fuel to lose much of its energy before the ship could get where it was going. A nuclear fission shuttle would use a billion supertankers of propellant just to get to a neighboring star in approximately 900 years, but a fusion rocket ship would use only a thousand supertankers to do the same thing.

After a huge investment, plans for nuclear rockets ceased in the early 1970s because of negative public opinion. This is because in 1945 the nuclear age had begun with the blast of three atomic bombs, two of which killed tens of thousands of people. Later we spent decades living under threat of annihilation due to nuclear arms during the Cold War. Nuclear power was ultimately feared and politicians believed that Nuclear Rocketry would be unacceptable to the American People. Because of this many promising nuclear rockets were abandoned for NASAs fear of the public opinion and an interpretation of the 1963's Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

One alternative might be to use some external power source that would reduce the mass of the spacecraft because there's no need to carry fuel. Potentially this might result in a faster spaceship. The Bussard ramjet uses a huge scoop constructed of force fields to collect its fuel on its journey. Theoretically a sufficiently large scoop could collect enough hydrogen molecules to power the craft even in the vacuum of space.

It might as well be possible to achieve needed speeds by bouncing a laser off the back of a spacecraft. For interstellar travel such a laser would require a beam 150 kilometers in diameter. The laser, which would be located somewhere in the solar system, would theoretically be powered through solar energy from the sun. In this scenario, space travelers would have to rely on humanity to be stable enough to maintain the laser's operation during the voyage. The other problem is that the craft might be difficult to control due to real-time communication delays. If the ship were two light years out and they decided to change course it would take two years for a request from the crew to reach Earth and another two years for the adjusted beam to affect the craft.

Another option is to deploy solar sails near the sun, which would be able to accelerate because of the pressure of photons acting upon their large yet ultra-thin gossamer surface. Such a ship would set out at a comparatively leisurely pace than other types of ship.

Interstellar missions can be summed up into two categories: multi-generation and single generation. All ship designs that utilize known technologies will require multi-generational missions but some will require more generations than others to travel to a nearby star. These are known as slowships.

Interstellar missions that are going to be multi-generational might as well sacrifice speed for comfort. The idea of the interstellar ark or “worldship” is a simple one: put the crew aboard a slow luxury liner rather than something that is faster but less habitable. Such a worldship would bring along a large settlement or colony that would move slowly from one solar system to the next. It would have to be self-sufficient, but raw materials could be mined from asteroids or comets. Theoretically everything required would be there such as a sociopolitical system, abundant supplies, workshops and repair facilities, school systems, hospitals, theaters, and restaurants. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people would be onboard and there would be sufficient space for activities. It would be possible to find friends or marriage partners. Living on a worldship would be no more difficult than living in a colony the same size in Earth orbit. The only difference is that this colony would be pushed by some immense propulsion system toward another star. The slowship option will require incredible challenges for engineers to assure the comfort of the crew and passengers.

Even efficient starships traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light would require many generations to reach their destinations. For this reason scientists hope to discover other techniques that would make it possible for the original crew to be the ones to actually arrive at their destinations. Such a feat would require the use of something similar to a warp drive or wormholes to get there faster. Another way would be to extend the lifespan of the travelers or keep them in stasis during the trip.

To shorten the flight, the obvious answer is to build faster spacecraft. It might be possible to get a faster ship by using a combination of matter and anti-matter as a fuel source. For the time being, antimatter is difficult and expensive to produce and store. A mission to Proxima Centauri would take ten railroad tank cars full of anti-matter for propellant.

The faster a ship goes the more difficult it is to go faster. Coming closer and closer to the speed of light, the ship becomes heavier and would require more powerful engines consuming more fuel. Coming full circle, the more powerful the engine and the more fuel, the heavier the spaceship is.

Some of the methods described above including fusion, light sail, and antimatter propulsion may one day push spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach Proxima Centauri within a reasonable about of time, but none are capable of pushing a craft to the speed of light. Einstein my very well have been right and neither radiation nor matter can travel faster than light speed, and humanity may never go to exotic places like the Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 million light-years away.

