Showing posts with label Nasa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nasa. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Life, The Universe and Everything

  I remember listening to my Uncle when I was young while he pondered questions such as 'Where do we come from',  'How did we get here,' 'What's it all for', and feeling fascinated and also quite scared. It was all so BIG, these thoughts he was discussing which I with my young brain was listening to. He wasn't spiritual or religious in any way and neither was I, so we couldn't use faith as an explanation. It was all more scientific and also philosophical. How did the Universe come about, where had it come from and what was it's purpose, if any? How did we little humans happen, why were we the only intelligent beings that we knew of.

My uncle did believe in aliens, not so many people did back then so lots of people thought he was a bit odd for it. He thought there must be life on other planets, that in fact we may have had connections to them in some way. I don't think he knew about the belief of many nowadays, of aliens landing on this planet and somehow starting our life form here, either as a direct result of descendants or that they somehow merged their DNA with apes or some or animal here, but if he had he would have jumped on that theory as quite likely, I feel sure.

Personally, I don't know about that, could be true, might not be. But like most people now do believe I think there has to be other intelligent life forms out there somewhere in one of the millions/billions of planets floating around the stars.

What we know, or surmise, about the Universe is all very fascinating and awesome. It's expanding for one thing, growing outwards and spreading apart the distances between the stars. The things we know which are there but can't actually see such as black holes and the immense power they contain is amazing, but also scary when you know they suck up everything around them including whole stars. If they can do that what hope have we to survive? 

It's so easy to worry about what is out there, what we don't know about, as well as what we do know. But really the answer is already known, Douglas Adams told us in his book 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. The answer is 42, yes, number Forty Two. So, now we need not worry anymore. It's the answer to it all, Life, the Universe and Everything - 42. Ah now I feel better for knowing that.

Monday, 16 April 2012

Nasa News


Today's letter N is incorporating one of my occasional posts on anything Nasa. This time I have added this gorgeous photo of 'baby stars creating chaos' as they depict it. The below is copied and pasted from their site about this photograph. Isn't nature amazing?


Chaos in Orion

Baby stars are creating chaos 1,500 light-years away in the cosmic cloud of the Orion Nebula. Four massive stars make up the bright yellow area in the center of this false-color image for NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Green indicates hydrogen and sulfur gas in the nebula, which is a cocoon of gas and dust. Red and orange indicate carbon-rich molecules. Infant stars appear as yellow dots embedded in the nebula.
Image Credit: NASA  

Thursday, 25 August 2011

Nasa News

Isn't nature beautiful? I just had to add this. Makes you wish you were one of Dr Who's companions, doesn't it? Imagine hopping into his Tardis for a quick peek at the latest star being born, or to watch a cosmic storm.

The funny Nasa people are calling it the Cosmic Inkblot Test, perfect analogy.

 Cosmic Inkblot Test


The Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 27, pumps out infrared light in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The nebula was named after its resemblance to a dumbbell when seen in visible light. It was discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier, who included it as the 27th member of his famous catalog of nebulous objects. Although he did not know it at the time, this was the first in a class of objects, now known as planetary nebulaeo make it into the catalog.
Planetary nebulae, historically named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets, are now known to be the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers, which are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible-light colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years.The Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 27,


Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Nasa News

 

Massive Solar Eruption Close-up

  Awesome

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=99015461

Turn on captions for more information about what you are seeing. On June 7, 2011 the Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare with a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME). This video uses the full-resolution 4096 x 4096 pixel images at a 1 minute time cadence and to provide the highest quality, finest detail version possible. It also shows the event in multiple wavelengths.