General

I like to believe I am a thinker… An individual who casually ponders the great mysteries of our existence and the whos, whats, whys, wheres, and hows of our brief time here in the universe. Recently, I’ve taken to looking up at the sky at night from my small bedroom window. Why, you ask? Well, that is a complicated answer. I have always had a fascination with what lies beyond our pretty blue planet and out into that deep, deep, deep, deep dark ocean that is space. I consider myself not to be dissimilar from some dirty caveman fearing ‘Big rock. Fall from sky. Hit head.’ Though, where he was wrapped in leathers he’d tanned from a beast he hunted for days to acquire, eating the charred leg of said beast – I sit on the edge of my computer chair in my old underwear I got from Marshall’s eating a teriyaki Slim Jim I bought at the Marathon down the road.

But, I digress. In whatever rare circumstances that birthed a planet in which I am able to type this post – be it by the right of divinity, science, or some other third thing – I can’t help but fear and yearn to know and learn more about our place in the universe before I expire. I have no special knowledge or academic background in the sciences (though sometimes I wish I did) but I have devoted an above-average amount of time to listening, reading, and watching space-related materials. In saying that, here are just five things that I find supremely fascinating and terrifying about the cosmos.

1. There is no definite size to the universe… But it’s BIG.

Unlike anything comprehensible by the human mind – there is no ‘scale’ of the universe… Only what we can see. The observable universe is estimated to be 92-94 billion light years in diameter, and the reason it is measured in light years and not something smaller like miles is that astronomers found rather quickly that the number becomes far too large too quickly. For reference, one light year is six trillion miles (6,000,000,000,000)… So you do the math. Not to mention the volume of the observable universe is 410 nonillion light years (410,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)

 In saying that, this is just what we can see. What we can’t see – according to scientific estimates – puts the unobservable universe at about 23 trillion light years across or 15 million times the volume of what we can currently observe. In layman’s terms, we can see a little over .4% of the universe. Little fish… Big ass pond.

2. The Great Attractor 

Imagine you’re in a kayak in the middle of a big lake and something unseen is slowly pulling you toward the center and you have no idea what it is… That’s what’s currently happening to our galaxy. There is a region in the Laniakea Supercluster (the cluster of galaxies in which includes our very own Milky Way galaxy) that has a detectable mass of around 10 million billion suns (1 followed by 150 zeros) in which everything is being pulled toward. Could this be a massive black hole? A buy one get one free deal at Supercuts? Fish made extra crispy at the cosmic Mehlman’s? Dan Cortez? Whatever it is – it’s attracting everything around us and we don’t know what it is. Don’t worry though, unless you’re celebrating your 100 billionth birthday, you’ll be long gone before we get there.

3. Fast Radio Bursts

Unless an intergalactic Ryan Seacrest is plugging an add for Health-Ade Kombucha – these ‘fast radio burst’ or FRB’s are transient radio pulses of lengths ranging to a fraction of a millisecond or up to 3 seconds – are caused by astrophysical processes not yet understood by mankind. Terrifyingly, whatever these FRB’s are, they put out as much energy in a millisecond as the sun puts out in three days. But, don’t worry

. You don’t need a special helmet or lead vest to cover your organs – the strength of these signals by the time they reach Earth are around 1,000 times less than signals produced from a mobile phone. They were first discovered in 2007 by British-born American astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer – coincidentally a professor of physics and astronomy at West Virginia University. Go Mountaineers. Maybe the Mountaineer him/herself can blow away a burst with a fresh musket ball.

4. The sounds of Saturn…

This one isn’t as mysterious or as fascinating on the grand scale of the universe but it’s one of those things that strikes the primal fear chord and genuinely unsettles me. The Cassini Spacecraft was an orbiting probe launched in 1997 to discover more about Saturn and its moons. It took groundbreaking photos and relayed valuable information about the gas giant and its atmosphere; water ocean; and some other wild information worthy of a read. 

However, The Cassini Spacecraft also detected intense radio emissions from the planet. Specifically, the natural magnetic field lines a.k.a. Aurorae of Saturn produced signals that NASA shifted to the range of human hearing and later compressed. Listen to it yourself but these noises scare the s&@t out of me. Imagine being alone; floating in absolute solitude; just in reach of this massive turbulent planet and despite being lifeless… The sound of disembodied screaming hits your ears. Freaky.

5.  We could be alone…

I am a firm believer that there is life out there in the universe. To me, it would be near impossible – given the estimated size of the universe – that there is NO life out there somewhere amongst the stars. However, given that there is no concrete proof or even remotely any scientific evidence to say otherwise – it’s not ridiculous to believe we are alone. What a bleak thought. I like to think that finding or being visited by aliens would turn the trivial factions of this planet toward one common goal and maybe an alien invasion would finally be the motivation we need for everyone to just get along. Though, that is a tangent for another time. Are we just ants on an ant hill in the great cosmic backyard of a super-society? Maybe we’re way ahead of the curve and there are civilizations out there waiting for us? Are we being watched? Maybe they are already here? Who knows? But, the thought of us being all alone… On our little blue rock… Is rather terrifying.

That’s all I got. I hope you enjoyed it. Go look up at the stars. You might find something.

Godspeed Traveler,
Jub