One possibility is changing space to allow for superluminal travel. There is evidence to suggest that spacetime expanded at faster-than-light speeds at the time of the big bang and some scientists are giving serious thought to this realm of possibilities. These scientists are researching theoretical sources of energy and ways to develop a space drive that can bring a craft to or beyond lightspeed. At the same time there is hope that we may yet develop a method of decreasing the needed fuel supply. Between 1996 and 2002, NASA funded a research group called the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project.

Much of the following is conjecture and speculation, the debate over whether or not some methods of travel are possible. Some have been discounted for the time being while others might be worth further consideration. Should any of these methods hold promise there will likely be huge technological problems before they reach practicality.

We are very much aware that gravity warps space, slows down time, and can even bend electromagnetic waves. For years now, we have been able to alter electromagnetic energy for many purposes such as electric power, communications, and medical X-rays. Following this path we may be able to discover a way to manipulate electromagnetic waves in order to control gravity, inertia, and spacetime in a way that would accelerate a starship through space and the same method could theoretically be used to create artificial gravity.

It is also theorized that even in the vacuum of space there is energy. It is thought that there may very well be a lot of energy in space. This energy is called quantum vacuum energy or zero-point energy. The random vibrations of electromagnetic energy in empty space produce it and such energy is estimated to have the power to boil away all the oceans on Earth from only a thimble full of such energy. However, experiments show the amount of energy in empty space is closer to zero. Scientists are looking for ways to tap into this energy assuming that usable amounts of it exist. In quantum physics, certain virtual particles appear and disappear continuously. These vacuum fluctuations don't add up to anything on average. If constrained these fluctuations result in negative energy, which means according to the laws of energy conservation that greater positive energy ends up somewhere. The Casimir effect hints that negative energy exists. This is where vacuum energy pushes two closely spaced and uncharged metal plates together. The region between the plates is said to be filled with a negative energy density. It is hoped that such an asymmetry of vacuum energy could someday propel a spacecraft.

Some believe that charged particles in matter interact with vacuum energy. It is also thought that gravity and inertia are linked to this energy. Inertia is when an object stays in its original state of motion, either at rest or at constant velocity. Speculation about inertia and how it might stem from an electromagnetic drag force on charged particles of the object as it moves across vacuum energy. Supposing we can manipulate vacuum energy and inertia we could make objects have less inertia, requiring less energy to accelerate.

Another method that may be more fiction than fact is the possibility of producing a traversable wormhole. According to one scientist's calculations all we would need to do this is some super dense matter like a neutron star. The material would be shaped into a ring a few hundred million miles in diameter. There would have to be another such ring placed where you want to go. Sending tremendous voltages through them and then spin both rings at relativistic speeds and then you have a way to travel the universe. These hypothetical wormholes, whether man-made or natural, might take us through short cuts that connect distant regions of curved space. However, wormholes would collapse under their own gravity and this gravity would destroy anything coming close to it. Negative energy repulses gravity and it would require lots of it to hold a wormhole open.

According to the idea of Alcubierre's Warp Drive, matter with a negative energy density might be able to warp space time and therefore create a bubble where space time is squeezed in front of a ship and expanded behind it. Manipulating space in this way would make faster-than-light travel possible. Theoretically, time would not dilate, nor would mass increase. Best of all, people inside the craft wouldn't experience any g-forces. The use of negative energy to either hold open wormholes or create space time bubbles won't happen unless we overcome a healthy amount of challenges technologically. The energy required would be on the equivalent of billions of stars. Another problem is that since the bubble would occur outside of the ship there would be no way of turning in on and off. Then there are the problems with causality. Travelling through a wormhole or in a warp bubble and going faster than a ray of light, the traveler might return home before he left. Also, no one has ever collected even small quantities of negative energy.

