Man’s curiosity about space and eagerness to unravel its mysteries is quite natural. Indian and world mythology and literature are full of cosmic tales, adventures and allusions.
Space is everywhere and all around us, an ever-expanding phenomenon. Space contains the whole universe, including all the planets, the sun, the moon, the earth, the stars and whatever there is known and unknown in the universe. The limit where the earth’s atmosphere ends is called outer space. The universe and space are almost synonymous. Space is eternal, universal and ageless. It can neither be destroyed nor created. It is estimated that observable space or universe is 25 billion light years in diameter and one light year distance means approximately 9460,000,000,000 km. It contains countless galaxies. Each and every galaxy, like our own Milky Way, is a grouping of innumerable stars. It is all so wonderful, mysterious and awe inspiring.
Many satellites and spacecrafts have been launched for various purposes. It has revolutionised the means of mass communication, like radio, T.V. and broadcasting. It has helped us in providing advanced disaster warning, search and rescue measures, distance education, and remote sensing, etc. Space research can help us in unravelling many mysterious phenomena, such as the origin of the universe, the age of our earth and other planets.
INTERESTING SPACE FACTS
SPACE IS COMPLETELY SILENT.
There is no atmosphere in space, which means that sound has no medium or way to travel to be heard. Astronauts use radios to stay in communication while in space, since radio waves can still be sent and received.
THE HOTTEST PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IS 450° C.
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system and has an average surface temperature of around 450° C. Interestingly, Venus is not the closest planet to the Sun.
THERE MAY BE LIFE ON MARS.
Of all the planets in our solar system (apart from Earth), Mars is the one most likely to be hospitable to life. In 1986, NASA found what they thought may be fossils of microscopic living things in a rock recovered from Mars.
NOBODY KNOWS HOW MANY STARS ARE IN SPACE.
Right now, scientists and astronomers use the number of stars only within our galaxy, The Milky Way, to estimate. That number is between 200-400 billion stars and there are estimated to be billions of galaxies so the stars in space really are completely uncountable.
THERE IS FLOATING WATER IN SPACE.
Astronomers have found a massive water vapor cloud which holds 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans somewhere around 10 billion light years away – making it the largest discovery of water ever found.
A FULL NASA SPACE SUIT COSTS $12,000,000.
While the entire suit costs a cool $12m, 70% of that cost is for the backpack and control module.
THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON WILL BE THERE FOR 100 MILLION YEARS.
The Moon has no atmosphere, which means there is no wind to erode the surface and no water to wash the footprints away. This means the footprints of the Apollo astronauts, along with spacecraft prints, rover-prints and discarded material, will be there for millions of years.
NASA uses a technique called data sonification to take signals from radio waves, plasma waves, and magnetic fields and convert them into audio tracks to "hear" what's happening in space.The sounds range from ambulance-like screeches to beeps reminiscent of an alien spaceship making its approach.
The Curiosity Mars rover's first color photograph of a sunset in 2015 revealed a surprising twist — sunsets on Mars are blue.
NASA said this is because "dust in the Martian atmosphere has fine particles that permit blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently than longer-wavelength colors" like yellow, orange, and red.
Without a spacesuit, it would take few seconds to asphyxiate.Because there's no pressure in space, air expands. This means the air inside your lungs would expand and tear through the tissue. And in such an extreme environment, your body would use up all of the oxygen in your blood in about 15 seconds.
In a nutshell, the universe is a vast place that even scientists don't completely understand. There are millions of things out there at the edge of the galaxy or maybe even the univerese waiting to be discovered. But scientists and all sorts of people are daring enough to try to take strolls in space and soon one day, space will be a human-infested place.
"Nobody knows what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."
This is, perhaps, a dream of today. And we all feel intimately sure that it will become, some time, a reality of tomorrow.
