Voyager-1&2

U.S space agency launched Pioneer 10 & 11 probes in 1972 & 1973 respectively, on a very long haul mission of leaving the solar system on a one way journey.  

Then in 1977 NASA launched its better equipped Voyager-1 & 2 probes, both of which flew by Jupiter & Saturn, Voyager 2 also explored Uranes and Neptune.  It has sent photographs of all these planets along with their moons. 

Voyager-1

Officially NASA’s Voyager-1 Spacecraft is the first man-made object to have left the solar system for the dark and mysterious realm of Interstellar space.  It has covered 19 billion kilometers since its launch 36 years ago at a speed of 17 kms per second.  

= 1020 kms/ minute.

= 61,200 kms / hour.

What will take a highway motorist 20,000 years to 

cross this distance. 

Continued in older postings.
Click on the older postings below to see more postings. 

Out of our Solar system

Now we are out of the solar system and into the dark and mysterious realm of Interstellar space. 

We move further away from the solar system into the Solar Interstellar neighbourhood and we can see many more stars.  

The nearest star to our solar system is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.243 light years away.  

We move further away into space and we find that our Sun is a part of the Milkyway Galaxy.  

Milkyway is a spiral galaxy some 120,000 light years in diameter and contains approximately 400 billion stars.

The solar system is located within the disc in an arm of the galaxy about 27,000 light years from the galactic centre.  

We move further away and see the Local Galactic group. Milky is one among the many galaxies in the local Galactic group.  

We move further away and see the virgo supercluster. The local Galactic group is a part of the Virgo super cluster.   

We move further away and see that this Virgo super cluster is a part of the Local super cluster.

And then finally we find that the Local super cluster is a small part of the observable Universe.  

This is the extent to which we the humans with all our Scientific and technological achievements in the 21st century have been able to observe.  

Beyond this is all the imagination of the Scientists, equipped with Mathematical and Theoretical Physics calculations. 

Now what you see above is a computer generated image of the Universe, based on the scanned images of the cosmic microwave background(CMB)(by the Plank spacecraft of ESA) of the early Universe when it was just 330,000 years old, combined with complex Astro-physics calculations.  

Now for a reminder of where we started........
In front of the Gopuram(tower) of the temple of Srirangam (or Bhooloka Vaikuntam).  Just imagine how small this tower is, in this observable Universe. 

To be continued.......   

BIRTH OF OUR UNIVERSE

Now for a reminder of where we started………

NASA’s pholosophical questions………

Where did we the mankind, come from? Where are we? and Where is our end?

So, here is the version of Scientists, as to how this Universe came into existence.

We have seen that each galaxy has more than 400 billion stars. And there is countless number of Galaxies in this Universe.

The scientists believe that the Universe is 14 billion years old and will continue to exist for another twice this time. And space, time and the forces of nature themselves has come out of nothing. 

All distant galaxies are slightly red in color. Scientists suggest that according to an effect called Dopler shift, the Galaxies are all moving away from one another and in fact the whole universe is expanding in all directions and getting bigger and bigger like a balloon inflating. 

So to know the beginning, all we need to do is to stop time and go back into time, till all the galaxies and everything in the universe gets closer together.  In fact everything, every single thing converges to a point, 13.7 billion years ago.  Before this there was no ‘Universe’, no ‘Space’ and not even ‘Time’.

Scientists believe that the birth of our Universe took place some 13.7 billion years ago, the universe simply burst into existence in an event called the ‘big bang’. ‘The Big Bang’ is the scientific theory that is most consistent with observations of the past and present states of the universe, and it is widely accepted within the scientific community.

At the very beginning, it was just a tiny ultra hot form of Super energy, smaller than the size of an atom.  Then the big bang happened in total darkness, because light did not exist.  If we have to see it, we need some kind of cosmic night vision. But even this cannot be viewed from the outside, because space did not exist either. So there was no outside, the only place that was, was inside. 

This early universe was a very strange thing indeed, the standard concepts of time and space, does not apply here. 

Then it expanded with a tremendous gust of radiation, from, smaller than an atom, to the size of an cricket ball, in less than a trillionth of a second.  The universe simply inflated into existence, unfurling, unfolding, getting bigger and cooler at every passing moment. 

While this was happening the pure energy of this inflation began to cool and create matter in the form of countless millions of sub atomic particles. The first stuff there ever was.  Half these particles were matter, the same kind of stuff the makes us. The rest were made up of the opposite of matter called anti matter. When they both meet, they destroy each other in a flash of a second.  Fortunately there was more matter than anti-matter. Just 1 billion in a part survived, and that residue is what makes our universe.  You could say that we are made of the smoke of the big bang. 

At 10^-32 seconds the temperature was 10²⁷ degree centigrade and the Universe was a seething soup of electrons quarks and other sub atomic particleas. 

