Things I Can’t Even Comprehend About Space- Part 2

 

Part 1 of this blog post explored intriguing ideas about space including how tiny we are on a universal scale, how there has to be more life out there, and how there must be creatures that can thrive in the vacuum of space. Picking up on the same foot, the vast expanse of space has infinite mysteries that we may or may not ever know about. A few more of these fascinating mysteries include how it all began, the rate at which space is expanding, and how space can be like a time machine. 

Firstly, as per the Big Bang Theory, a safe conclusion can be that we all have stardust in us. There are tons of theories surrounding the birth of the universe, and we may never be able to prove or disprove any. However, the most widely accepted theory by the scientific community is the Big Bang Theory. As per this theory, the universe began as a single infinitely dense point. Something triggered an explosion which caused it to rapidly expand to form the universe we know today. When it cooled enough for matter to form, the stars were one of the first celestial objects to take birth. The reactions in the stars’ cores created most of the elements on the periodic table. These became the building blocks of planets, moons, asteroids, and everything else. That “everything else” includes you and me. The nuclear reactions within stars created the elements that make our bodies, so we could all have stardust in us. 

Secondly, we’ve already established that the universe is of incomprehensible size. What makes matters worse for our human brains is that this universe is expanding even further at extremely high rates, and by “high rates” I mean speeds greater than the speed of light. Light from most parts of the universe has been trying to reach us since the birth of the universe- 13.4 billion years ago- and has not been successful thus far. The expansion means that this light is being pulled away quicker than it can reach us. This means that the parts of the universe from which light has not even reached us yet are getting even further away. What I can’t comprehend is that this unending expanse is becoming even more unending.

Thirdly, based on this expansion, it can also be said that looking into space is like looking into the past. Have you ever wondered why the unit for distance in space is lightyears? A lightyear is the distance traveled by light in one year, and most celestial objects are so far away that we need to use this unit instead of the conventional kilometer. This also means that if we observe a star that is a lightyear away, we are looking at what the star looked like a year ago because it takes a year for the light from that star to reach us. In this way, looking into space can be like looking into the past because we can only see what it looked like when the light left the object because the light from what it looks like right now has not yet reached us.