Quantum Tunneling works on the principle that nanoscale particles like photons or electrons have been known to approach barriers and suddenly appear on the other side. There is a certain probability that this will happen and sometimes they actually do. It has been shown the front tip of a signal may make it through the barrier at superluminal speed, however the remainder of the signal is still bound by the speed of light. So far, whether or not a photon tunnels cannot be controlled. At random, no usable information crosses the barrier. If usable information could be transmitted through the barrier then the question arises, how can this be applied to a spaceship?

Tachyons are theoretical particles that travel faster than light. Unlike normal particles their velocity increases as they lose energy and when they gain energy their velocity decreases. The slowest a tachyon can go is the speed of light. It was thought that such a particle had been discovered but the results so far haven't been duplicated. Some say that there is a certain type of neutrino that is a tachyon, however evidence is inconclusive at best. With tachyons come paradoxical time traveling implications.

Ten or so dimensions are predicted via string theory. All but our familiar dimensions are curled up in tight loops on a subatomic scale. One problem the theory hopes to unravel is why gravity is so weak compared to other known forces. There are some scientists that believe these unseen dimensions may be larger than first thought. Interdimensional travel works well in science fiction since it is thought that other dimensions are folded into our normal dimensions. This would allow for a ship to jump form normal space into hyperspace and then the craft would exit at the desired point. Hyperspace may be different from normal space enough so that a spaceship could surpass the speed of light.

Then again, what if a ship wasn't needed to get around the universe. The idea of teleportation centers on a device that takes down an object's information and a transmitter sends the data to a receiver. It is then used to make a replica of the object. This replica may be rebuilt from the matter or energy of the original or it may be assembled from molecules at the receiver. This teleportation is made theoretically possible through quantum entanglement and quantum states of photons and atoms.

Is interstellar travel in the way of Star Wars or Star Trek impossible? Many think so. It is this author's opinion that we still don't sufficiently know enough about our universe to rule it out as a possibility. To use the term “shoot for the stars,” is quite appropriate at this point. Until such dreams are proven to be impossible we shouldn't quit searching for ways to get where we are trying to go.

In this article I used information from (1) “Spacefaring: The Human Dimension” by Albert A. Harrison, and (2) “The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume 1, First Contact” edited by Dave A. Law and Darin Park. I hope you have enjoyed our small visit to the stars. Until next time, keep the dream alive.

Source: Wikimedia | User:Base64

Hong Kong now looks like something out of blade runner or Neuromancer, a vast sprawl of high tech buildings, and lights that bounce off the clouds giving the whole scene an apocalyptic glow. It almost appears unreal, like the still frame from a science fiction movie, one feels the need to take a closer look to see if the brush marks are visible.

This world we live in, has become the science fiction setting that science fiction writers were writing about in the 50s. It's finally here, albeit with a few things not quite as imagined. Space travel for example lies sorely neglected, though we do now have space tourism and spaceports. Flying cars are another science fiction fantasy that just never materialized, due in part to the inability of air traffic control to cope even with planes in the sky, let alone cars. Some day, when humanity has found a cheap source of fuel and has advanced enough computers to manage a profusion of objects moving about the skies, then flying cars may become a reality. Till then we'll just have to content ourselves with Segways zipping about.

Credit: Left: Wikipedia | Right: R.Carson

Segway Personal Transporters are another technological marvel; two wheeled, they keep their balance when you stand on it, and zip forwards when you lean forwards and slow down as you tilt back. Now police in various countries use them, in various incarnations such as the Segway Assault Service (SAS). The storm troopers of many a dark sci-fi tale have arrived. Though for the moment confined mainly to airports and large citys, it seems certain that Segway mounted police offers will soon become a common feature of life everywhere. Segways are also being employed in tourism, with Segway tours of cities available to take in Paris, Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Atlanta to name but a few.

