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Asteroid Mining
Hayabusa: A robotic spacecraft by JAXA to acquire a sample from the asteroid Itokawa
Asteroid mining can be crucial in helping us to acquire rare materials in our solar system. The asteroid belt has 8% metal-rich asteroids and 75% volatile-rich carbonaceous asteroids. Currently the technique is mainly just theoretical as we don’t have the infrastructure yet to properly bring these asteroids into earth’s orbit. A solution for this is to start building bases in lunar or earth’s orbit that have ease of access to the asteroid belt so that we can begin bringing them into our orbit. It is predicted that it would cost 2.6$ billion dollars to bring an asteroid back to Earth and that an asteroid that is very platinum rich could contain upwards of 25 billion dollars’ worth of platinum. Possibly when technology has advanced to the point where robots could conduct these missions to mine asteroids autonomously so that there is no human risk this could be a very realistic mining method. Currently though it is completely unfeasible as the risks and costs are too high if failure does occur, and scientists suggest that we work on practical technology.
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The Fermi Paradox
A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox?
The Fermi Paradox attempts to answer the question about extraterrestrial life that so many humans have thought about for centuries. Enrico Fermi a physicist, in 1950, while discussing extraterrestrial life he began to wonder if aliens did in fact exist then how have they not expanded throughout the galaxy and showed signs to us today. He came to this conclusion by realizing that the universe is billions of years old, so intelligent life has had plenty of time to showcase their presence to the galaxy. Thus, he began to ask the question, where are the they? which is the Fermi Paradox. Since then, scientists have debated Fermi’s theories and come up with different arguments to attempt to prove him wrong. One of these arguments is that perhaps interstellar travel is too costly and that it is not worth it for aliens to travel to places within our vision. Another argument is that they are so far separated from us in the grand scale of the universe that it could be billions more years until they could reach us or where we have the technology to see where they have already reached. After learning about all of these different ideas I tend to side against Fermi as the universe is just way too large to make conclusions that aliens do not exist because we haven’t been able to see them yet.
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Halley’s Comet
Giotto Spacecraft Approaching Halley’s Comet
Halley’s Comet has the ability to completely destroy a city. Until learning about this comet in a previous homework assignment I never realized the true devastation even a comet of this size could cause on the earth. Halley’s Comet most famous observation occurred in 1066 where it was said that shortly before the invasion of England, William the Conqueror saw the comet and believed that it ensured their success in battle. Later as it was observed in the 1500s and 1600s, Edmund Halley in the 1700s determined that the comet would return every 76 years, and thus it was named after him once he passed away. When Halley’s Comet returned to earth in 1986, we were finally able to get proper images like the one above as we had spacecraft to take them. Also, once it returns in 2061 the comet will be on the same side as the sun and thus it will be much brighter than in 1986. Halley’s comet is one of the larger comets as it is about 15 miles in diameter, however because of the gravitational forces of the Sun and other planets it is very unlikely that it would ever impact any planet. Thus, these comets aren’t something we should worry about wiping us out as it is truly a miniscule chance that it would happen, and rather we should admire and observe them as they pass by us in the cosmos.
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The Frozen World: Pluto
Pluto’s Icey Surface taken from the New Horizons Spacecraft
Pluto is one of the most interesting “planets” in our solar system and for decades now has had constant debate surrounding it. Pluto has an extremely thin atmosphere, one that is a lot thinner than ours on earth that is made up of primarily nitrogen. Its surface temperature is around -400 degrees Fahrenheit because of its location in the Kuiper belt which is very far away from the sun. Also, since Pluto exists in the Kuiper belt it takes 248 Earth Years to orbit around the sun because of the distance. Before 2015 we never had acquired proper pictures of Pluto, this all changed when the New Horizons spacecraft reached Pluto and was able to take revolutionary pictures. Through images like the one above humanity was able to learn about extremely large mountains that are on the surface and a heart-shaped region that covers the dwarf planet. Furthermore, from New Horizons we were able to get more detailed information on Pluto’s moons such as Charon (the largest) and learn from data that there is possibly an ocean underneath its surface. Conducting missions such as New Horizons to visit objects around our solar system is crucial for us as we are able to learn more about our place in the universe.
