The Interstellar Travel

We have all know how black holes absorb everything in it. Even light is not sparred. But apart from this they have one more property- they could delete the universe itself. How? Let’s understand how. INFORMATION: Let’s first understand about the “information” I am talking about. It is not about some Roman history or other facts of encyclopedia. It’s the information about the matter in the universe. Everything in the universe is made of matter; how different atoms come together to form different structures to form different things. This is information. The different things may include various things ranging from one carbon compound (diamond or graphite) to squirrels to planets and stars in the universe. The structure of each of these things is called INFORMATION. The basic building block of everything in the universe is the same. Without this information everything would be the same. But black holes eat up this information when they consume the stars and planets. And...

Universe has always been a topic of huge interest. And why shouldn’t it be. It has brightest stars and spinning galaxies. Bright supernovas, dusty nebula, mysterious black holes and the list goes on. There are some things which are not even discovered yet. One’s lifetime is not enough to study and understand them. Many scientists have dedicated their lives for it. They make theories on how life would be in far part of the universe. Or even in the neighboring galaxy. Or could life even exist in other galaxies. Human technology is not that advanced YET to figure these things out. So unfortunately, such theories just remain theories. This makes us wonder; wouldn’t it be cool to just travel all the way from our galaxy to the nearby galaxy and see for ourselves? Travelling from one galaxy to another like the Guardians of the Galaxy and visiting different planets, meeting different beings, knowing their way of life! Who knows, we might bump into Thanos and punch him in fac...

Black holes have always been an interesting subject of conversation among the space enthusiastic. And if you have been following this blog from the very beginning, you will know that I’ve already written four blogs just about black holes and researches related to black holes. So this is yet another blog about black holes because-there aren’t just enough! So this blog is about how the latest research on black hole proved Einstein’s general theory of relativity! For the first time, astronomers have confirmed Einstein’s century old theory by observing action near black hole.   Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, an international team of professional sky-gazers watched as a star swung by the super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and observed the effect the black hole’s extreme gravitational field had on the star’s motion.   By accurately tracing the position and speed of this single star, known as S2...

All the brilliant minds have the habit of going with a bang. This is exactly what Prof. Stephen Hawking did when he passed away on March 14, 2018. The physicists died at the age of 76 and it seemed like the world stood still. Tributes flooded in for the greatest scientist of all time. Everybody was celebrating his work and achievements. But this wasn’t the end. The physicist left behind some more ground breaking theories in his residence at Cambridge that won him countless honors in the field of cosmology, general relativity, quantum gravity and black holes . However, one of his papers is yet to be published which will prove his greatest contribution in the field of Multi-verse.   According to reports, colleagues of Hawking have revealed the renowned theoretical physicist’s final academic work involved the theory explaining how humans could detect parallel universes .  In the paper, Hawking has given some ground breaking mathematics needed to find...

New Horizons Spacecraft out of Hibernation mode Speeding through the outer space of our Solar system, New Horizons spacecraft has awakened after its five and half months of hibernation, ready for its second act after its 2015 flyby of Pluto. This spacecraft is 3.8 billion light years away from Earth and has been sending photographs and information about our beloved planet, Pluto. New horizons woke up with the on-board timer late Monday, but the radio signals confirms that it took six hours to reach the   Earth that the New horizon has emerged, hence completing journey   at light speed   at 2.12am   EDT, Tuesday. Alice Bowman, the New Horizons operation manager confirmed that the spacecraft has been functioning normally and efficiently. Back in 2015, the spacecraft had sent stunning images of the Pluto surface like vast mountain ranges, cryovolcanoes, glaciers, methane snow and other surprising geographic activity. New Horizons is now on a n...

As mysterious as it can get, Universe has always been a place for strange and weird things. Now, scientists have a “Super-Void” in space which is missing galaxies! So before we get in to the topic, first let’s discuss what is “Void” According to Wikipedia, Voids or Cosmic Voids , as they are called, are vast spaces between galaxy filaments in the universe, which has few or 0 galaxies. Galaxy filaments are largest know structures in the universe, which have thread-like structures. They form boundaries between voids in space. These voids have very less density of matter that is considered for typical observable universe. Voids are believed to be formed in Big Bang, followed by massive collapse its mass and compressed by Baryonic matter . After Big Bang, there were lots of areas with high and low densities, which were changing rapidly. The regions with high density collapsed rapidly under gravity eventually causing foam-like structure of cosmic web of voids. Voids loc...

The very idea of black hole is baffling and scary at the same time. Many scientists have dedicated their lives for studying these scary things. Why scary? C’mon let’s be honest.   Getting sucked by a black hole due to its strong gravitational field means instant death. Although we still don’t know what exactly will happen if a human being falls in the black hole , we have drawn our conclusions based on what it does to light. That’s why; it may sound even scarier when we learned that scientists have discovered a dozen of black holes teaming up at the center of our galaxy-Milky way.   Data from NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray observatory has allowed researchers to detect a group of black holes surrounding Sagittarius A*. Sagittarius A* is a super massive black hole at the center of Milky Way-that’s where we are. For a while now, scientists have believed that there is something at this place and now it’s confirmed! Based on the findings,   up to 10,000 black h...

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. Thi...

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 m...

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 HIS...

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 ...

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. S...

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! Diff...

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 pl...

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 amoun...