Credit: NASA-JPL

Though space travel has not proceeded as expected by science fiction writers, we have not been idle. Since the 60s we've been sending numerous probes to every corner of our solar system. We monitor the sun in great detail via the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and have sent probes to Mars in search of life. Millions of people have tuned into the exciting journey undertaken by two probes: Spirit and Opportunity, as they landed on Mars, and began to wander across the martian surface collecting data and taking picture. To everyone's amazement, they not only lasted beyond their 3 month warranties, but they just keep on going - and in the years since they first arrived have brought back a wealth of information that helps us to unravel the mystery of Mars. All this effort is designed with one important question in mind: 'was there ever life on Mars?'

Credit: NASA-JPL

Science fiction writers of the past would surely be delighted by the images that hubble has been bringing in of the Universe. Thanks to this availability of scientific data our understanding of the universe has never been better, and physicists are inching closer to discovering a Theory of Everything.

As we inch closer to these answers, scientists are able to formulate more and more accurate theories to describe the universe and its creation. The current best candidate for a Theory of Everything is String Theory, an elegant and beautiful theory that tells us that all matter is composed of strings of energy that vibrate, and all the different types of matter are the notes that are played upon these strings, while the laws of physics could be compared to the harmonies and symphones that can be played in this cosmic orchestra. Whether string theory is right or not, we do not yet know... time will tell.

In the meantime we can still enjoy the marvellous images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and look forward to the day when we understand in full the processes that led to all the beauty around us.

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Light || Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The area where we've made the most progress, bounding beyond what even the sf writers were able to imagine is technology. Computers have exploded in popularity, changing in the process from behemoths that take up whole buildings are require megawatts of power and dozens of operators to cheap handheld devices with access to the unlimited knowledge accessible on the Internet. The Internet itself would no doubt be another surprise. While writers envisaged networking applications, it is unlikely anyone envisaged the explosive growth and development of the Internet. Robotics is another area that has advanced, though perhaps not quite as quickly as people envisaged in the 1950s. It turned out the problem of having a robot navigate the ever changing landscapes in which humans are comfortable, would take another 70 years to crack. Meanwhile advances in robotics have brought about the first science fiction style robotic arms, that are actually capable of delicate enough movement that amputees can have a replacement almost as dexterous as the one they lost.

All in all, we have come a long way, and we have an exciting road ahead of us. Who knows what will come next?

Star Cluster NGC 2074 in the Large Magellanic Cloud | Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio (STScI)

The universe began 13.5 billion years ago. We are fairly sure of this figure because of the way objects and particles move through the universe. Einestein taught us that nothing can travel faster than light. We know that light travels at a very definite speed (though the speed differs through different mediums).

In one second light can travel 7 times around the earth. It takes light 4 years to reach us from the nearest star Proxima Centauri in the Alpha Centauri system. We measure the universe in “light years”, the time it takes light to travel in a year. If we were to set off from the solar system to the nearest star it would take us 4.2 years traveling at the speed of light to reach it. Importantly, whenever we gaze up at that star now, we are seeing the light that left it 4.2 years ago. We are looking back into the past. We see it how it was then, not how it is now. If that star was suddenly to vanish, we will not know it until 4.2 years after the event.

We would have to go there, to see it how it is now. Unfortunately we have not yet mastered any advanced forms of propulsion, and in reality the journey would take us closer to 40 years for such a crossing, if not more. Nevertheless, speculating about such things should help us understand just how vast the scales of distance between stars really is.

Our galaxy is a massive conglomerate of stars, comprising as many as 200 – 400 billion, in a disc 200,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick. Around the milky way drift smaller satellite galaxies, and nearby we are surrounded by a supercluster of galaxies, each containing hundreds of thousands of stars of its own.

Overlapping Galaxies | Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Our nearest neighbor, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. Again we are not seeing Andromeda as it is now, but how it was 2.5 million light years ago. We have looked out into the universe and we can see for 13.5 billion years in every direction. Beyond this we can only see the microwave radiation left over from the birth of the universe. This tells us how long the light has been traveling for. This tells us the age of the universe (and there are many other methods of doing this).

