Introduced by penguin person General Practically Moore Knowledge :-)
One's eye to the sky, an astronomical astronomy History Buddy.
Hello Buddy. How can we define the scale of interplanetary distance and general scope of the cosmos? Well size in space itself is not so vitally important. To start with extend a telescope and head it upward toward the night sky darkness, you can't go far wrong you know. There are millions of stars up there (or more to the point, all around there) to look for far beyond our spinning at 900 miles an hour orb of a planet which has only gravity to keep our feet firmly on the ground and our eyes to the sky.
How can you visualise the limitless expanse of space? Well imagine the heaven's and space as a vast desert, with each grain of sand a Galaxy that is light years away from the next grain. Each of these Galaxy (grains) contains a separate vast desert whose grains consist of planets and stars, light years, and less, distant from each other.
Within one of these grains lies the tiny oasis that is our Earth warmed by the star we call the Sun.
This makes the human race and all the problems it has look kind of small within the scheme of things and yet as we look out to the great beyond, we see the same challenge of discovery the ancient explorers faced when negotiating our own globe.
It is interesting though to think that eventually the Sun our Star and protector of all life itself will eventually exhaust itself and our planet and all upon it will end. When that eventually happens in the distant future it can only be hoped that humanity has built it's Noah's Ark and has landed somewhere on another Planetary Oasis to start again and survive. That eventuality however would only occur should the human race unite itself and work together for that aim.
Highly unlikely though it may seem today, in the very distant tomorrow that really will be all governments and peoples problem to solve. Not just to look at the stars but to get there and begin again. Or end here and not.
My history notes
1958 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was designed and created in 1958 to explore space for peaceful purposes, with the aim to benefit both the United States Of America and all mankind.
July 21st 1969 3.56am BST - American Astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface
of the moon with the words. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
It is a rather interesting thought that if your leaders of the major and rather affluent countries of the World put aside their petty differences, this giant leap would take mankind a darn site further than the moon. However from ground level do check out NASA . [ More]
First steps to astronomy
Cosmos = (All the galaxies)
Galaxy = (Independent system of stars/planets)
Star = (Nuclear furnace i.e. our sun. Kind of hot.
Rather good for toasting marshmallows)
Planet = A multi-cored sphere spinning on its axis.
Earth example has a hard, shifting crusted surface.
Astronomy history notes - Page 1
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