Category: Universe

The End of a Course, But The Start of a Passion!

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What a ride this class has been! The sheer amount of new topics and discoveries I learned about is ridiculous, but my favorite has definitely got to be regarding the unknowns and potentials for life in our universe, or even our own Solar System! Learning about worlds such as Europa and Titan, and the liquid conditions that thrive far, far out in our system serve as great encouragement for future life out there. The narrative of exploration is huge, and has gotten me hooked to potential news in the future! The thought of Planet IX’s existence, and the fact that it took so long to notice that aberrations needed to be explained is exciting, as is the recent black hole image that everyone’s been hyped up about (and memeing about) lately! I can’t wait for the discoveries and advancements to come! 🙂

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HW Blog1 – The Universe and its expansion

The topic associated with astronomy that intrigues me the most, at least with regards to the list provided, is definitely the vastness of the Universe. As a nerdy fan of late night, I can’t help but find Neil deGrasse Tyson’s appearances extremely entertaining. While I find that his talks often lack substance or depth, his enthusiasm for science is infectious. In the video below, he mentions dark energy and the expansion of the universe, and the acceleration of said expansion.

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Tyson then expounded upon his previous conversation point, saying that over time, this unknown pressure that is accelerating the universe’s expansion will eventually expand to the point where other galaxies would be lost to us. However, could our technology not improve over that time frame to the point where there would be no difference in what we could observe?

He also brings up the point that if in the future, galaxies we know of now will no longer be observable, that means that there might be something in our Universe’s history that we no longer see. Essentially, that we’re staring at an incomplete picture while trying to explore the unknown. It sort of reminds me of the black box approach in science (see this link for more information). We try to operate and control all variables without necessarily understanding what actually happens. How can we study the future if we have an incomplete understanding of the past?