We are a speck of dust in the great oceans of infinity. In all this time stars formed and began to shine, burned up hydrogen, and then as they used up their fuel, exploded in massive supernovae. These explosions scattered new materials into the universe. These heavy elements condensed down into stars and star systems, including ours, and provided the water, oxygen, carbon, and metals, indeed all the elements that are so essential for life. And life formed, on one world at least, from the dust of stars came life that was able to replicate, survive, thrive, and adapt.

Soon we (humans) came along, so that now the process is complete, we can use our telescope to look up at the boundless infinity of the universe and marvel at the inexhaustable vastness of it. We occupy such a tiny fraction of time and space. Our star formed 4.5 billion years ago, along with the earth; a third of all the time since the universe began. Human history occupies the latter 100,000 years of Earth's history, a meaningless fraction of the age of the Earth.

We must cast away the egocentric view of the universe as being designed especially for us, if we are to accept the harsh realities of our situation, and thrive in this universe. But far from being something to fear, it the universe about us is something to cherish, in all its marvelous beauty and wonder.

With all of our new amazing discoveries about the planets and galaxies that surround us, we are still so far away from knowing what is really out there. Facts that we know now can’t even give us a bit of reinsurance that what is written in books is real. Today’s scientists have found out that an unexplained force is what we were already sure of.

The galaxies are forcing further and further apart from one another. If this force keeps tearing us apart, this eventually can lead to a catastrophe, the end of out universe. In the late 20^th century, our astronomers  have  found out the universe has enough mass to slow down the expansion of space, but not enough to stop it from crashing or  bringing it back together. A team of astronauts had predicted that the universes expansion was speeding up, but couldn’t name it as a fact because there was a chance that they were wrong. It was something called the “Dark Energy”, which was making the expansion go faster. Today we have only one great destination and hope for finding out what will really happen next, it’s called “The Hubble”. The Hubble is a telescope that is located above the earth’s atmosphere, and lets us observe the stunning images that you will be able to see.

The Galaxy Cluster

 

The Eighth Anniversary of the Hubbles’s Best  Hits

A String of Cosmic Pearls Surrounding the Exploding Star

Gaseous Envelope Expelled by a Dying Star “The Helix Nebula”

All of the above images were taken by the Hubble. With so much unexplained we can only look to see the pictures that the hubble site provided us with and wonder if there will ever be a chance for us to this beauty with our own two eyes. There are probably more pictures that NASA has not yet revealed, that are kept top secret. But the more astonishing discoveries we make are one step closer to finding out what is really out there.

Photos credit: Willow Gabriel, Goldstein Lab

An European Space Agency (ESA)'s experiment has shown that these invertebrates can survive in the vacuum of space and they are the first animals known to be able to survive the harsh combination of low pressure and intense radiation found in space, and even they're still found alive with intense pressure, huge doses of radiation, and years of being dried out. In fact, they are the greatest survivors in the nature as they have long been known as the virtual indestructibility animals ever survived on Earth.

Photo credit: Ralph O Schill

Water bears, similar to the picture you see above, were brought to low-Earth orbit in an ESA satellite. With the aim to further test their hardiness, Ingemar Jönsson of Sweden's Kristianstad University and colleagues launched two species of dried-up Tardigrades from Kazakhstan in September 2007 aboard ESA's FOTON-M3 mission, which carried a variety of experimental payloads. The satellite then returned to Earth after these water bears were exposed to space for 10 days. They were later retrieved and rehydrated to test how they reacted to the vacuum (airless) conditions in the space, oxygen deprivation, bombardment and other radiations by ultraviolet, the ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and charged particles from the space called cosmic rays as well. The outcome of this test was published in the journal of Current Biology, a year after the launch of this mission. The result tells us that the vacuum has little effect on these creatures, but the ultraviolet radiation which can damage DNA and cellular material did take the toll.

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You won't hear these organisms crying for help in the space. Not only they can survive the vacuum of the space, but also they're strong enough to venture a trip via that icy, intense radiation and even the onslaught of the unfiltered rays of the sun. Remarkably, a number of these individuals have found to be able to survive through a combination of the space which will definitely have their DNA destroyed as well as to have their bodies dried-up. This is coupling with the solar radiation which might have fried them completely. Nevertheless, these creatures have shown to successfully conquer the most extreme conditions that exist in an intense radiation, high pressure and the vacuum of the space.

