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Universe

• Introduction

            Finite or infinite? Who can say with certainty? Does this have any importance for those who barely know the environment in which they live?
 
            We live in a world where few can or will have the exact concept of what is to be small and is really great. As little know the depths of the sea, few know also about the most remote things of the sky. We bring them at least a little of the wonders that are so distant from our little world.

• Curiosity

• The Milky Way on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy

            Our Solar System is located at the Milky Way, our galaxy. In billions of years, Andromeda’s Galaxy will hit Milky Way. But before this final collision, Andromeda will make two approximations to the Milky Way.
            In one of these approximations, our planetary system (Solar System) can leave Milky Way and migrate to Andromeda, which is bigger than Milky Way. We don’t know yet how these approximations will be, but they will certainly deform before the complete fusion.
            In fact, the distance between the stars of these galaxies is so big, that individual stars maybe won’t collide with others in these approximations and collisions.

• Where is the coldest place in the universe?

            Boomerang Nebulae is a very peculiar place on the universe. In 1995, with the utilization of a Swedish telescope, astronomers discovered that this nebula were the coldest place in the universe. It has a temperature of -272° C, a degree hotter than the absolute zero (negative limit of all the temperatures = 273,15° C).

• Relations between the brightness of stars and the name

            Star designations: Johann Bayer, a german astronomer, did an innovator system to designate the stars of each constellation, using the greek alphabet. For example, he designated the most brilliant stars of each constellation by the first letter of the greek alphabet (Alpha), followed by the genitive of the constellation in Latin. There was, for example, Alpha Scorpii and Alpha Centauri. The second most brilliant star was designated by the second letter of the greek alphabet, and so on.

• The extent to which the names of the constellations are well represented by pictures in the sky

            There are only two constellations in the sky that seems to be exactly what they represent. Their name represents the shape that really is in the sky. One of them is the Scorpius, and the other, visible from the South Hemisphere, is Crux. The others aren’t very few or nothing related to their names.

• After all, there are 12 or 13 constellations of the zodiac?

            In fact, there are 13 zodiac constellations in certain occasions. Besides the 12 that we already know, another one comes, and it goes from November 30th to December 17th (the signs have less time). His name is Ophiuchus. There are lots of controversies around this zodiac constellation.

• Where is the smallest black hole known by man?     

            The smallest black hole known by man is located in the Milky Way. It measures only 25 km in diameter and has a mass 3.8 times larger than the mass of our Sun. So, this black hole is extremely dense. Calculate and compare with the materials of higher density.

• What we think about extraterrestrial intelligent life

The curiosity and expectancy of men is really admirable. Fighting against ignorance, disbelief and resistance to the changes, several teams of scientists maintains lit the flame of desire, to discover that we are not alone.

            Scientifically, though many people do not believe in the possibility of existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life, it seems a big waste of space having a huge universe just for us.

            This is why our team believes that the work of the SETI Institute should be respected. “The Mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.”

            If we need to make contact to people from every part of the world, why can´t we keep our spirit open for the whole universe?

            But we must remember that the Earth is our home. Before trying to understand what is happening outside of it, we must learn to handle most of our things.

            Sometimes it is easier to look out for the exterior then for what happens on our side. Everybody needs to know that only a few selected people will be elected to conquer the physical universe. Let´s conquer our spirituality, through the improvement of relationships, seeking to develop skills that will help us to be more tolerant and more concerned with the welfare of humanity.

• Important Telescopes

            The Spitzer space telescope was originally known as SIRTF, which means Space Infrared Telescope Facility. It has the ability to capture images in infrared.

            The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST is a project of a manned mission of U.S. space agency - NASA, with the aim of putting an observatory in space to capture the infrared radiation

            The Herschel Space Observatory is a space probe project of the European Space Agency. It must be the first telescope to cover the track that goes beyond the infrared and sub-millimeter range of the electromagnetic spectrum and is the largest telescope with a mirror already built for a probe into space.

            The Hubble space telescope has the advantage of no-grade suffer interference from the atmosphere. It has two panels that convert the sunlight directly into electricity used to make the instrumentation work. The Hubble complete a lap around the Earth in 96 minutes. It was designed to operate in orbit for fifteen years, but the space shuttle and its astronauts will perform service tasks for all the life of Hubble.

• Hubble’s Law

            The fact that we see all other galaxies moving away from us does not imply that we are the center of the universe! All galaxies will see all other stars moving away from them in an expanding universe. A rising loaf of raisin bread is a good visual model: each raisin will see all other raisins moving away from it as the loaf expands.

•       Who is the brightest star?

            Sirius is the brightest star in our night sky, and Canopus is the second. But in fact, Sirius is about 25 times brighter than the Sun, while Canopus is about 14,000 times brighter than the Sun.

            We see Sirius brighter than Canopus only because it is approximately 301.4 light-years closer to the Solar System than Canopus.

The Wonderful World of Astronomy - ThinkQuest
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2009