The Void’s Finale: The End of the Universe

Welcome to The Edge of the Void! Your booth is ready. Our waiting staff is at your beck and call. Your dining experience is one that’s been billions of years in the making.

What’s this reservation for? Dinner and a show. Your appetizer: Big Bang Spread on Rye. Your main course: Sizzling Entropy Roast. Your dessert: Dark Energy Soufflé.

And your entertainment tonight? Front-row seats to the end of the universe.

You’re probably asking yourself what half these things are. As your maître d’, I’ll give you the rundown.

Defining entropy, courtesy of Chemistrylearner.com.

This dining experience is the perfect lead-up to the end of the universe. Our appetizer begins our meal as its namesake began the universe, and I’m not talking about the rye. The big bang sent all matter and energy in the universe careening outwards from a dense, super-heated point about 13 billion years ago. It’ll be an explosion for your taste buds, assuredly.

Meanwhile, entropy continued to build as the universe spread out, making it a naturally abundant choice for our main course. Not sure what entropy is or if you might be allergic to it? Thankfully, you’d know if you were, since every chemical reaction, matter’s every change in state, and every movement in a system increases its entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorder, meaning that we’re moving closer to a more chaotic universe every moment. Your show tonight will make it clear how important that is. But for now, dig in! Dessert is on its way.

Our dessert comes with a side dish: the revelation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Why is this? That’s where the dark energy in our soufflé comes in. Much like how a typical soufflé rises, our dark energy soufflé will continue to rise and expand until it reaches unfathomable proportions. But what is dark energy? Is it some sort of exotic substitution for the classic soufflé recipe?

A ring of dark energy (superimposed in blue), courtesy of NASA and ESA.

Not quite. In fact, dark energy takes up about 68% of the universe, though we know more about what it isn’t than what it is. Our best guess is it’s akin to a constant energy fluid or field that fills all empty space. More importantly, the amount of dark energy seems to be growing. Its increasing density is pushing the universe apart faster and faster.

But, with dessert finished, tonight’s show is upon you! What will you see when we draw back the curtains? Even our fine establishment doesn’t know, but astrophysicists have three theories.

The first possibility is the universe’s heat death. Remember entropy? As the universe continues to expand, there will be a point where we reach maximum entropy and all energy will become forms that can’t carry out essential processes for existence. The universe will be left a disordered husk that has no potential for anything new. While our universe began with a heated bang, this would be the chilled whimper that ends it.

A second, more exciting possibility plays on our universe’s accelerating expansion: the big rip. Dark matter will continue to push apart the universe ever faster. Soon, galactic clusters, galaxies, star systems, stars, planets, and eventually atoms will be ripped apart as the force of expansion overcomes the forces binding them together. With atoms splitting in the last millionths of a second of existence, you’ll get to see a cascading series of nuclear explosions as the epic finale.

A graph for Potential paths for the end of the universe, courtesy of NASA and GSFC.

But what about the opposite effect? The universe’s expansion could decelerate and begin contracting towards its centre. This is the big crunch and may occur as gravity overcomes dark energy’s expansive force. Our universe will get crowded as galaxies, stars, and planets begin to collide. Increasing density will lead to skyrocketing temperatures as everything packs together before condensing to a dense, super-heated point. Sound familiar? Yes, this is the inverse of the big bang, where everything began. A fitting way to bookend the history of the universe.

However the end comes to pass, I hope you enjoy the show! We’ve been waiting between 22–200 billion years for you to arrive, but your reservation is ready, the food is good, and it’s an exclusive show. I don’t have a ticket, so do me a favour and tell me how it ends. I don’t mind spoilers.

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Shawn Brixi — I’m an avid fan and writer of science fiction and fantasy. From the Alien to Star Trek, I’ve always been a fan of any media taking place in space and of the science of space and stellar exploration as a whole! I even built a model of the Hubble Telescope back in Grade 8 (before some goof broke it).

It’s my hope to eventually write a great book; whether it takes place in the cosmic void or another world entirely is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, I hope to entertain you all here on this blog!

Can Interstellar Travel Be Possible Without Spaceships?

It may not be possible just yet, but in the future it likely will be!  

From time to time, I wonder if it’s possible to travel through space... without a spaceship. 

In a Forbes article titled, “Could we achieve interstellar travel using only known physics?” written by Ethan Siegel, one part in particular caught my eye. It reads, “With the right technology, we could vastly improve how efficient it is to get a large-payload mass, perhaps even one that carried humans on board, to unprecedented distances across the Universe.” I found this to be very intriguing.  

The three options in which this article states that this could be possible are: 

1. The nuclear option.  

1. A space-based laser array 

1. Antimatter fuel  

I believe that with the right technology, and research, along with professionals, this can and will be done in the future. Maybe not in my lifetime, but in future generations to come.  

With resources and technology constantly evolving, the future of interstellar travel without a spaceship is looking more and more possible.  

While the future of space travel is definitely uncertain as of right now, The San Diego Union says that space travel may just one day become a commercial reality.  

I wonder if this is something people genuinely are interested in. Not to get too off topic, but Pete Davidson was considering going to space, and even he backed out... which really says something.  

A question that has come to mind is, what would be needed to make this possible? Besides the obvious: water, food, oxygen, and space suits... how would the flight take place and what would the plane need to add to make this possible?  

Again, I am sure we will find out in the decades to come, but it is an odd thing to consider in our current generation. I, for one, am excited to see what the future of space travel will have in store for us all.  

With that being said, let’s look at what www.space.com has to say about this. The article, written by Paul Sutter, is written in a light-hearted context. I can tell from the text under the title that says, “Interstellar flight is a  real pain.” which made me laugh out loud.  

This article starts off with a short bio about who the author is and includes some of this works. The first thing that stands out to me in this article is a statement within the first paragraph that reads as follows, “Interstellar space travel. Fantasy of every five-year-old within us.” I mean, truer words have never been spoken.  

