The Interstellar Travel

New Horizons spacecraft is launched with primary mission to flyby Pluto and its moons and study them. But before we get into this blog, read the previous blog about the planet Pluto and get an overall idea about the planet. Now that you have read about Pluto’s history, orbit and composition let’s get into this NASA’s New Frontiers Program- New Horizons.   New Horizon is space probe which was launched on January 19, 2006.It is engineered by Johns HopkinsUniversity   Applied Physics Laboratory  (APL) and the  Southwest ResearchInstitute  (SwRI), with a team led by  S. Alan Stern . The name “New Horizons” was derived from Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra. The first letters of their names, N and H are initials of New Horizons. MISSION: The primary mission of New Horizons spacecraft is to study Pluto and study one or more Kuiper belt objects.   Originally the mission was to explore the undiscovered planets and objects in the solar system. This was when Pluto was still classif

Pluto has been our favorite planet since 2006. The reason why I wrote this blog is because NASA is ready to explore the planet and study it closely through its mission New Horizons. So before we get to know about this mission, let’s first get to know about Pluto. HISTORY: Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930 in the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper belt is a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. Originally Pluto was considered as the ninth planet in solar system. But studying its size, mass, density etc. the International Astronomical Unit (IAU) defined the term “planet”. The definition goes as- “ planet  is a body that orbits the Sun, is massive enough for its own gravity to make it round, and has cleared its neighbourhood" of smaller objects around its orbit.”   According to this definition, Pluto could not be classified as a planet and hence was reclassified as a “dwarf planet” in 2006. Although it is a dwarf planet compared to other eight planets, it is the second most

STEPHEN HAWKING - the brightest and the loudest mind in the cosmos! The name itself gives inspiration and motivation to many. Unfortunately he is not with us anymore. At the age of 76, he passed away on 14 th March 2018. But he will not be forgotten. Below are just few reasons why. Stephen Hawking was born on 8 th January 1942, in Oxford. His father was a research biologist. They moved to London to escape from the German bombing at that time. Hawking grew up in London and eventually developed a huge interest in physics. He graduated from Oxford with a first-class degree in physics and then went to Cambridge for post-graduation in Cosmology. It was in Cambridge when he was diagnosed with rare motor neuron disease.   In 1964, his doctors gave him no more than 2-3 years. But the disease progressed slowly than expected. By 1988, Hawking was able to speak only through his voice synthesizer following a tracheotomy; he completed the famous book of all times- THE BRIEF HISTORY

Since childhood we have learnt that all the planets go around the Sun. Meaning, the planets and other celestial objects rotate around the Sun in specific directions. But did you know that not all follow the same directions? Some follow the Sun’s rotation while some go in the opposite direction. After observing these motions of certain planets and comets, astronomers termed these rotations as “ Prograde ” and “ Retrograde ”. Before we get into these terms, let’s first understand how the direction of the motion is determined. The direction is determined by the primary object in system that forms the system’s hub. In our case, it is the Sun. So rotation of all the planets and celestial bodies is decided by the Sun’s direction of rotation. Now that we know how the motion is determined, let’s get into the above mentioned terms. Prograde:   It is the motion in the direction of that of the Sun. Meaning, most of the planets and some comets move in the direction of the Sun,

Wormhole is hypothesized or theoretical tunnel between two points in the universe. It is supposed to act as a shortcut between the two points. The idea of wormhole was put forth by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in the year 1935. They used the theory of general relativity to propose these tunnels. According to these physicists, wormholes act as bridges through space-time. Wormholes are considered as consistent connections with general theory of relativity, yet there existence remains hypothetical.   The wormhole can connect two long distances points (like a billion light years away) or can connect two short distances (few meters apart). CREATION OF WORMHOLE: Like mentioned earlier, the existence of wormhole is still hypothetical. But if there is even a slightest possibility of its existence, then we would like to know how it was created. Many science fiction movies like Interstellar have shown the existence of wormholes, which opens a pathway to distant galaxies. So wh

Looking in the universe is like looking through time. And this has led the astronomers from Arizona State University and MIT to find out about the time when the first stars light up-which was just 180 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers call it the “Cosmic Dawn”. In early years, universe was in total darkness. This phase is generally referred to as the “Cosmic Dark Ages”. It was a phase when universe was a very cold and a very dark place. It consisted of only hydrogen gas, which made up the majority of the interstellar medium. Yet it was indistinguishable from all the cosmic radiation that was left behind by the Big Bang. But time passed and the matter started clustering together; it grew larger and exerted enough pressure to start nuclear fusion.   And this is how the first stars in our universe flickered!   The UV radiation emitted by these stars reacted with the hydrogen in the surrounding and it’s this reaction which was observed now! Different pha

Milky Way is the galaxy which contains our Solar system. The term “milky” is derived from its appearance on Earth. It is seen as a band of light from the stars which cannot be distinguished by a naked eye. Many are studying the origin of Milky Way. And astrophysicists of North Western University have succeeded in it. The study was published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on July 26th 2017. In a first of its kind analysis, the Northwestern University astrophysicists have discovered that up to half of the matter of the Milky Way may come from another galaxy. As a result each of us may be part of some other galaxy. Like Aliens!   The research was carried out by using supercomputer stimulation. Using these stimulations, astrophysicists found out how every galaxy, like our own get their matter: through intergalactic transfer. Intergalactic means existing or occurring between two or more galaxies.   This transfer may take place due t

In early 2016, a group of scientists at LIGO observatory made an incredible announcement-detection of gravitational waves.   Gravitational waves are ripples in curvature of space-time. Till then, gravitational waves were considered as a theoretical concept.   This discovery is not momentous just because gravitational waves were discovered but also because nobody had ever seen two supermassive black holes orbiting so close to each other. This system is called Binary Black Hole (BBH). BINARY BLACK HOLE:- Binary black hole is a system which consists of two super massive black holes orbiting close to each other. Like ordinary black holes, BBH is also divided into stellar (black holes formed by gravitationalcollapse of a massive star) black holes. For many years, proving the existence of binary black hole was difficult because of nature of black holes itself and limited detection methods. When two black holes orbit close to each other, they give out immense amount of grav