Galaxy

of this is the following: the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way is called the Andromeda Galaxy. It is just over two and a half million light years away, which means that the light we see from there is just over two and a half million years old because this is the distance between us and the Andromeda Galaxy. Now imagine those numbers written out. Wait, don’t even attempt it, I’ll write them for you. The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way is the Andromeda Galaxy. It is just over…

Even then, the stars we see in the darkest of night skies still are only a small fraction of the stars in our galaxy, and our…

First off, the big bang theory is the leading explanation of what happened during and after the moment of the creation of our universe. This theory was born off of the observation that other galaxies are continuously moving away from our own at great speed, in all directions, as if they are being propelled by an “ancient explosive force” called the red shift. These studies were also determined with the help of Christian Doppler’s reasoning (the…

Statement: Body: The Drake Equation’s general expression is N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L. N represents the number of communicating intelligent civilizations within the universe right now. R* is the approximate rate of the formation of stars within our galaxy. Fp represents the fraction of stars in the Milky Way that are companioned by other planets. Ne takes the place of the number of planets per sun-like star that have habitable ecospheres, which is what allows for the chemical evolution of…

A New Perscpective I try to keep an open mind when looking at the world. There are so many different perspectives and idea out there that not allowing yourself to consider them doesn’t seem very smart to me. This semester we have read many interesting things about life and the universe, and I have tried to understand most of the thoughts and ideas in the books we have read. By allowing myself to keep an open mind to new ideas, I believe has helped me to learn many new things from the books we…

too late. As you know, the galactic post office takes 1,000,000 years to deliver to distant galaxies. And since you all are getting further away, I am sorry if the letter does not reach you in time. The universe is changing. In fact, galaxies are moving apart at an ever increasing rate. The gravitational attraction between two galaxies at that distance is too small to have a significant effect, so the galaxies more or less follow the general flow of the expansion. I hope the best from all of…

Cosmos episode 13, “Unafraid of the dark”, begins by talking about the vast amount of scrolls and information that was kept in the library of Alexandria. Many of the books and scrolls were lost when the mob attacked and destroyed the library. This is shocking because of all the history of Ancient times that he's been lost due to the destruction of these books. Although we lost many discoveries, we as humans continue to learn new information about the universe. This begins the discovery of…

universe barren or teeming with life? The observable universe; the part of the universe from where the light has had time to travel to earth is approximately 90 billion light years in diameter. There are 20 billion sun-like stars in just our Milky Way galaxy and recently we learned that planets are much more common than we thought. Those are the planets which are situated within the goldilocks zone of its home star, where the temperature is just right for water to remain in liquid state and…

The creation of the universe came from the Big Bang Theory and Darwinism. According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe was created 13.8 billion years ago starting from a singularity, and eventually expanding into what we know as the universe, galaxies, planets, etc. In regards to evolution, Darwinism is the theory that all species derive from organisms. Through these organisms, natural selection takes its course and the species that successfully sustain themselves, compete, and recreate,…

These include red dwarfs and yellow dwarfs. Red dwarfs are the most common star in the Milky Way Galaxy that is small and cool. Yellow dwarfs are also known as G-Type main sequence stars; they are also small. Giants and supergiants are old, large stars. Red giants are usually orange and are about six hundred light years away from Earth. Blue Giants…