Interstellar travel through space is a concept beyond comprehension. It is unreal that something can take us somewhere that is beyond all of us. It blows my mind to think such a place exists, but it does.  

Research on this topic is ever-evolving and happening as we speak. The information we read on Interstellar travel will change for years to come, and who knows? Maybe the information in this blog post will be proven wrong one day.  

But for now, let’s take heart in knowing that eventually, commercial flights to outer space will exist. The future can certainly be surprising, as we all know from the coronavirus pandemic that took effect in March 2020. So, why shouldn’t we have a reason to believe we can all go to space?  

Speaking of the future of space travel, let me tell you what Nasa has to add to this subject. This article, which titled “NASA: 60 Years and Counting,” shows a glimpse of what space travel and the future of it could potentially look like.  

The first sentence catches my attention, and instantly, I already want to read the whole article. The sentences reads as, “NASA’s future will continue to be a story of human exploration, technology, and science.” What a way to start an article!  

The rest of that paragraph talks about what the ISS has been working on and what will be created from those ideas.  

In conclusion, space travel and the way we view it is vastly changing every day, and the new technologies that are being designed to help with that are also improving.  

We learned in this blog post that as of right now, no, space travel is not YET possible on a commercial flight, but adjustments are being made to make this possible in the long-time future.  

About the Author: Future Professional Writer. Lover of Poetry & Biographies. Algonquin College Professional Writing ‘23.

Conquering the Universe is Stupid

What is the cost of your ambition?

The answer to this question varies from person to person, and often correlates to the extent of their goals. Typically, the response is something along the lines of hard work and perseverance. Most people would never openly admit that they would harm others, even if it meant that they could finally attain their heart’s desires. But for some, they would be pretty cool with destroying anything or anyone that gets in their way, and they don’t care who knows it.

…

Wait, hold on. How could anyone operate like that? Well, writers of space fiction often justify it in the same way: some folks are just really, really bad. And not “bad” like fun and cool, but bad as in truly awful on a fundamental level. Even terrible enough to eradicate entire star systems… and whatever life inhabits them.

Here’s the basic formula:

The only real variation from story to story can be found in their motives. What drives the bad guy to commit atrocities against innocent people? What’s in it for them? If every vicious act is done in the name of achieving ultimate power, what happens after they’ve achieved it? While the reasons may vary, the method is always the same: force all life to bend to their will, and destroy all who oppose them.

Consider the Sith from the Star Wars franchise. They spread evil throughout the universe to increase the power of the dark side. But why? They could just focus all of that energy on being good and achieve the same level of power. Even if they didn’t want to be as snooty and self-righteous as the Jedi, they could forge their own path to the light side without harming others. Why do innocent lifeforms have to suffer just so some dudes that they’ve never met can have cool lightning hands?

Not to mention the amount of work that a plan of that scope would require. The countless hours spent scheming and plotting, sowing the seeds of corruption wherever they can. The criminal organizations to construct, and influential people to threaten. And all of this not just on one planet, but all of them?

Of course, not every space villain goes to such trouble to get what they want. Let’s look at the example of Horde Prime from Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Rather than working with others, he created clones of himself and established a hive mine to connect them. With his vision of a perfect universe entirely under his control, he trampled all who dared defy his rule. Except… that’s still a lot of effort.

Ultimately, is it worth it? For an intergalactic control freak, perhaps it is. And a conflict of that scale is sure to make for an interesting story! But I’ve always struggled to understand the logic behind it. How could precious lives and complex civilizations be an acceptable trade for the satisfaction of one person’s egomania and greed? How entitled does someone need to be to cause so much death and destruction?

Luckily, these are fictional characters. We can just analyze them, delving into their carefully constructed backstories in order to understand them.

If only it were that easy in real life.

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HANAN OMAR - An alien cosplaying as a big nerd. I like thinking about big questions and writing down whatever my brain pukes up.

Mars vs. Earth: Who has the Greenest Thumb

Growing Crops on Mars

Martian agriculture might still be a theoretical possibility, but it's becoming increasingly feasible the more that it's researched. Especially with the recent discovery of water on Mars (although it is mostly in ice or vapour form).

photo of weightless astronaut in space with caption “gravity be like:”. photo by pixabay.

Martian crops are a subject of ongoing experimentation and research. The international space station (ISS) has ongoing experiments for growing crops in space-like conditions and has successfully harvested various crops. None of these conditions are zero gravity. The gravitational force aboard the ISS is approximately 89% of the gravity on Earth, but since the ISS is in orbit the astronauts feel weightless because of free fall. Mars has approximately 38% of the gravity of Earth, so there will be more challenges before growing anything on Mars.

These experiments consider growing conditions such as light exposure, water requirements, and the effects of low gravity on growth. Some successful harvests the astronauts on the ISS have enjoyed are leafy greens, peppers, and more. Just last year, they harvested green chilis and made themselves space tacos! It is downright fascinating to consider where these discoveries could lead.

But what about crops on Earth?

Although certainly less exciting than the prospect of Martian crops, Earthan crops are not without their unique challenges. Only, instead of it being a Martian agriculture problem, it’s a late-stage capitalism problem. Of how we can keep up with the increasing demand for crops with the level of soil erosion we are facing.

And you may be thinking, “what does soil have to do with space?” But think about it! Soil is just the inverse of space. Space occupies a great distance with little (discovered) life to speak of. On the other hand, every bit of soil is teeming with life! One square metre of rich soil can contain up to 1,000,000,000 organisms. Soil gets shoehorned as something mundane that we know everything about, but a closer look reveals so much diversity in ordinary soil. That is, if we preserve it properly.

