Chapter Five: Five begins with an interesting perspective of Earth. It asks you to imagine yourself as a alien explorer come to observe the planets of our solar system, in specific, Earth. You aren't permitted to land on Earth or any other planets. You are using spectrometers to determine the chemical composition of the atmosphere and notice excessive amounts of O2, unlike anything you have ever seen before. You come to find out that all this oxygen exists because there is definitely some life on Earth. Chlorophyll from these plants on Earth absorb the sunlight and produce oxygen as a result. Another sign of other forms of life is methane. Methane doesn't last long in an oxygen rich environment unless there is immense amounts of it. Methane can be produced by bacteria as well as everyday processes we perform. The last sign of intelligent life you find is radio transmissions not produced by electrons in magnetic fields. These transmissions are created by technology constructed by the unknown life on Earth.
Chapter Six: NASA is a historical company with many accomplishments. But recently, they have been criticized for their mistakes more then ever. People today believe that there really is no need of astronauts anymore except for making repairs to space machinery. These people believe that robots are instead the future of the space program but they neglect what astronauts and NASA have accomplished in the same time period. An example of this is the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope while it was still in orbit. This was a tough but rewarding accomplishment. Many tools of science have been developed in the form of satellites and other systems. Satellites that observe the Earth can tell us about our global climate and its change. GPS can help you get across the country as well as keep you from getting lost. Satellites can also look outward into space, revealing to us galaxies, starts, and other planets never seen before. NASA's technologies allow us to do so many things that we don't normally think of it, so why focus on a small list of negatives?
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Chapters Three and Four
Chapter Three:
The third chapter talks about the "Great Demotions", which are kind of like reality checks to humans. Galileo revealed one of these when he used his telescope to look into space. The Earth was not the only planet, it was of many planets. The next demotion was that the sun was in fact not at the center of the universe and it isn't "our" sun. this sun is just a star in a vast expanse of the universe and is shared by the other planets in our galaxy. Along the lines of the Milky Way is the next demotion. It was thought that our galaxy was the only one in existence, but like the other assumptions, this was proven wrong to. The Milky Way is just one of billions of insignificant galaxies in this universe. Another blow to our pride is that the Milky Way wasn't even the center of the universe. Technically speaking, there is no center of universe expansion. Humans didn't even arrive to the universe and Earth for a very long time.
Chapter Four:
It is common to comment of the beauty of a sunset. But if you really think about it, is it really a sunset? The answer is no, the sun doesn't set, but the Earth rotates enough daily to make it seem that way. Galileo is a great historic figure. He was the one to help prove the heliocentric theory right and the geocentric theory wrong. At the time, most people went by whatever the church said, and the church supported the geocentric theory. You can guess that when Galileo mad his discovery, they were not to happy. Galileo was condemned and his books forbidden to read by Christians for a long time. His discovery proposes a great religious question however, if the Bible was wrong about something, which parts of it are "divinely inspired" and which parts are "merely fallible and human" ( Pale Blue Dot, pg.42). The Bible is supposed to be a guide, but does this mean that followers could choose only some sections to follow?
The third chapter talks about the "Great Demotions", which are kind of like reality checks to humans. Galileo revealed one of these when he used his telescope to look into space. The Earth was not the only planet, it was of many planets. The next demotion was that the sun was in fact not at the center of the universe and it isn't "our" sun. this sun is just a star in a vast expanse of the universe and is shared by the other planets in our galaxy. Along the lines of the Milky Way is the next demotion. It was thought that our galaxy was the only one in existence, but like the other assumptions, this was proven wrong to. The Milky Way is just one of billions of insignificant galaxies in this universe. Another blow to our pride is that the Milky Way wasn't even the center of the universe. Technically speaking, there is no center of universe expansion. Humans didn't even arrive to the universe and Earth for a very long time.
Chapter Four:
It is common to comment of the beauty of a sunset. But if you really think about it, is it really a sunset? The answer is no, the sun doesn't set, but the Earth rotates enough daily to make it seem that way. Galileo is a great historic figure. He was the one to help prove the heliocentric theory right and the geocentric theory wrong. At the time, most people went by whatever the church said, and the church supported the geocentric theory. You can guess that when Galileo mad his discovery, they were not to happy. Galileo was condemned and his books forbidden to read by Christians for a long time. His discovery proposes a great religious question however, if the Bible was wrong about something, which parts of it are "divinely inspired" and which parts are "merely fallible and human" ( Pale Blue Dot, pg.42). The Bible is supposed to be a guide, but does this mean that followers could choose only some sections to follow?
Monday, March 10, 2014
Chapters One and Two
Chapter One:
The book begins by talking about Voyager One and Two. They are robots sent into space to take pictures of distant planets. Voyager one at the time was 3.7 billion miles away from our planet and it took a time of five and a half hours for each pixel of the picture to reach Earth. In total, these two ships had explored a whopping four planets and almost sixty moons, which is a impressive task. The author really proves a point when talking about the obscurity of humans. He says that from space, you can't see any humans or any works of humans, which really shows you how insignificant we are to the universe. Along this trip, the voyagers take a picture of the entire solar system, with a beam of light from the sun glaring on the Earth. It was a chance beam and would have not appeared if the picture had been taken sooner or later.
Chapter Two:
The second chapter begins with an interesting topic. Light is very fast traveling on Earth. for example, if a light bulb goes out, then you see it go out. Now think of a far away star in space. We see the star as it was, not as it is. what this means is, if the star went out, you would not immediately see it. It would take years for us to see it go out because even though light is fast, the expanse of space is enormous. Galileo was a great figure of history. He challenged the common geocentric theory to a heliocentric theory. By using the "first astronomical telescope", he deduced that everything in our solar system orbited the sun by looking at neighboring planets and our moon. Another astronomer, James Bradley, discovered an important point to support the heliocentric theory. He found the aberration of light, which is a trace of a ellipse made by a star. the stars would only form this if the Earth were orbiting the sun.
Diagram of Voyager One:
The book begins by talking about Voyager One and Two. They are robots sent into space to take pictures of distant planets. Voyager one at the time was 3.7 billion miles away from our planet and it took a time of five and a half hours for each pixel of the picture to reach Earth. In total, these two ships had explored a whopping four planets and almost sixty moons, which is a impressive task. The author really proves a point when talking about the obscurity of humans. He says that from space, you can't see any humans or any works of humans, which really shows you how insignificant we are to the universe. Along this trip, the voyagers take a picture of the entire solar system, with a beam of light from the sun glaring on the Earth. It was a chance beam and would have not appeared if the picture had been taken sooner or later.
Chapter Two:
The second chapter begins with an interesting topic. Light is very fast traveling on Earth. for example, if a light bulb goes out, then you see it go out. Now think of a far away star in space. We see the star as it was, not as it is. what this means is, if the star went out, you would not immediately see it. It would take years for us to see it go out because even though light is fast, the expanse of space is enormous. Galileo was a great figure of history. He challenged the common geocentric theory to a heliocentric theory. By using the "first astronomical telescope", he deduced that everything in our solar system orbited the sun by looking at neighboring planets and our moon. Another astronomer, James Bradley, discovered an important point to support the heliocentric theory. He found the aberration of light, which is a trace of a ellipse made by a star. the stars would only form this if the Earth were orbiting the sun.
Diagram of Voyager One:
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