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"No animal has survived open space before," says developmental biologist Bob Goldstein of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not affiliated with the study. "The finding that animals survived rehydration after 10 days in open space - and then produced viable embryos as well - is really remarkable."

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This ability to survive in extreme conditions "might be important when we consider the habitability of other bodies in our solar system or beyond," says astrobiologist Gerda Horneck of the German Aerospace Center. But the results say little about how the animals might develop and reproduce in harsh environments, Horneck says.

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Before this discovery, according to the academic reports, only lichens and bacteria have been identified to be able to withstand the combined assault of space and solar radiation. Up to now, the researchers are not sure how exactly these water bears managed to survive in these extremely harsh conditions.

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In 1773, an aquatic zoologist, Johann August Ephraim Goeze came to discover these tiny and segmented animals and they are later given the name as Tardigrada, which means “slow stepper.” Three years later, they were discovered by the Italian biologist, Lazzaro Spallanzani. Three pictures above show the early illustrations of the water bears (Eurardigrade) by Andrew Pritchard. They simply look like cute and lovely animals for you to consider having them as pets.

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Tardigrades are short in general, with their body length ranges from 0.05mm to 1.2mm.

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Water Bears have four pairs of legs with four to eight claws on each. They are bilaterally symmetrical, plump and segmented organisms. Their stout bodies appear in a shape of cylinder. There are sharp pointy objects in their mouths called styles, which help them to cut into moss leaves or algae (their main food sources). After that, they will suck the juices from the plant. They also feed on the fluids from other plant cells, animal cells, and bacteria. They are prey to nematodes, amoebas, and other Tardigrades.

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Tardigrades reproduce either asexually (parthenogenesis) or sexually. Their females are found more in amount than males and they are also found slightly larger than males. Females lay eggs in a shed exoskeleton after mating. They molt just like crayfish and insects. Before the young can become an adult, they must molt (shed their exoskeletons) several times. They can be in different color, including bluish, yellowish-brown, reddish, brown and gray. Their color difference is very much depending on their species.

Photo credit: John Conrad

It is documented that there are over 900 species of these water bears distributed all over the world, with their geographical distributions ranges from the Himalayan Mountains primarily at the elevations of over 6,000 m to the deep ocean of 4,000m beneath the sea level. They can often be found by soaking a piece of moss in spring water. Picture above shows the Water Bear (Echiniscoides sigismundi) with its body length of 0.3 mm which was found on green algae. It was taken from the cement wall of the harbour basin of the city of Lisbon, Portugal.

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Water bears are frequently found living on lichens, mosses, liverworts and even on various types of sediments. A few species of them live on plants in fresh water. The picture above shows how this water bear is moving slowly in the moss water.

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These creatures are indeed amazing animals found on Earth so far! Where on earth could you find any animals who can sustain the most extreme conditions like them? No matter how you treat these creatures, whether they are put in the open space and radiation for as long as 200 years; or whether they are placed in hot sea vents, these 1mm-long creatures are still energetic and they are as active as a child. In short, they are amazing animals that are found to be survived at temperatures close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151°C (303 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than any other animals, and nearly a decade without water.

Photos credit: Ian M.Martin

Here are some photographic evidences to show that they are the greatest survivors of the nature, as they will never defeat to any extreme conditions that they might have to face in their life. (First row, left photo: extreme dehydration; first row, right photo: in the vacuum; second row, left photos: extreme heat; and second row, right photos: extreme radiation (A gray is approximately 5,000 chest x-rays, in which 10 to 20 rays can easily kill most animals and a human. These creatures are found to be able to survive easily at 5,700 grays of radiation. They're simply amazing!) Now, come challenging them! They won't confess to death even you boil them, freeze them or put them into any harsh conditions. They are such tough guys that you could never beat them down!