Soil erosion sucks

image id: the flex tape meme. In the first panel, a person, labelled “humanity”, looks at a large container of water, labelled “soil erosion”. The container has a large hole and is leaking water. In the second panel, the person puts flex tape, labelled “growing food on mars”, over the hole. End ID].

image created by the author.

Soil erosion is an issue of critical importance. In recent years, there’s been a push for organic food and against genetically modified food (GMOs). But genetic modification can increase crop yield and reduce the need for pesticides.

Our current crop demand is not sustainable. We rely on topsoil for 95% of our crops and it is degrading ten times faster than it can be replenished. Thanks to pesticides, intensive soil tilling, synthetic fertilizers, lack of crop rotation, and increasing demand, the soil isn't given any opportunity to rest and recover. Humanity has not been following any soil tilling best practices. Over time, its quality inevitably degrades, and it will affect our ability to grow food. And that is purely a result of capitalism.

Growing crops on Mars is absolutely essential for long-term expeditions into space. After all, astronauts cannot rely on freeze-dried food for all their nutrition, it’s not sustainable for them. But soil erosion is not sustainable for us. This trend of running the soil we have into the ground spells worrying things for our future agricultural capabilities.

The technology that we need to resolve these issues isn't there yet, and we don't know when it will be. But despite the climate catastrophes and supply chain disruptions that our planet is currently facing, Earth is still the best equipped to meet our current agricultural needs. We cannot survive on space crops alone, no matter how cool they are.

Looking at the big possibilities has its place in our cultural imaginings. But looking closer into the evolving challenges of growing on Earth is important to sustain us until we have the technology to grow crops on Mars. If we can find a more sustainable way to do it, we can still be growing crops in 50 years. And who knows? By then, we may be able to go to Mars and have the technology needed for alternatives.

But for now, this planet is what we got. So, we should protect it while we can. Until such a time when we can abandon the Earth in a flaming heap, I'm here to remind everyone to keep Earth’s soil in your mind and hearts. Just in case Earth doesn’t implode as soon as we think. It’s always good to have a backup plan.

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existentialism collage made by milo

Milo Ezra Kane - Milo is a writing student who longs for the cold embrace of the void. When they aren’t talking about space, they can be found playing dnd, embracing the absurd, and screaming into the void about the weight of capitalism.

You can find a launch pad of other content Milo has created on linktree. Or hop over to medium to find more of their writing.

Stars - From Beginning to End

Nothing in this universe lasts forever, and stars are no exception. Despite their amazingly long lifespan, stars will eventually go out, spreading their materials across the universe to plant the seeds of the stars that will come after them.

But let’s start somewhere that makes a little more sense.

The Beginning

Stars are born in huge clouds of gas and dust called nebulae. Before the star forms, it’s called a protostar; a collection of gas that is collapsing under the force of gravity. This phase lasts about 100,000 years before the protostar becomes a proper star.

The nuclear reactions at the core of a star provides the energy that it needs to emit light. As long as the star has fuel, it can keep on shining.

Smaller stars use up fuel slowly and last for several billion years. Very large stars, on the other hand, burn through their fuel much quicker, so they only survive a measly few hundred millennia.

Once the hydrogen that powers the nuclear reactions within a star begins to run out, the star will make its first transformation. Regardless of size, the star will expand, cool, and change colour, becoming a red giant. This is where the paths of small stars and massive stars diverge.  

Image courtesy of nasa

Small Stars

Small stars, like the Sun, will gradually cool down and stop glowing.  

At the end of their red giant phase, smaller stars turn into a planetary nebula. At this point, the star becomes very unstable and begins to produce strong stellar winds which tear away the outer layers of the star. All that’s left is the bright core of the star, called a white dwarf.

The white dwarf, composed of carbon and oxygen, is created during the star’s previous phases. All the material is packed into a relatively small space, making the white dwarf very dense. It’s like trying to squeeze the mass of the Sun into a space the size of the Earth!

Speaking of the Sun, if it doesn’t consume Earth in its red giant phase, our little planet’s orbit will slowly decay, and it will spiral into the dead Sun over a trillion years.

Finally, after thousands of millions of years, the star will stop glowing and become a black dwarf. It’s a rather peaceful death compared to their much larger cousins.

Massive Stars

image courtesy of nasa

Massive stars meet a much more exciting and violent end.

After its red giant phase, a massive star will collapse in on itself. The gravity of the star gets so strong that it pulls the outer layers of the star towards the centre. The outer layers bounce off the core of the star at incredible speeds, causing shock waves and triggering a supernova explosion.

Supernovas can briefly shine brighter than an entire galaxy, scattering the star’s insides across space. It sounds gory, but these materials help form the next generation of stars by gathering in nebulae.

In the aftermath of the supernova, a very dense neutron star is left in the massive star’s place. This forms when the outer layers collapse inwards. They squish the core to the point where its atoms are smashed apart and only neutrons are left behind.

With one final shock wave, the outer layers are launched into space, sending the neutron star spinning extremely fast. Some neutron stars rotate several hundred times per second!

Remember my mass comparison from before? This is even worse. Neutron stars usually have the mass of 1 or 2 Suns, but are only about 20 km across. The only thing denser than a neutron star is a black hole.

Speaking of black holes, supermassive stars can form a black hole when they explode instead of a neutron star if they’re big enough.

The End

So, after hearing all this, would you rather die a slow but peaceful death or go out with a bang?

To the rest of the universe, we humans live meager little lives, but we aren’t the only ones. Stars only last for only a fraction of a second compared to the life of the universe.

Everything is impermanent. What matters is what we leave behind, whether our legacy is a white dwarf or a black hole.

Sources

https://astrobackyard.com/types-of-stars/

https://www.schoolsobservatory.org/learn/astro/stars/cycle 

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JAX YOUNG — Space enthusiast here to take you on a tour of the cosmos. Gets emotionally attached to Mars rovers. Virgo.

