Similar Sentiments About Our Place in the Universe

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Image (Credit): Book cover of Olaf Staledon’s Star Maker. (Wesleyan University Press)

I was reading the 1937 science fiction classic Star Maker by British writer Olaf Stapledon when I came across this statement:

I perceived that I was on a little round grain or rock and metal, filmed with water and with air, whirling in sunlight and darkness. And on the skin of that little grain all the swarms of men, generation by generation, had lived in labor and blindness, with intermittent joy and intermittent lucidity of spirit. And all their history, with its folk-wanderings, its empires, its philosophies, its proud sciences, its social revolutions, its increasing hunger for community, was but a flicker in one day of the lives of stars.

It reminded me of Carl Sagan’s famous statement from his book Pale Blue Dot:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Mr. Stapledon had only his imagination at hand when he pondered the role of humans. His book has been praised by numerous science fiction writers, including H. G. Wells, Stanisław Lem, and Arthur C. Clarke.

Mr. Sagan was fortunate to have an image from Voyager I that clearly made this same point. We need the combined powers of dreamers and scientists as we face this awesome universe.

Image (Credit): This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. (NASA JP)

Extra: For more background on the image above, visit NASA’s site 10 Things You Might Not Know About Voyager’s Famous ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Photo.

Pic of the Week: Europa in All its Glory

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Hubble images of Jupiter’s moon Europa. (NASA, NASA-JPL, University of Arizona)

This week’s photo of Jupiter’s moon Europa was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in June 1997 (and released by NASA on October 14, 2021). Here is the story about these two images (the left one in natural color and the right one enhanced) from the Hubble site:

This photograph of the Jovian moon Europa was taken in June 1997 at a range of 776,700 miles by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.

Slightly smaller than Earth’s moon, Europa has a very smooth surface and the solid ice crust has the appearance of a cracked eggshell. The interior has a global ocean with more water than found on Earth. It could possibly harbor life as we know it.

Hubble Space Telescope observations of Europa have revealed the presence of persistent water vapor in its very tenuous atmosphere. Hubble observations, spanning 1999 to 2015, find that water vapor is constantly being replenished throughout one hemisphere of the moon. This is a different finding from Hubble’s 2013 observations that found localized water vapor from geysers venting from its subsurface ocean. This water vapor comes from a different process entirely. Sunlight causes the surface ice to sublimate, transitioning directly into gas.

This color composite Galileo view combines violet, green, and infrared images. The view of the moon is shown in natural color (left) and in enhanced color designed to bring out subtle color differences in the surface (right). The bright white and bluish part of Europa’s surface is composed mostly of water ice, with very few non-ice materials. Long, dark lines are fractures in the crust, some of which are more than 1,850 miles long.

Largest Comet to Date Approaching the Sun

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Image (Credit): Comparison of comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) to several other comets. (NASA, ESA, Zena Levy (STScI))

A monster comet that takes 3 million years to circle the Sun is being closely analyzed by astronomers. The comet, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), will come closest to the Sun in 2031, but even then it will be about 1 billion miles away. At the most distant point in its orbit, the comet is about half a light year away from the Sun.

As shown in the graphic above, this is a large comet that could fully cover the state of Rhode Island. It was first detected by astronomers back in November 2010, when it was still 3 billion miles from the Sun. With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, the astronomers were able to learn more about it this year.

The comet is believed to be a product of the Oort Cloud circling far outside our solar system. Of course, the Oort Cloud itself is a theory that has never been directly observed. But what about the Voyager spacecraft that left our solar system? Well, if you are willing to wait another 300 years, and the spacecraft are still working, you may have an answer.

You can read more about the comet at this NASA site.

A Day in Astronomy: The First Human in Outer Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin before his first flight on April 12, 1961. (London Science Museum)

On this day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into outer space. He was launched into orbit aboard the Soviet Vostok 1 spacecraft. He orbited the Earth for 108 minutes before landing in Kazakstan. He did not come down in the capsule, but instead landed separately using a parachute.

Yuri Gagarin was later quoted as saying:

When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!

It was his only flight into space. He died in 1968 in a training flight accident.

The following month, on May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space. He was aboard a Mercury capsule named Freedom 7. 

Image (Credit): Reentry capsule of the Vostok 1 with charring and its parachute on the ground after landing in Kazakhstan. (European Space Agency)