At 10^-6 seconds the temperature was 10¹³ degree centigrade and the Universe was rapidly cooling permitting the quarks to clump into Protons and Neutrons. 

Within 100 seconds it was as big as our Solar system, trillions of miles across.  

to be continued .........

Birth of our Universe - continued

When it was 3 minutes the temparature was about 10⁸ degrees Centigrade, still too hot to form into atoms and charged electrons & protons prevent light from shining. The universe was a superhot fog.

By the time the universe was 10 minutes old, it was already 1000s of light years in diameter.  After that it spread out and cooled for about 330,000 years, when finally the fog cleared up and the universe became visible. Electrons combine with Protons to form mostly Hydrogen.  

picture of Universe when it was 300,000 years old.

When the Universe was 1billion years old the temparature was -200⁰C. The force of gravity made Hydrogen and Helium gas to collate to form the giant clouds that became galaxies and smaller clumps of gas formed the first stars.  

picture of Universe when it was 1 billion years old

13.5 billion years ago the universe was mostly hydrogen gas, gravity pulling it closer to vast clouds.  Hydrogen is the simplest of gasses, but it has a very special property. It is a tremendous source of power. Heat hydrogen to 10 millions degress and it begins to produce energy that makes the stars shine and supply the universe with warmth and light.  

Hydrogen atom

When vast amount of hydrogen gas is compressed to smaller and smaller space and as the hydrogen gas compacts, the atoms of the gas start dancing each other and the temperature begins to rise by the time. When compressed to very small space the hydrogen reaches the critical 10 million degrees and a process called ‘nuclear fusion’ begins. The hydrogen starts to fuse together making a new heavier material Helium.  With every step of this tiny bumpy grain, some matter gets converted into pure energy.  A star is created. 

Nuclear Fusion

 Back in space the gravity compressed the hydrogen gas over millions of years until deep in the centre, hydrogen became hot enough for fusion to take place. 

The first star burst into life, pouring its energy into the vast universe, according to the laws of nature and the raw material left behind from the big bang. It was almost a 1000 times bigger than our sun and burnt a deep blue.  Later many stars were born.  

Nuclear fusion in star

Supernova

Stars are giant factories.  Now let us split a star and see how it works.  Once the star is born, hydrogen keeps fussing to create Helium and in the process produces the star’s energy.  But Helium is slightly heavier than hydrogen and so sinks to the center of the star.  As the Helium atoms fuse together, they produce even more energy and in the process, produce even more heavier elements like Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon etc,.  The process repeats itself over and over and the star becomes heavier.  Closer and closer to the center many more elements form …….. like, Nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon, potassium, calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese and iron.  

After iron is formed, things change. Iron does not produce energy when it fuses, so the fire begins to go out.  More and more Iron is produced in the core until almost all the fuel runs out.  Now gravity takes over and squashes the star into itself. As its core gets more and more compressed, its temparature soars until it is 100 times more hotter than the core of our sun.  Then finally the star collapses and explodes.  This is a SUPERNOVA.  

This is a picture a Supernova taken by Hubble telescope

The death of a star. And, the birth of something new. In these brief micro seconds a massive shock wave passes through the star.  The blast is so powerful that it forces some of the iron to fuse into even heavier elements.  And that is how heavier elements like gold, platininum, lead etc., are made, forged in the heart of an exploding star.

Today, 27th of December 2023..... almost 10 years after I have posted this post in 2013. 

I am updating some new information.

Now we have the new James Webb Telescope peering the entire Universe for new things.....

Looks like the search for the first star that was ever formed in the Universe is likely to be located .... 

Watch the video from the below link....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GjS9mRtXg 

Birth of our Solar system

Our solar system, lies about 26,000 light years from the center of our galaxy the Milkyway, or around 2/3^rd the way out. 

Milky picture from NASA

 6 billion years ago, an ancient star exploded littering space with its swirling clouds, with materials what it had made during its life time and the heavier materials it created as it died.  They are called NEBULAE.  And they are very beautiful and in every case they are different.  And in ours it contained Nitrogen and oxygen and all the stuff needed to build a world like ours.

CRAB NEBULA 

Butterfly Nebula

Then the force of gravity started pulling it all together and the heavy engineering that produces planets began. Vast spirals of dust began to form.  At the center of one of these, a rocky planet called earth started to take shape, built of star dust.  First for 100 million years it grew into a giant ball sweeping all the millions of tonnes of celestial debris.  This is where the earth came from.  

And then 93 million miles away, in a part of the giant nebulae the temperature and pressure of hydrogen gas had become so great that the atoms were beginning to dance. A new star, our sun was coming to life.

As the sun ignited it gave a huge blast of solar flare and radio active dust and energy. This blew all the remaining gas and dust that was remaining, out of the solar system, which is why everything is so nice and orderly today.  

In the outer reaches of the solar system, we have the huge gas planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And in the inner, we have dense planets mercury, Venus, mars and of course our earth.  

  
To be continued.................