Myths and Truths about Interstellar Travel

Interstellar travel is a topic with such a wide range of myths and truths. So much so, 

In fact, that unless you’ve researched on this topic professionally, it is difficult to wrap one’s  

Mind  around what is real and what is simply made up. Especially in this day and age on the internet, 

So many things being made up and it is easy to believe them without evidence. 

An article written by Bianca Nogrady, featured on BBC.com, there are some prime questions that are being asked. Some of those questions include: 

• How would humans survive on an interstellar voyage? 

• Can’t we sleep all the way there? (A whole mood) 

• How would we get there? 

While I’m sure some professionals can answer these questions with ease, I, on the other hand, am not here to answer these questions (though, I wish I could). Some examples of the myths and truths about interstellar travel are: 

Myth 1: Faster than light travel. According to Gizmodo.com, Phil Plait (writer of Bad Astronomy) says that planets are so far apart, that while it doesn't take years to get to them, it does take a long time. So no, interstellar travel is not faster than light.  

Myth 2: Objects in space are bunched together. In the same article, it mentions that if you were to watch any scientific or space-related show or movie, space is usually represented in an over-dramatic, unrealistic way. And that much is true. Everything in outer space is SPACED OUT. Pun intended. In this section of the article, there are examples of how everything in space is separated due to how far the planets are from each other.  

Myth 3. You can communicate with aliens. I don't mean to burst anyone’s bubble, buuuuut… I don't think aliens exist. This one is a little more light-hearted than the first two myths. Throughout my elementary school days, I had a friend who just adored all things Sci-Fi and space related, and some of the things he came up with in his head were some of the most absurdly hilarious things I’ve ever heard.  So much so, that he was 100% convinced that he wanted the whole class to go to space. Yeah, no thanks!

Next, I will be listing some truths about interstellar travel. By doing so, you will see the contrast between what is clearly made up and what is the truth. All of these facts are from the website, interestingengineering.com  

Truth 1: New methods and theories for interstellar travel are always in development. This is proven by a book written by astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, in which he wrote: “I believe that space travel will, one day, be as common as airline travel is today.” The full quote, then proceeds to talk about how the future of interstellar travel should be relied on by the government, and how he hopes that one day private companies will be able to fulfill the desire of space travel to become more common.  

Truth 2: Solar sails could, one day, potentially take us beyond the stars. According to the Planetary Society, they have launched and tested a solar sail that was proven to be able to change its orbital trajectory.  

Cara Goodwin

Truth 3: NASA is working on developing a real-life warp drive. Interesting Engineering mentions that the Alcubierre drive was first originated in 1994, by Miguel Alcubierre, who was a physicist at the University of Wales, located in Cardiff. This specific drive would indicate that the use of exotic matter, in the sense that a negative mass, would need to be used. This exotic matter could potentially distort space-time, as well as making space behind the spacecraft to expand it.  

With these myths and truths proven to be true or not, I feel like this could really change the way we view space and travelling within space. I am sure there are many more myths that need to be debunked, but these are the ones I found most interesting to research on, and therefore why I included them in this blog post.  

Author Bio:

Rose-Angela Pizzuto is a future professional writer, lover of Poetry & Biographies, and is a student of Algonquin College Professional Writing ‘23.

Image source: Advanced Science News

Space tourism is a billionaire’s club

Photo by spring mag.

How did we get here?

Space travel used to represent limitless possibilities. When I was a kid, one of the most common responses to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was being an astronaut. Whereas now, unless that kid is also a billionaire that is unlikely to happen.

2021 saw an uptick in “space tourism”, with billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Elon musk, and Richard Branson carving the way in space tourism. Each of these tycoons is creating its own space tourism-based company, so what does that mean for the rest of us?

Up-and-Coming space tourism companies funded by billionaires include:

1. Space X - created by Elon Musk

2. Blue Origin - predominantly funded by Jeff Bezos

3. Virgin Galactic - Richard Branson

I think we can all agree here that space is a glittering star in a market of climate catastrophe and dull world events, something worth celebrating, whoever you are. But the emerging market of space tourism is a different beast altogether. As bad as air travel can be for the environment, space travel is much worse. And it’s one thing when it’s for a noble cause like expanding human knowledge, such as the work done by NASA and discovering new worlds. That’s enough of a worthy pursuit that it can be justified.

But space tourism is not that. It feels like glorified joyrides for the richest to partake in. Last year, Elon Musk said if the UN gave him a breakdown of how $6Bil could solve world hunger he would do it. Not enough to solve world hunger, but enough to prevent starvation from affecting 42 million people at risk of famine. So not quite the same thing, but still a big difference that could be made if he followed through with it. But he didn’t, and earlier this year he bought Twitter for $45Bil. There are so many more useful places that money could be going. The space race has become a different thing than it started.

drowning kid meme created by author.

Changing the meaning of space race

In just over 50 years the meaning of the space race has changed significantly.

Space Race in 1970: Unified efforts competing between countries for which nation would be the first to make it to space (the moon in particular).

Modern-day space race: Which billionaire will be the first to make it to space! Circa 2021, AKA the space tourism boom.

Space tourism has been described as glorified joyrides for society's richest. Since these trips into space are not substantial in their distance or time in the night sky. But I would argue that this is a whole lot of money, resources, and environmental impact happening for a joyride.

And when the funding for space tourism companies such as space x is so much more than NASA's annual budget, it paints a worrying picture for the future of space travel. It makes it harder for real change and advancements to occur in space travel when more barriers are being put up in favour of space tourism. My question is where is the place for qualified professionals and is it being filled by billionaires? How these barriers will affect the future of space travel

Space used to be a place of limitless opportunities, where everyone believed they could be an astronaut. Space travel was once a place of magic, where the possibilities were limitless. How will this boom in space tourism affect us 20 years down the line? Or a hundred?

