Is it a star, is it a planet or is it just a satellite. Yesterday, one of my friends asked me about what is the bright star in the night sky? Well, a lot of people tend to get the wrong impression when it comes to stars, planets or even satellites. So, whenever you see any bright and shining object in the sky, it must be either one of these objects.
First of all, it might be a star. How do you identify a star then? A star is an entity that emits lights. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. The reason why we can see the Sun with our naked eye is that it is quite near to Earth. It is approximately 149,600,000 km from the Earth. That is quite near in terms of light year. It takes at least 8 minutes for the sun light to reach Earth. Other stars however are further than that. The light that they emitted may take years to reach Earth. That's why you see stars blinking in the night sky.
Secondly, you can't really see a planet with the naked eye. You must at least use a telescope. The nearest planet that we can see as a dot in the night sky as I can recall is Mars. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Way back a few years ago, I joined a seminar regarding science and arts in Langkawi. A friend who is an astronomer showed me Mars with his telescope and I can see Mars as a white dot in the sky. You can't actually see any planet as a dot unless they are quite near to Earth. This phenomena is quite rare.
Last but not least, the satellite. It is rather easy to identify a satellite. If you see a white dot in the sky that is not blinking but rather bright, that is a satellite. This is because satellites are placed in orbits quite near to Earth. It is the brightest that you can see compared to stars and other entities.
I hope you guys will understand more of what we can really see in our sky. And I also hope that you guys will be able to identify all these entities better the next time you see one. Do bear in mind that you can't always have a clear sky at night. This depends on whether there are any clouds and also on the amount of industry in that area.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Space Tourism...
Have you ever heard of the term 'space tourism' before? For those of you that might be wandering what it is all about, it is actually going on a vacation in space! It sounds kind of cool isn't it? Imagine yourself floating at zero gravity while enjoying the beautiful cosmic landscape. Space tourism is not a common term in Malaysia, but in certain countries it is quite common.
This is not just a dream, but since a few years back, it has became a reality. In 2001, Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist when he embarked on his journey to the ISS. He flew to space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Can you guess how much he paid just to go to space? Believe it or not according to Wikipedia, the first three space tourist paid in excess of $20 million USD each for 10 days visit to the ISS. 20 million USD is approximately RM 72,353,813.01!!! Wow! That's a huge amount of money!
For your information, he is not the only space tourist. There are more people that went to space after him. The name list of space tourist are as follows:
1)Dennis Tito
2)Mark Shuttleworth
3)Greg Oslen
4)Anousheh Ansari
5)Charles Simonyi
Sources:
How Stuff Works
Wikipedia
This is not just a dream, but since a few years back, it has became a reality. In 2001, Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist when he embarked on his journey to the ISS. He flew to space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Can you guess how much he paid just to go to space? Believe it or not according to Wikipedia, the first three space tourist paid in excess of $20 million USD each for 10 days visit to the ISS. 20 million USD is approximately RM 72,353,813.01!!! Wow! That's a huge amount of money!
For your information, he is not the only space tourist. There are more people that went to space after him. The name list of space tourist are as follows:
1)Dennis Tito
2)Mark Shuttleworth
3)Greg Oslen
4)Anousheh Ansari
5)Charles Simonyi
Sources:
How Stuff Works
Wikipedia
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Civilization in space?
Have you ever wandered what would life be if mankind can spread it's civilization to other planets in the solar system? Well, that's the future. It may seem rather impossible now, but who knows in the future we may be able to live in other planets! Can you imagine the what would happen if we can reach to the end of the solar system?
First of all, we may find new resources in other planets. There are possibilities that other planets contains minerals that we can mine and use it. Maybe we can find metals which are stronger and more durable or new luxurious ore. We may not see it now, but as our space probes continue to explore new martian terrain, this can become a reality. Come to think of it if we use up the resources on other planets, do we still need to ravage other planet's resources to satisfy our needs? We have to learn to converse them because once they are gone, they are gone forever.
Next, as I mentioned earlier, we can also have space colonies. In the future, we can
established colonies to the far end of the solar system. This means we can either be living in a space station that is orbiting another planet or we can live in a colony which is formed on another planet. Quite interesting, don't you think? By this time, we may have an advanced life support system that can sustain us for decades. There is also a possibility that we can established metropolis out of these colonies. The possibilities are endless!
The third possibility is interaction. I know this may sound weird, but it is a possibility. Who knows? We might be able to find alien species living in other parts of the solar system. We can have diplomatic aggrements with them. We can even share technologies! Imagine interacting with someone who is not your species. Well, if we have bad relations with them, it might even lead us to galatic war. That is the worst case scenario of course. Let us hope that war will not frequently occur in space.
Last but not least, space travel. If we are able to reach other planets such as Mars, we should already have the proper technology for space travel. We might be able to travel in the speed of light. Imagine how long does it take us to reach Pluto? This will make space travel convenient. It took us 4 days to reach the moon. There might be some other technologies use for space travel that will allow us travel faster such as hyperspace jump. With all these technologies available to us, we can even explore to the four corners of the galaxy.
Well, that is what I think what will happen if we can reach the end of our solar system. What do you think think about it? Eventhough, this is just a dream, dreams can be make a reality if we work hard for it. I hope our scientist might come up with something that will allow us to travel in space.
First of all, we may find new resources in other planets. There are possibilities that other planets contains minerals that we can mine and use it. Maybe we can find metals which are stronger and more durable or new luxurious ore. We may not see it now, but as our space probes continue to explore new martian terrain, this can become a reality. Come to think of it if we use up the resources on other planets, do we still need to ravage other planet's resources to satisfy our needs? We have to learn to converse them because once they are gone, they are gone forever.
Next, as I mentioned earlier, we can also have space colonies. In the future, we can
established colonies to the far end of the solar system. This means we can either be living in a space station that is orbiting another planet or we can live in a colony which is formed on another planet. Quite interesting, don't you think? By this time, we may have an advanced life support system that can sustain us for decades. There is also a possibility that we can established metropolis out of these colonies. The possibilities are endless!
The third possibility is interaction. I know this may sound weird, but it is a possibility. Who knows? We might be able to find alien species living in other parts of the solar system. We can have diplomatic aggrements with them. We can even share technologies! Imagine interacting with someone who is not your species. Well, if we have bad relations with them, it might even lead us to galatic war. That is the worst case scenario of course. Let us hope that war will not frequently occur in space.
Last but not least, space travel. If we are able to reach other planets such as Mars, we should already have the proper technology for space travel. We might be able to travel in the speed of light. Imagine how long does it take us to reach Pluto? This will make space travel convenient. It took us 4 days to reach the moon. There might be some other technologies use for space travel that will allow us travel faster such as hyperspace jump. With all these technologies available to us, we can even explore to the four corners of the galaxy.
Well, that is what I think what will happen if we can reach the end of our solar system. What do you think think about it? Eventhough, this is just a dream, dreams can be make a reality if we work hard for it. I hope our scientist might come up with something that will allow us to travel in space.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Postcard to space!!!
I just discovered this function when I was simply browsing the net for some space related article. Do you guys know that you can actually send post cards to outer space? Well, not a real post card like we send to our friends of course! But, you can send an electronic post card to the crews of ISS. Just point your browser to this site. So, try it out right away! Remember, you can really make their day by sending your greetings from Earth. I will also be very excited if I get a post card from Earth if I'm up there too! I wonder what it feels like to be working in space? It must be kind of fun!
Sources:
Send a message to the space station
Sources:
Send a message to the space station
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