Boötes Void

23rd February 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

On this very own rocky planet Earth, we humans have made many discoveries and have uncovered places in the universe that are billions of light-years away from us. Though there are many secrets yet to uncover, there are some mysteries that we still can’t solve. In this vast vacuum of space, exist billions of objects that may be very creepy and nerve-racking due to their strange features. However, among all these strange objects, the greatest mystery is the literal nothingness. 

 

Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/331999803762953131/

It is the Boötes void. This is not just a small place; it is 350 million light-years in diameter. This makes it one of the biggest places in the universe. This creepy place has confused scientists from about 40 years but still, the scientists can’t find out how such a vast place of nothingness could even exist. In 1981, Robert Kirshner and his team were gazing at the universe for huge objects that were moving away from us due to the expansion of the universe but luckily, they found an empty place in the Boötes constellation approximately 700 million light-years away from us. Naturally, this place should contain approximately 10,000 galaxies and trillions of stars but it is just an empty place with nothing. After 40 years of research, they could only find 60 galaxies in this place. 
 

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void

We have found many voids and understood how they can exist but the problem with Boötes void is that how can avoid such big be situation such perfectly centered between a huge array of stars and galaxies. A scientist named Greg stated that if Earth would’ve been in the center of the void, we wouldn’t have found out that there were more galaxies until the 1960s. The main question is that how did this void form. Now, we know that voids are formed all the time which doesn’t defy any law of science. However. for a void of the size of Boötes void, the universe should be a lot older than we know for such a phenomenon to happen naturally. This even caused doubts against the big bang theory. 

There are some theories about this void with one being that some strange object in the void is pushing out dark energy throughout millions of light-years but as we don’t know much about dark energy, this theory is one that we are not much sure about yet. Some say that the galaxies all got into one point of singularity which may be a supermassive black hole but, this also remains a mystery because we don’t know much about the activity near black holes. Moreover, this theory also challenges the big bang as for the vast number of galaxies, moving into one spot would again suggest that the universe is older than we know. 

Furthermore, one likely theory that maybe they are coming together due to attraction at their boundaries and merging; moreover, the 60 galaxies in the void seem to have weird, tube-like shapes which may be the biggest clue to this mystery. Due to attraction at their boundaries, the small voids are emerging into each other in a soap bubble kind of phenomenon. The tube-like shapes of the galaxies may be caused by the remains of boundaries between two bodies. 

This void may remain a great mystery for the coming decades but soon, we will find out what is this and how it formed.  

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

Creepiest celestial objects in the Universe

February 16, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

The Universe is a ginormous place beyond our imagination. This vastness means that a variety of celestial bodies can exist in this large vacuum of space out of which, many can be strange and creepy. In this blog, I will highlight some of the creepiest places in the universe. These objects are very appealing and attract our attention easily. That is why this blog might seem very interesting to you. 

The first object I’m going to highlight about is PSO J38.5338-22.8603. This planet is strangely different from many planets in the universe because unlike the others, this planet doesn’t orbit any star. Therefore, it is a rogue planet. Even though the planet is lurking in the darkness and coldness of space, it still burns on. This planet still burns to a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. Not just this but, it also rains rocks on this planet. It has a diameter of 21,3927 km and has 5 natural satellites/moons. 

Image Source: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-free-floating-exoplanet-01450.html

Scientists say that this object was a part of a group of stars that formed 12 million years ago. The terrifying thing about this planet which even we don’t understand is that how do these planets end up in space like this and how can this rogue planet be so hot even in the cold vacuum in its surroundings where there isn’t even any star to light up its skies or give it heat. 

The second object I'll explain is the Boomerang nebula which is also known as Centaurus Bipolar nebula. This nebula has a diameter of 4.11 light-years. This number is overwhelmingly large and surprising this object exists in our very own Milky way galaxy. This planetary nebula has been formed by a dying red giant star that exists 5000 light-years from Earth. 