I want a world where space remains a place full of possibilities. And not just a space occupied by the 1%. I worry about what that means for access within the realm of space travel if we continue down this line. Astronauts undergo vigorous training for a reason. And so making space into a place anyone can go to (if they can pay enough money) is a dangerous slope. Until we see how all this newfound “innovation” will play out, I will join the many Twitter users roasting the billionaire space race.

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existentialism collage made by milo

Milo Ezra Kane - Milo is a writing student who longs for the cold embrace of the void. When they aren’t talking about space, they can be found playing dnd, embracing the absurd, and screaming into the void about the weight of capitalism.

You can find a launch pad of other content Milo has created on linktree. Or hop over to medium to find more of their writing.

Three Ways the Cosmos Could Drop the Hammer on Earth

Carl Sagan once called Earth a “pale blue dot.” It’s true since, compared to the vastness of the universe, we’re truly diminutive.

As it turns out, our “pale blue dot” is also quite fragile. Countless void-borne hazards threaten life on Earth. I’m going to count us down, starting with the rarest danger.

3. The Gamma Ray Burst: The Universe’s Answer to the Death Star

Since 1991, we’ve seen about one Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) per day in galaxies far, far away. Each of those galaxies sees one approximately every 10,000 years.

A Gamma Ray Burst being shot from a black hole, illustration courtesy of NASA.

Why are they so rare? Space.com tells us that they’re the side-effects of the formation of black holes from two neutron stars collapsing into one another or when a black hole consumes another neutron star. They’ll also blind you with a burst of light more brilliant than supernovas or even hypernovas.

But that’s not what should worry you. What you do need to worry about are the dense directional lines of gamma rays they spew across the void. That’s the actual GRB.

They’re nothing to scoff at. GRBs can shear Earth’s Ozone layer, irradiate most of our ecosystems, and cause a chemical reaction in our atmosphere that would form harmful ozone at ground level to choke us. A GRB may have already hit Earth 450 million years ago (m.y.a.), potentially causing an ice age and the Ordovician Extinction Event which massacred marine life.

Thankfully, GRBs are deadlier the closer we are to their origin. We should be fine as long as no black holes form nearby.

2. Losing Earth’s Magnetic Field: Our Natural Planetary Shield

The layers of Earth’s magnetic field, courtesy of UC Regents.

Closer to home, Earth’s magnetic field is a big part of why we’re alive. With it, we get to keep our atmosphere, get an umbrella against cosmic radiation, and shelter from solar winds and flares. Losing it would be catastrophic to life on Earth. We should be thankful, especially since we get the northern and southern lights as a bonus!

The field isn’t without its hiccups. It will periodically flip its poles every 300,000–500,000 years, which can drastically weaken it. The Laschamps Excursion, a temporary flipping of the poles 42,000 years ago, reduced the field to a mere 5% of its strength and may have been responsible for numerous extinctions. Another flip may have been responsible for the End-Ediacaran Extinction 542 m.y.a.

Every shield has its limits. According to the European Space Agency, our magnetic field has weakened approximately 9% over the last two centuries. Even then, let’s not forget a solar flare in 1989 was strong enough to knock out power in Québec, Canada with our shields still up.

1. Asteroids: More Than What Killed the Dinosaurs

Here we are. The literal “big one.” This is the astronomical fear that spawned not one, but two movies in 1998: Armageddon and Deep Impact. It’s natural to be afraid, especially since there are so many tracked—and untracked—near-earth objects: over 1350 known threats as of 2022.

Earth is used to invasive space rocks raining down onto it. Theia, the biggest known Earth impact, ejected enough molten material from earth to form the Moon.

But the best-known impact is the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 m.y.a. A 13-kilometre-wide rock slammed into us at 72,500 km/h, kicking up trillions of tons of dust into the atmosphere, halting all photosynthesis, and wiping out 80% of life.

Asteroid impacts aren’t always bad, though. A study on Yarrabubba’s crater tells us its impact 2.29 billion years ago through an ice sheet several kilometres thick may have vaulted trillions of tons of water into the atmosphere. It may have given us the greenhouse effect that shaped the atmosphere we know today.

Thankfully, our biggest known threat, Asteroid 1950 DA, is only 1.1km across and has only a one-in-three-hundred chance of hitting us in the year 2880. Mark your calendars!

So, is it the end of the world as we know it?

Our “pale blue dot” is truly vulnerable. Thankfully, probability says all these Earth-shattering things will likely happen anywhere but Earth. At the very least, if we have to live in a real world with real threats, we don’t have to worry as much about fiction’s most popular space-borne threat: alien invasions.    

 Or do we?

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Shawn Brixi — I’m an avid fan and writer of science fiction and fantasy. From the Alien to Star Trek, I’ve always been a fan of any media taking place in space and of the science of space and stellar exploration as a whole! I even built a model of the Hubble Telescope back in Grade 8 (before some goof broke it).

It’s my hope to eventually write a great book; whether it takes place in the cosmic void or another world entirely is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, I hope to entertain you all here on this blog!

Black Holes - Brilliant but Deadly

Black holes! You know ‘em, you love ‘em. What’s not to like about giant vacuums that turn you into a spaghetti noodle if you get too close?

In more scientific terms, black holes are a huge amount of matter packed into a very small space. The result is a gravitational pull that’s so strong that nothing can escape, not even light.

But how do they happen?

If a star is big enough (around 3 times the size of the sun), nothing can keep it from collapsing under the influence of gravity, causing a supernova explosion. At one point, the surface of the star will reach the “event horizon.” When it reaches this point, time on the star slows and literally stops.

Then, because time is standing still, the star can’t collapse any further. It remains frozen in the middle of caving in on itself and becomes a black hole.

