Reasons Why Space is a Real Motherfucker. (unfinished)
Directly over our heads is an incomprehensibly large universe that's filled with all matters of beautiful, colorful wonderments that have filled our imaginations for as long as anyone can remember. Many of us have memories from childhood of looking up into the sky and wishing we could hop into a spaceship to blast off into the great unknown. Astronomers and theoretical physicists are working tirelessly to try and illuminate the darkest corners of this unknown to try and glimpse into the mysteries that make up the universe. Unfortunately, scientists are finding the universe to be about as hospitable and violent as a methamphetamine addicted wolverine that's been dipped in crazy glue and broken glass. Space is an amazing and complex place that will end you and everything you love. If the universe had a voice every living thing in it would hear a disinterested, "meh", as a thousand solar systems are obliterated into nothingness.
1. Black Holes
Popularized by the most famous robot voice in history, Stephen Hawking, black holes are arguably the most destructive force in the universe. To put this to an analogy, imagine a pig pile involving twenty people. The person with the most weight on him is obviously the guy at the bottom. At some point there will be more weight on him that his body can support, and he's going to get squished. The force that turns that poor frat boy into a pancake is the result of gravity. Now imagine that you're a star with the mass of trillions upon trillions of frat boys. When that unfortunate pledge at the bottom goes splat, hhis smaller, denser body has a greater gravitational pull. This in turn will pull the next frat boy in even stronger. They are created when the amount of mass in a given place becomes so dense that it collapses it These fellas do to matter what you would do to your fridge after smoking a couple of doobies. The gravitation pull coming from a black hole is so strong that absolutely nothing can escape it, not even light.
2. Cold - Vacuum
3. Asteroids
4. Quazars
5. Solar Radiation
6. It's so freakin' big!
The dream of traveling into space to see exotic new worlds amongst the wondrously colorful mysteries of space is one that most adults developed with their childhood imagination. As much as we would love to see the sights of the universe, the chances of that happening are still in the realm of science fiction. Why? Because it's incomprehensibly huge.
Just for some perspective:
The farthest object recorded in the observable universe is a galaxy known as GRB 090423, which is 13 billion light-years away from Earth. If one were to travel at the speed of light (the fastest speed possible under Einstein's Theory of Relativity (Einstein set the odometer to light)) it would take 13 billion years to reach.
Here's some more perspective!
The nearest star to our solar system, Alpha Centaury, is 4.24 light years away. So when your spaceship hits lightspeed (BTW: the speed of light is 670.6 MILLION mph) it should only take you about 51 months to get there.
Perspective on perspective!
The fastest spaceship yet built by man travels at 30,000 mph. After a gravity push from Jupiter it could reach up to 47,000 mph.
It's time for some math!
A light year is 9.46 trillion km or 5,878,625,373,183.61 (5.87 trillion miles)
Divide the number of miles by mph: 5.87 trillion miles / 47,000 mph
= 125077135.6 number of hours travelled
divide by 24 hours to get the number of days = 5211547.31
divide that by 365 to get the number of years = 14278.21
multiply that by 4.24 light years to Alpha Centaury =
