Our Space Journey, part 16
British spelling
To make sense of my story and obtain the best knowledgeable experience, please go to the beginning and read part 1 here.
Part 16.
We have at last arrived at this very important area in space; it has taken us the incredible time of 13.8 billion years to get to our final destination.
For every minute of that vast time, Celer has covered a distance of 18 million kilometres. Please reflect on that for a moment!
This is where our fictional journey comes to an end. It has been dark for the last 200 million years of our journey, as that was the time when no stars existed, so there was no light to illuminate space.
I have based the total distance of our journey at 13.8 billion light-years.
From the Earth, we can now see distant objects that are over 13 billion light-years away. By a simple calculation, you would think that the diameter of the universe would be 27.6 billion light-years across, but that is not the case.
In the time it has taken for that most distant light to reach the Earth, the universe has been expanding, and considering that expansion, scientists have estimated that the universe is over 90 billion light-years in diameter at this time.
Therefore, our hypothetical journey would have taken a lot longer to achieve. Another detail we are unsure about is where our solar system is positioned in the universe; we will probably never know.
With all the evidence accumulated at this time, most scientists and astronomers agree on how the universe has evolved from the Big Bang right up to the present day.
But if you were to ask any highly educated person who is involved in this field of work the question “What existed before the Big Bang?” their truthful answer would be that they simply don’t know.
As of now, there is no scientific way to find out. Maybe our universe is just one of countless universes somewhere out there in the unknown. For the moment, we will have to be content with the many conflicting ideas and theories that are available on the subject. Or maybe the best thing we can do is keep an open mind to other possibilities!
As we do not hold all the answers, it can become frustrating for those of us who take an avid interest in what has transpired in the past and what could occur in the future.
Encouragement for me is knowing that thousands of professionals, using highly advanced scientific equipment here on Earth and in outer space, continue to gain more knowledge about the creation of the universe and how it has evolved over that vast time.
I doubt if I have enough time left for someone to provide me with the answers I seek, but I do believe that considering the speed of ongoing scientific advances, young people living now will get more of the important questions answered in their lifetimes.
I do believe there are other life forms somewhere out there in the vast universe. I said earlier that the odds against there being no other life are just too big. But having said that, could it be possible that the Earth is so unique and special that it is the only world to harbour intelligent life?
I must admit that there had to be a very large number of perfect conditions that converged in the right way and at the right time for life to get started and flourish on our world, or could our existence be accidental?
If any of these forces, such as Gravitational Force, Electromagnetic Force, Strong Nuclear Force, or Weak Nuclear Force had been slightly stronger or weaker, we would probably not exist.
On October 16, 2017, excited scientific communities held news conferences all around the world, it was about the discovery of gravitational waves. These waves had just arrived on Earth after a journey lasting 130 million years. The gravitational waves are thought to have originated following the merging of two neutron stars, GW 170817, which caused a gigantic kilonova explosion, 1,000 times more powerful than a typical supernova.
The discovery was made by LIGO, the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory, which comprises two very large interferometers located thousands of kilometres apart. LIGO is blind to any part of the electromagnetic spectrum as it was solely designed to detect gravitational waves, which are not part of the light spectrum.
The first gravity waves ever detected are thought to have come from two black holes merging; they were detected on September 14, 2015, and announced on February 11, 2016.
The timing of this discovery is different because conventional observatories all over the world could see the effects of the explosion in visible light. It has been 100 years since Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, and at last, his theory has been proven.
LIGO and other gravitational wave detectors are going to be very important scientific tools for new research and discoveries about the universe.
Returning to Earth time and reality
The search continues.
Astronomers have achieved something that was thought impossible just a few years ago. In April 2019, they captured a real image of a black hole using a world-spanning network of 8 observatories called the Event Horizon Telescope. They zoomed in on M87 and managed to create a picture of a black hole for the first time.
M87 is in a region of space 55 million light-years from the Earth. This gigantic black hole is 40 billion kilometres across, with a mass 6.5 billion times that of our sun. To put that Black Hole’s size into perspective, the most distant planet, Neptune, is at an average distance of 4.5 billion kilometres from the Earth.
Our first successful mission to a planet was in 1962 when Mariner 2 flew by Venus at almost 35,000 km from its surface. We had to wait 27 years before we finally visited all of the planets in our solar system. In 1989, Voyager 2 reached the most distant planet, Neptune, passing about 5,000 km from its surface.
There are some tantalising possibilities for primitive life to exist in the solar system. Scientists have not ruled out the chances of finding past or present life on Mars; the hunt goes on.
There could be life on one or more of the moons orbiting the planets in the Solar System. Saturn’s moon Enceladus is thought to have large reservoirs of liquid water beneath its frozen surface. The reason for the liquid water is warming caused by gravitational interactions with other moons orbiting Saturn.
Another candidate is Jupiter’s moon Europa; it has vast salty seas, but they lie beneath an ice crust 15 to 25 kilometres deep. It is thought that life could live in hydrothermal vents on the bottom of its oceans.
I hope that sometime during their grown-up lives, my grandchildren will have acquired a far better and more comprehensive understanding of our existence and what other amazing celestial objects there might be in that vast area we call the universe.
They might even get proof of other life, living in the Solar System or other distant worlds.
Around 1886 is regarded as the birth of the modern automobile or car; therefore, you could say that from travelling on horse-drawn carriages to sending men to the moon took us about 80 years. Imagine what new developments and discoveries there will be in the years to come.
Have you given your existence much thought? Consider yourself very special and unique; the odds against you being here are astronomical and extremely close to zero.
Part of those odds is that you are the latest result of an unbroken chain of reproduction that started well over 3 billion years ago.
I was thinking about how many times the Earth has circled the Sun in its lifetime; it works out to about 4.5 billion times. I feel privileged to have shared that journey 70 times. It makes you realise how short our lives are considering the age of the universe.
We should all make the most of our precious time. Enjoy your ride on spaceship Earth.
I hope you have found this story interesting and educational. I have gained far more knowledge by researching and writing it.
The end.
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