Types of black holes

There are 2 major kinds of black holes: stellar mass and supermassive.

Stellar mass black holes are the average Joes of black holes. They are the remnants of massive stars and are all over the universe. In fact, scientists predict that there are ten million to a billion stellar mass black holes in the Milky Way alone.

Image courtesy of nasa

On the other end of the spectrum of giant space vacuums, supermassive black holes are millions, if not billions of times as massive as the Sun. Astronomers believe that supermassive black holes are at the centre of almost all large galaxies, including our own.

The formation of supermassive black holes is theorized to be a chain reaction of collisions of stars that results in extremely huge stars, which promptly collapse to form medium-sized black holes. All these black holes gravitate towards the centre of the galaxy and merge together to create a supermassive black hole.

So, there’s only two sizes of black holes with no in between? Well, that’s what scientists thought until recently.

The newly discovered mid-mass black hole has the mass of about 500 to 1000 Suns, and kind of wrecked a bunch of theories about the formation of black holes.

What’s inside?

The center of a black hole is called the singularity. It doesn’t really exist.

I want to call it the point of no return to be dramatic, but honestly if you’re anywhere near a black hole, you’ve already reached that point.

The singularity is the place where matter sucked into the black hole is compressed down to an infinitely tiny point… theoretically.

Or it could be where matter gets squished into the smallest possible volume, a Planck length. Everything that has ever entered the black hole gets compressed into a microscopic ball… theoretically.

Black holes could be filled with dark energy—the stuff that causes the universe to expand. As things get sucked in, they can’t actually get past the event horizon because of all that dark energy and instead remains on the surface… theoretically.

All this to say, we don’t know for sure what’s inside of black holes. I mean, it’s not like we can send someone inside to go check.

Rotating Black Holes

All of the fun stuff I’ve mentioned already are about boring, stationary black holes, but rotating black holes are where things get beyond cool (if the theories are correct, that is).

Image courtesy of pixabay

The spin of a rotating black hole turns the singularity into a ring. Once you pass through the ring, you enter a real-life wormhole that spits you out into an entirely different part of the universe.

Of course, if you were to encounter the inside of a rotating black hole, you would be faced with a wall of infinitely energetic radiation.

The black hole is pulling radiation in, but the rotation speed of the singularity ring pushes the radiation back. The turning point is called the inner horizon.

That’s the entire past history of the universe blasted into your face in less than a second!

Too bad you’ll be too busy being a noodle to notice.

Sources

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes

https://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/blackholes.html

https://www.space.com/what-happens-black-hole-center

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JAX YOUNG — Space enthusiast here to take you on a tour of the cosmos. Gets emotionally attached to Mars rovers. Virgo.

The Stars are Just Like Us, Only Cooler-Looking and Better

The earliest humans would gaze out into the night, their terror over the sun’s disappearance turning into wonder over the countless twinkling lights illuminating the dark sky. Eventually, they noticed that these lights, remaining in the same configurations, were shifting; it was as though the constellations were slowly rotating around the world. They realised that by observing the position of the stars, they could keep track of time. This discovery allowed the ancients to measure out the seasons and years.

While that might not seem like much, understanding the passage of time is what gives us the ability to plan ahead. Mankind was able to figure out the best time of year for planting or harvesting specific crops. They could predict natural disasters — like floods and storms — and take measures to protect themselves. Something that we now take for granted was revolutionary at the dawn of civilization, and it propelled humanity forward even faster.

The Mesopotamians recognized the significance of the stars, Moon, and planets in their lives. Without them, they would not be able to enjoy the many benefits of forecasting the future. Before long, the stars became more than just a pretty calendar; they became gods. How else could the ancients explain their influence on the seasons? Their magnificent shining appearance? Their longevity in a time when the average life expectancy was thirty?

Fueled by their desire to understand these celestial bodies, the Mesopotamians dedicated centuries to studying them. They were even able to use their research to predict eclipses. Do you know how to do that? I don’t. I have the internet to help me, and I still miss them.

Over time, the night sky became a reference book to guide humanity in all areas. The constellations became symbols, each representing its own period of one month. The month in which a person was born allowed astrologers to chart out their fate. Throughout the civilised world, the study of astrology evolved and became more complex. 

Relationship astrology determines your compatibility with the people in your life. Medical astrology studies your health and predicts how illness will affect you. There’s even horary astrology, a practice that can provide answers to specific questions! No matter the issue, the stars seem to have a solution for everything.

But why are people so inclined to believe in them? Even when we only knew them to be tiny specks of light, why have we always had the collective instinct to revere them? At this point, we know that these brilliant constellations are composed of fiery gas balls hundreds, thousands, even millions of lightyears away. They aren’t even in the same configurations they were in when they were named. And yet, the practice of astrology has stood the test of time.

Perhaps we are compelled to believe in the stars because they have already given us so much. Without them, mankind might not have lasted as long as it has. Or perhaps the same wonder our ancestors felt under the glittering beauty of the night sky lives on in our hearts even now.

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HANAN OMAR - An alien cosplaying as a big nerd. I like thinking about big questions and writing down whatever my brain pukes up.

Moon Landing - it is real or fake?

Is moon landing real or fake? This is a question that has been nagging in people’s heads for years upon years. According to an article written by Space.com, it is a hoax that has been spreading like a wildfire on the internet for over 50 years, after Apollo 11 took place. For those who aren't familiar, Apollo 11 was the first mission to land on the moon. 

One example of this ongoing argument is from back in February of 2001, when Fox Broadcasting released a documentary called, “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?”, in which a man named Phil Plait worked tirelessly, doing everything he possibly could to prove that, yes, Moon Landing is in fact real.  

Plait has stated that he wished that the documentary had never aired. He has said, “ ...it opened a huge Pandora’s box. On the other hand, it’s exposing a wound to sunlight. That thing was there anyway, festering. Let it get out to the public, and let it heal, and let it kill the infection.”  

