Shhh. I Think There’s Something Out There.
Have you ever thought about life on another planet? Of course, you have. We all have. We have been exploring the stars since the beginning of mankind. Scientific advancements have made it possible to see other stars (our sun is a star) and galaxies and proof that black holes exist. Because I am no scientist, astronomer, physicist or engineer, I will tell you in my simple speak how very fascinating this space thing is. My analogies will no likely be off, but you should get the picture.
First there is our solar system. It consists of 8 planets. Years ago, we had 9. I guess one left and went back home (kidding). Pluto, which was considered the 9th planet was downgraded to a dwarf planet (Aww).
The below illustration from NASA shows the planet’s tilt/spin. You will note Venus spins in the opposite direction of the other planets and Uranus spins, well, up and down. Or is it down and up? It’s space so, is there an up and down? Confusing I know. The distance each planet holds from the sun on its axis is in the order as seen in the illustration:
**d=earth days, h=hours, dg=degrees**
1. Mercury — 58d 15.5h / 0dg
2. Venus — 243d 26m / 177.3dg
3. Earth — 23h 56m / 23.4dg
4. Mars — 24h 36m / 25.2dg
5. Jupiter — 9h 55m / 3.1dg
6. Saturn — 10h 40m / 26.7dg
7. Uranus — 17h 14m / 97.8dg
8. Neptune — 16h 28.3dg
You can also see in the illustration the times each planet makes one revolution as well as the degree of tilt. Venus is very slow as it takes 243 earth days to make one revolution while Jupiter and Saturn take less than half of earth days for a single revolution.
I’ll continue fascinating you with my lack of knowledge. The following is info from NASA in respect to planet temperatures. These are averages and can vary drastically depending on their proximity to the sun at any given point.
Average Temperature on Each Planet
· Mercury — 800°F (430°C) during the day, -290°F (-180°C) at night
· Venus — 880°F (471°C)
· Earth — 61°F (16°C)
· Mars — minus 20°F (-28°C)
· Jupiter — minus 162°F (-108°C)
· Saturn — minus 218°F (-138°C)
· Uranus — minus 320°F (-195°C)
· Neptune — minus 331°F (-201°C)
Source: NASA/Lunar and Planetary Institute
Neptune and Uranus are cold enough for fire to freeze (not really). But they are 3x as cold as dry ice (-109 F).
Mercury and Venus are hotter than a pizza oven. If you want pizza really fast you could go to one of those planets. I wonder how long of a trip that might take, hmm.
Speaking of distance…
These are the distances each planet is from the sun.
*Mercury — 35.98 million miles
*Venus — 67.24 million miles
*Earth — 92.96 million miles
*Mars — 141.6 million miles
*Jupiter — 483.8 million miles
*Saturn — 890.8 million miles
*Uranus — 1.784 billion miles
*Neptune — 2.793 billion miles
This should give you a perspective how vast our solar system appears to be. Imagine over a billion miles away. Voyager 2 launched in 1977 for a path to Neptune. It arrived 12 years later in 1989.
Let’s move on. Our solar system is inside the Milky Way Galaxy (no not the candy bar). The Milky Way Galaxy was named after the candy bar because of its dark covering and its soft… Sorry, so not true. Now that I know you’re awake I’ll continue.
A galaxy is comprised of suns, gases, planets and dust. Space dust are remains of exploding stars and comets among other things. NASA estimates the Milky Way to be…. wait for it, wait for it… 100,00 light years in diameter. Not to be insulting but a light year is the distance it takes light to travel in a year. Light is the fastest known speed we know at over 186,000 miles per second or over 670 million mph. I wonder if that’s in 5th gear?
Our sun and solar system also revolve around the center of the Milky Way. It takes about 250 million years for the one revolution. Given that estimate, Earth is about 4 billion years old. So, Earth has traveled 16 times around the center of the Milky Way. From what scientists can tell, every star (sun) has planets or at least one planet. There are 100 billion — 250 billion stars in the Milky Way. BOOM, mind blowing. Can you imagine? Still with me? Remember, a billion is 1000 millions. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is worth roughly 130 billion dollars. Just had to throw that in for dynamics.
Let’s move on. Scientists surmise there may be as many as a trillion galaxies in the universe. Again, not to be insulting, but a trillion is one million millions. I won’t talk about the United States deficit, that’s even more mind blowing. The Universe, that is everything we know as space, stars, galaxies, black holes and all matter is unimaginably ginormous. One million millions is beyond what we can comprehend. Now given what we know, do you believe life might just be possible elsewhere other than our tiny planet we call earth. And maybe the reason we have not made contact is that other planetary inhabitants are just too freaking far away. There could possibly be millions of planets with some type of intelligent and not so intelligent life. I am no scientist, but all of this stuff fascinates me. I am intrigued by what could possibly be out there. And if there is a supreme being, maybe he/she made it this way so no other inhabited planet would ever be able to discover each other. If there is a plan, I would love to see the playbook.
The above picture is a view of multiple galaxies. Every light you see is a galaxy. I cannot imagine there are no other living creatures in the Universe other than what there are on Earth. As a matter of fact, it would be pompous and arrogant for anyone who understands the amount of suns and planets there are, to actually believe we are alone. Energy breeds life and the Universe is composed of ungodly quantities of heat, light and explosions. No, we are not alone. All this stuff could not have been created (formed) just for one lonely inhabited planet. And the thought that is was, is more mind blowing than the vastness of the Universe itself.
My story (research) is a very simplistic approach of explaining our small solar system in an extraordinarily large space in which we all live. Whether one believes in a supreme being or not, there is no denying that we are but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a very large picture or an incredibly difficult puzzle that the best minds will probably never ever solve.
“May the force be with you.” “Beam me up Scotty.”
Man, I love this sci fi stuff.