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_Nebula

This object is the coldest in the known universe having an average temperature of -272 degrees Celsius. Some say that this low temperature may be the result of the main star colliding with a smaller companion star. 

The last object I will talk about is RX J1347. This object is a gas cloud that surrounds a galaxy cluster in the Virgo constellation. It is the hottest place in the known universe reaching a temperature of 300 million degrees Celsius. 

Image Source: https://arxiver.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/merger-hydrodynamics-of-the-luminous-cluster-rxj1347-5-1145-cea/

Scientists say that this gas cloud was formed due to the collision of two massive galaxy clusters that may have been one of the most violent events in the universe’s existence. This gas cloud covers 450,000 light-year area. This number is too big for us humans to imagine.  

We, humans, are just small creatures in this massive place. The universe is just too large for us to imagine or even reach out to. We have found many strange places in this vast vacuum of space and will continue to find more. We are making discoveries at ever-increasing speeds but still, we haven’t seen anything at all compared to the size of this huge universe. I will write another blog on this topic soon and will uncover many more creepy places in the universe. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

Leave Earth? Why?

Sunday, 2nd February 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

Life has evolved on the Earth in billions of years. Many living things have lived and then died, some species survived the harsh conditions they faced from disasters and some were bemused on what to do and became extinct. Just like the dinosaurs met their fate by facing extinction to a huge asteroid named ‘Chicxulub’. 

Image Source: https://www.newsweek.com/extinction-asteroid-wiped-out-dinosaurs-catastrophic-global-winter-699009

We, humans, have lived for almost 200,000 years on this planet and have prospered because of the resources that this planet offered. However, we can meet the fate of the dinosaurs anytime. Not only an asteroid but many other natural as well as man-made disasters can wipe us all out. Though asteroids that can wipe all life on Earth only hit the Earth about every 500,000 years, we still never know what can hit us anytime. As I have explained in my previous blogs, there are many threats to humans that can lead them to extinction. Any major escalation of a war between nuclear-possessing countries can lead to the use of nuclear weapons which are capable of wiping out humanity but how? Some of you may be thinking that the bombs will only affect a small area. Well, whoever thinks that is wrong. The strongest bomb today is the Tsar bomb which is 1500 times more dangerous than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Just think of what these bombs can do. 

Image Source: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-currently-any-unexploded-nukes-that-are-as-powerful-or-more-powerful-than-the-Tsar-Bomba

Firstly, after the explosion, there won’t be a rise in temperatures. In fact, it will result in global cooling and cause a nuclear winter. Consequently, it would damage the ozone layer and later it will cause droughts which will be decades-long. These types of conditions would kill nearly all life on Earth just in a few months. 

Moreover, a supervolcano eruption can also destroy everything in its range and later form ash clouds that would stop the process of photosynthesis as the sunlight won’t be able to reach us. Furthermore, humans are capable of making genetically engineered viruses that can kill a lot of humans.

Humans are capable of achieving the impossible. It is their curiosity that helps them travel in this vast universe. It is our curiosity that will lead us to inventions that will help us travel the deep space. I hope we will be able to invent something like that in time. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

Misconceptions about the Universe

February 2^nd, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

The universe is a vast place, which is constantly expanding. It is immeasurable heaven that we have studied a bit. Many people have a lot of misconceptions about the universe, which literally makes no sense. In this blog, I will highlight some of the main misconceptions about the universe and give counter-arguments in defense.

The first misconception is that there is a dark side of the moon. The word ‘dark’ basically means the absence of light, as darkness is not a thing itself. The moon is tidally locked while orbiting the Earth. Hence, we can only see one side of it but wait. This doesn’t mean that the other side of the Moon is dark. It’s just that the other side of the Moon is not observable from the Earth. Each side of the Moon has two weeks of day and two weeks of night. Therefore, there is no such thing as the dark side of the Moon. The following image of the moon, taken by Luna 3, launched by the Soviet Union in 1959 proved the fact that that Moon has no dark side.