Even though people were, and still are, extremely skeptical of moon landing, people are well aware that astronauts such as Neil Armstrong had stepped on the moon on July 20th, 2”1969. For example, the movie, “Diamonds Are Forever” featuring James Bond, even made a comment about fake moon landings, when it hit the big screen two years later, in 1971. 

Another article that I had looked at was by The Rolling Stones, which gives us a quick overlook of the history of conspiracy theories about moon landing. The article starts out by saying, “the moon is weird,” which, yes, I would agree in some cases. Another statistic that it gives us is the fact that only 12 people have actually been to the moon of all mankind, which is so crazy to think about as it seems like so much more.  

Some examples of people’s uneducated opinions include: 

1. The moon is made of cheese. 

1. Women’s menstrual cycles are affected by the lunar cycle. 

Both of these things are almost hilariously inaccurate.  

The third and final article I will be looking at is by the Washington Post. In the title, it mentions that theorists are still “howling” at the “moon hoax.” The first small paragraph of this article, which was written back in 2019, mentions that the President-at-the-time, Donald Trump, had ordered Nasa to put astronauts back on the moon by the year 2024.  

In this article , one of the main points says that, “None of this will change the minds of people who live in a parallel belief universe where NASA faked the Apollo Moon landings.” - Confusing much? Because of the times in which we are living now, people are much more gullible to falling for conspiracy theories and rumours. So much so, that even a topic such as this can have people going at each other over literal nonsense.  

World-building in Space: Filling in Those Parsecs

Space is very big and very empty… but it doesn’t have to be. What makes space so interesting is how it’s so large and so full of possibility. Our fertile minds have been populating the stars with people and places for as long as we’ve ever thought to turn our heads skyward. But it’s been up to writers like you to make those galaxies a place you want to book your next science expedition to.

Worldbuilding in space fiction is not easy. According to NASA, Alpha Centauri—our closest celestial neighbour—is just over 4 light years away. So, the first thing you need to do when you begin worldbuilding is figuring out how your wagon-train-to-the-stars is going to get there.

The warp core of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Enterprise-D, courtesy of Paramount Domestic Television.

Space fiction has no shortage of forms of locomotion. Star Trek has warp speed. Stargate has ancient rings that create wormholes between one another. Battlestar Galactica has FTL Drives that jump their ships from one point in space to another.

Regardless of how, when creating a world that spans the stars, traversal is key. Otherwise, no one is ever going to cross the void to meet each other. After that, you can build the appropriate level of technology in the rest of your futuristic world to complement it.

Next, with your fancy “space wheels” to get around, you’ll ask: why do you get around? Are we going out there just to chart nebulae and play ping-pong with comets?

Not quite. To make this universe compelling, you need to recall a natural—ironically—human instinct: socialization. This is when you need to start populating worlds with all those quirky—sometimes gross, sometimes-oddly-attractive—aliens.

There are plenty of takes on aliens and you want to tailor them to the sub-genre of space fiction you want to write. Are you looking to write an uplifting vision of the future? Are you looking to write how the horror space can never be truly comprehended? You need to carefully consider how your aliens reflect this.

Executor Pallin, a member of Turian Law enforcement in Mass Effect, courtesy of Bioware.

Mass Effect does a great job of this by introducing us to a whole galactic community, with the central idea of the game being to pull a diverse set of races together to combat an existential threat. Most space fiction tends to develop their aliens by fixating on a particular characteristic and building their culture around that, and Mass Effect is no exception.

The Turians are a civilization built on the concept of “public service first,” resulting in a heavy military focus. Meanwhile, the Asari are a race blessed with the strongest biotic powers and have a strong spiritual side launching off that. These focal points help define the races more clearly and help us relate them to humanity in some way. They also help us develop their home worlds, social systems, cuisines, and religions.

At the same time, there’s something to be said for the terrifying and unknowable alien. The Xenomorphs in Alien work into their sci-fi-horror genre because we don’t even know what they look like or what they’re capable of for most of the film. In this genre, less is sometimes better.

Of course, for your galaxy-spanning world to live and breathe, you need to tie all of these things together. Connection is key. All the parts of this massive, galaxy-spanning world must influence each other in some way to be compelling.

Think about these examples:

A battle between two Starfleet Vessels and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

• How do the Klingons interact with the Federation in Star Trek? Largely through war, given the Klingons’ volatile nature and the Federation’s steadfastness.

• How do scientific organizations interact with a newly discovered planet? They feel the need to push too far on a strange world that someone put up a “do not walk on the deadly space grass” sign that no one could understand.

• Will someone look at the green-skinned-space-babe and say in Captain Kirk’s stilted voice, “I’d tap that,” to breach the question of how interspecies mingling works.

Well… maybe not that last one necessarily.

If you connect these distant worlds an­­d fill them with interesting people and places that interact in intriguing, funny, or dramatic ways, you’ll want to be boldly going there. And once you want to go there, your audience will want to follow you there too.

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Shawn Brixi — I’m an avid fan and writer of science fiction and fantasy. From the Alien to Star Trek, I’ve always been a fan of any media taking place in space and of the science of space and stellar exploration as a whole! I even built a model of the Hubble Telescope back in Grade 8 (before some goof broke it).

It’s my hope to eventually write a great book; whether it takes place in the cosmic void or another world entirely is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, I hope to entertain you all here on this blog!

The mystery of dark matter

Wondering what space is made of? Well, so is everyone else.

It all started with Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933. He was measuring the speed at which the Coma galaxy cluster spun and noticed that the cluster was moving at a speed that implied much more mass than what was visible. Zwicky theorized there was some sort of “missing mass” keeping the galaxies from escaping the cluster’s gravitational pull.