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The International Space Station
Astronaut Matthias Maurer of ESA doing a Space Walk on the truss of the ISS The international space station is a collaboration that unites humanity to pursue the largest frontier, space. The ISS is the largest and most equipped space station humanity has ever had in space and provides opportunities to research exploration of space and how to help people back on earth. The ISS orbits the earth 386 kilometers above the Earth and has been home for a rotating crew of astronauts. These crews stay on orbit for six months at a time and learn about how living in space affects the human body physically and psychologically. Solar panels on the station are larger than the wingspan of a jet plane which being in constant orbit s able to harness energy from the sun and provide electrical power to all parts of the station. 16 different countries are involved with the ISS and each played a role in building the 15000 cubic feet of habitable space. The ISS has been indispensable in providing information for the future of humanity’s venture into space and provides a deeper understanding for how we can survive in the universe.
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Climate Change
CO2 Emissions in Different Continents
Climate Change is one of the most important issues that has already affected our lives and one that threatens our future. To get an understanding we need to look back in history to when human’s began to cause a shift in the climate. In the 1800s, humans began the industrial revolution thus having to burn tons of coal, natural gases, and oil in order to generate electricity and power our various machines. Due to us burning these tons of fossil fuels since than we have added extreme amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases stop heat from escaping the earth into space, thus with the amount we have generated over the last few centuries we have been trapping too much heat than what is natural for the world. According to data, the planet is already 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it was in the 1880s and this will only continue to rise as we burn more and more. For the future if we do not keep this in check there is evidence that sea levels will rise, flooding could occur in large cities, hurricanes will become stronger, and many more. We still have time to prevent this and everyone has the ability to do their part to secure our planet’s future. People who deny climate change exist are truly ignorant and will continue to further this problem, which is why its crucial to educate the next generations so that they are equipped to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.
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The Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Telescope First Light Image (May 1990)
The Hubble Space Telescope was one of the most impactful inventions in furthering our understanding of the universe. Launched in 1990, this telescope provided us with detailed information of our solar system and universe. Some of the incredible discoveries the Hubble has made are determining the age of the universe and determining changes in many different celestial bodies in our solar system. Throughout its time in deployment the Hubble has made over a million other observations including the birth and death of stars and galaxies billions of light years away. The importance of the Hubble comes from it being in the earth’s atmosphere which allows it to get a much better view of the universe than a telescope on earth. It operates by using two mirrors to collect and focus light, the light travels down the telescope and hits the primary concave mirror which than reflects and travels back to the front of the telescope.
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Historical Astronomers in Context
Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, and died on November 15, 1630. He was crucial for advances in Astronomy as he discovered that the Earth and planets travel the sun in elliptical orbits. Furthermore, he also created three laws (called Kepler’s Law’s) that were integral to planetary motion. These laws stated that the orbits are ellipses, in an orbit equal areas are swept out in equal time, and the mathematical relationship between distance from the sun and time to orbit is p^2=ka^3.
Thirty Years War (1618-1648) – It was an extremely destructive conflict in Europe that resulted in approximately 4.5 to 8 billion soldiers dying.
Colony of Jamestown (1607) was established in Virginia which was the first permanent English colony in the New World.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived during the same time as Johannes Kepler, he was crucial for literature, he essentially created so many words that we use today regularly.
I thought that learning about the late 1500’s/early 1600’s was really interesting as so many advances were happening around the world at the same time. While Kepler was discovering how planets function, Shakespeare was writing and performing his plays, and America was being colonized. Also, specifically about astronomy I never really thought that this long ago people were able to make accurate theories about objects so unimaginably far away to then.
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The Incredible Size of Our Universe
The image above is an artist’s illustration of everything in the observable universe. I find this image very interesting as it shows the scale increasing starting with our solar system and going out to galaxies, superclusters, our local group and further. This makes me realize how small we truly are in comparison to the universe we are truly just a speck of dust. Furthermore, this currently all we can see because this is all the light that has reached us so far, the universe can be much larger than even this. Currently we can see about 14 billion light years away from the Earth, as time passes we will be able to see more and more of the universe. However, the universe is also constantly expanding so we won’t ever be able to truly tell the full scale of it. I believe that it is important for all of us to understand our place as a miniscule part of everything around us so that we always keep looking forward and expanding the possibilities of all that is left to explore.
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Introductory Blog
This is a picture of me from my senior year in high school in New Jersey. I am currently a junior at Vanderbilt studying Electrical Engineering and am excited to be taking this class. I would like to work with microprocessors in the future as my job.
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Astronomy 