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Ancient Astronomical Calendars
Space Travel
Since the beginning of time, people have looked to the heavens with wonder. In the book of Genesis in the Bible, the people decided to build a tower that would reach heaven. According to the scriptures, God saw that people could do anything they wanted to do if they worked together, so He caused people to speak different languages and scattered them around the earth -- He later destroyed the tower as well. The attempt to build the Tower of Babel happened after the great flood, but before Abraham's covenant with God. Yes, humans have always been fascinated by the sky…the heavens….and the desire to reach out and touch it.
Back in the 1960s, President John Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon before any other nation could accomplish the feat. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. aboard; the destination was the moon. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. He uttered the historic words, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Space travel became a reality.
Since that historic day in 1969, we have sent unmanned space craft to Mars and Saturn. They have sent back some truly amazing photographs. We are learning more and more about our solar system and the other plants that circle our sun.
America's space program is still at work and the possibility of space travel is a very real possibility. There are many problems that must be overcome before a manned space craft can be launched and sent to other planets, but I do believe that someday it will happen -- maybe not in my lifetime, but someday.
See Also:
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The Moon Shot
The Planet Mars
Earthlings have always been fascinated by the planet, Mars. The "little green men from Mars" invading Earth has been the stuff of science fiction for decades. On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles did a dramatization of H. G. Wells's "War of the Worlds" on the Mercury Theatre on the Air radio show. During the four commercial breaks of the program, there were disclaimers aired telling the audience that the content was fictional. Still, panic erupted in towns across America.
There was a new 40-inch telescope being built by the University of Chicago in 1895. An astronomy professor, Samual Leland Phelps, wrote a book about the project called "World Making." In the book, the professor wrote, "It will be possible to see cities on Mars, to detect navies in [its] harbors, and the smoke of great manufacturing cities and towns...Is Mars inhabited? There can be little doubt of it...conditions are all favorable for life, and life, too, of a high order. Is it possible to know this of a certainty? Certainly." Well…not exactly, professor!
From observations of Mars from stationary observatories on earth, astronomers concluded that:
1. The reddish color of Mars is caused by red rocks and dust.
2. The polar ice caps increase and decrease according to seasons.
3. There are what were thought to be canals on the surface. (That has since been disproved)
4. There are areas of Mars that change color. (It was believed that this was vegetation, but that has been disproved, as well.)
5. Mars has an atmosphere.
Space probes, beginning with Mariner 4, 6, 7, and 9 from 1965 through 1971, and the Viking 1 and 2 probes in 1976, disproved many of the previously held beliefs about Mars. We are learning more about Mars all the time, and one important fact is that there aren't any little green (or any other color) men living on Mars. |
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Our Sun's Twin
Our Sun's Twin
Jorge Melendez of the Australian National University, and Ivan Ramirez of the University of Texas at Austin, are both astronomers from Peru. Using the Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory located atop Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, they discovered the best candidate as a twin to our sun that has been found to date in November 2007. The findings by Melendez and Ramirez suggest that our sun's chemical composition is not unique, as some previously thought.
The star found by the Peruvian astronomers is in the constellation Draco, which is over 200 light years away from our solar system. HIP 56948, the star in question is more like our sun than any yet seen. The star may be a billion years older than the sun.
There have been three other possible twins to our sun located, but there is a major difference in the amount of lithium they contained. These stars -- 18 Scorpius, HD 98618, and HIP 100963 -- have all been contenders, but they all contain several times more lithium than our sun. This difference has led astronomers to believe that our sun was possibly unique because of its low amount of lithium. Now, it seems, maybe our sun is not so unique after all.
The search for solar twins to our sun is important because astronomers use our sun as a baseline for a variety of astronomical studies, and studying our own sun is very difficult because it is too close and too bright.
The discovery of HIP 56948 by Melendez and Ramirez lays to rest the belief that our sun is somehow completely unique and that the uniqueness is what allowed life to spring up and thrive and raises the possibility (no, probability) that life exists in other places in the universe. Maybe we aren't alone.
Related Topics: Digital Astrophotography,
Telescope Accessories, The Planet Uranus
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