In the 1970s, American astronomer Vera Rubin and her colleagues confirmed Zwicky’s theory. They observed that the mass of the stars within an average galaxy is only about 10 percent of what is required to keep those stars orbiting the galaxy’s centre.

Thus, the mystery of dark matter was born.

Composition

But what is all this “missing mass”? Space fog? Alien interference? Billions of tonnes of invisible primordial soup, the first ever forbidden snack? Maybe.

Image courtesy of unsplash

The truth is, we know more about what dark matter is not than what it is.

The first thing we know is that it isn’t visible to the eye. Dark matter is, well… dark. Its presence is detected by its gravitational pull rather than its luminosity or its ability to reflect light. This means that scientists need to get creative when it comes to measuring dark matter (but I’ll get to that later).

It also isn’t antimatter. Dark matter doesn’t produce the unique gamma rays antimatter does when it collides with regular matter.

Finally, it is not the same as the dark clouds of matter in and between galaxies. These gases are made up of baryons (protons, neutrons and the like), familiar and recognizable to any scientist with a degree in astrophysics. But a common belief is that dark matter isn’t baryonic at all. Instead, it’s assumed to be made up of particles that exist in theory but have yet to be observed.

That’s a longer way of saying we have no idea what this stuff is made of.

Measurement

It’s later, and now is the time to talk about measuring dark matter!

Scientists can indirectly measure dark matter through a method called gravitational lensing. Like with optical lenses, light passing through a gravitational lens gets bent, not unlike myself when I advise my brother to put anything but hot sauce on his vegetables.

When light from distant stars passes through a galaxy, the gravity of the matter in that galaxy causes the light to bend. As a result, the light looks like it’s coming from somewhere other than its actual origin. Many NASA scientists use the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the amount of bending to learn about the dark matter present in a certain galaxy or cluster.

image courtesy of unsplash

Theories

There are no small number of theories surrounding dark matter, but I’ll only cover some of the major ones.

Dark matter could be brown dwarfs—stars that never ignited because they lacked the necessary mass. Or maybe the remnants of the cores of dead small or medium sized stars, called white dwarfs. Dark matter might even be neutron stars, or giant galaxy-sized black holes, or literally magic.

Okay, probably not that last one.

The issue with those theories is that there just aren’t enough failed or dead stars to account for the amount of dark matter in the universe.

Dark matter makes up roughly 30 percent of the universe’s matter-energy composition (literally everything in the universe). I mean, that’s a substantial percentage, but it’s not that much, right? It may seem that way until you learn that everything on Earth and everything NASA has ever observed with all their fancy telescopes adds up to less than 5 percent of the universe. What a way to make you feel small.

The rest of the composition is dark energy, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Conclusion

To this day, the nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest astronomical mysteries. Despite being aware of it for nearly a century, we know very few things about dark matter that aren’t (at least in part) theoretical. All we know for sure is that it’s there, and it’s keeping all those really pretty galaxies together. Everyone say thank you, dark matter!

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/science/dark-matter

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12/features/what-is-dark-matter.html

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JAX YOUNG — Space enthusiast here to take you on a tour of the cosmos. Gets emotionally attached to Mars rovers. Virgo.

Are We All Connected?

Looking out into the infinite universe, it’s hard to see what the purpose of our existence is. Is it all just random chaos, or is everything a piece of a larger picture? This question has been pondered throughout all of human history. Philosophers reflect and reason, mathematicians and physicists pore over facts and data. They spend lifetimes in pursuit of the truth, but each answer just reveals new questions.

As it turns out, not knowing things leaves plenty of room for our imaginations to run wild. Between the known and the unknown exists the creative genre of space fiction. What lies beyond the realm of human understanding is a playground of speculation – an infinite hardware store of tools and supplies to craft endless stories. And yet, one theme seems to come up all throughout the genre: connection. More specifically, the connection of every living thing in the universe.

In Star Wars, there’s the Force. In Voltron, quintessence. She-Ra could tap into the energy of a planet and propel it through dimensions! Each fictional voyage into space seems to find the characters face-to-face with some massive well of energy to which every living being is linked.

The reason behind this is rather simple; space fiction is just a whimsical, emotional exploration into the nature of existence. It is yet another vehicle heading toward the goal of understanding our place in the universe, but it takes the scenic route. While it is often inspired by existing research and philosophy, space fiction takes liberties that make the void seem less overwhelming and pants-shittingly scary. It’s similar to religion, except disagreements just lead to nerds arguing online instead of war and human tragedy.

The storylines of space fiction that pursue this idea of interconnectedness often follow the same basic formula: a small number of people, some good and some bad, have the ability to draw power from what is fundamentally the essence of life itself. The hero must learn to wield this power in order to face a great evil, overcoming their own personal struggles along the way. Throughout their training, they form a deeper understanding of this energy and learn to set aside their individuality to become part of something bigger. Written all out like this, it seems kind of cheesy.

And yet…

There’s something about this story arc that speaks to me. And judging by the obsessive enthusiastic fanbases supporting these kinds of stories, it must resonate with a lot of other people as well. There’s something incredibly comforting about being part of something more significant, something that we can feel even if we can’t understand what it is.

It could be that there is a God that created everything and watches over us. Or maybe we’re all part of the Living Force, and when we die we become part of the Cosmic Force. We could just be one being experiencing itself in infinite ways. Or we could be nothing.

But until we know for sure, we can keep writing stories about the endless possibilities.

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HANAN OMAR - An alien cosplaying as a big nerd. I like thinking about big questions and writing down whatever my brain pukes up.

Introduction

Welcome aboard! Come with us in an exploration of the vast universe, whether it’s through the lens of a telescope or through the eyes of Jean-Luc Picard. Here, you can voyage through the stars without ever leaving your couch. From the history of space exploration to its portrayal in fiction, there’s a home in the cosmos for everyone.