Image Source: https://www.wired.com/2011/10/1007luna-3-photos-dark-side-moon/

The second misconception about the universe is that black holes act like funnels. This misconception basically rose after the images of how a black hole bends space-time. A Blackhole is not a funnel. A Black Hole is a spherical hole, which due to its immense gravitational force; will pull anything near it towards itself. The gravitational pull of these objects is so immense that not even light can escape from it.

Another misconception about the universe, which is very common, is that Mercury is the hottest planet in the Solar System due to the fact that it is the closest planet to the Sun. This is totally wrong because the hotness of a celestial body does not only depend on its distance from its star. 

Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun orbiting at a distance of 57 million km, and has the highest surface temperature of 427 degrees Celsius, it is still not the hottest because it has no atmosphere. This planet has no atmosphere, due to which heat cannot be trapped inside the planet. On the other hand, Venus is almost twice the distance from the Sun than of Mercury. However, Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System reaching a temperature of 462 degrees Celsius. The reason for its hotness is its thick atmosphere, which traps the heat from the Sun inside the planet.

Lastly, another misconception is that space probes cannot travel through the asteroid belt because due to the vast number of asteroids, it will collide with one and will get destroyed. Well, this is also greatly wrong, as, even though the asteroid belt has millions of asteroids packed in it, the asteroids are very distant from each other. Therefore, the chances of colliding with one are one in a billion. For example, NASA has sent 11 probes through this belt and not even one has ever got close to an asteroid.

Remember, we need to verify the information before we spread it among others because if that information is wrong, the other people that you have spread it to, will also spread it among others which will affect many points of view, wrongly. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

Atmospheric Conditions of the Inner Planets in the Solar System

January 26^th, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

The Solar system is the gravitationally bound planetary system of the Sun and the objects orbiting it. There are 8 planets that orbit the Sun excluding the dwarf planets. Due to the large distances from the Sun and different compositions, many planets are significantly different from each other in many aspects. The Inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Mercury: This planet is the closest to the Sun in the whole Solar System being 57 million km away from it. It actually lacks an atmosphere. This means that there is no shield protecting the planet from intense cosmic radiation.

Image source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/mercury/

Due to the fact that this planet has no atmosphere, cosmic rays and micrometeorites hit the surface of the planet, ejecting atoms off the rocks creating and an exosphere made of ionized particles and dust. So, when the solar winds interact with this planet’s magnetic field, it forms plasma tornadoes that bring hot winds to the surface. Temperatures on this planet reach up to 427 degrees Celsius. This planet is clearly not the right place for humans to live in.

Venus: This planet is the second closest to the Sun is 108 million km away from it. It has an extremely thick atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide and pockets of sulfuric acid clouds. This creates a dense atmosphere with about 90 times more pressure than on Earth.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

This planet is the exact example of what can happen to Earth due to global warming. The thick carbon dioxide atmosphere doesn’t let the heat from the Sun escape and the surface temperatures can rise till 462 degrees Celsius. The high levels of clouds experience winds over 354 km, and the lightning in the atmosphere lights up the murky sky in the clouds.

Earth: This planet is what we call home. It is 149 million km away from the Sun. It has an atmosphere, which contains 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.97% Argon and Carbon dioxide, 0.04% trace amounts of other gases, and water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

This atmosphere protects life on this planet by absorbing the UV solar radiation and reducing temperatures between day and night. 

Mars: This planet is also known as the dead planet. It is 227 million km away from the Sun. Mars also rotates around the Sun in a tilted motion and so, it has seasons. On this planet, the daytime temperatures can reach up to 26 degrees Celsius, which doesn’t seem bad at all. But, due to the fact that this planet has an extremely thin atmosphere, approximately 100 times less thick than Earth’s atmosphere.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

As this planet has no atmosphere to trap the heat, temperatures quickly drop at night, falling as low as –128 degrees Celsius.

Every planet in the Solar system has its own composition of elements and atmospheric conditions. In this vast variety, some conditions can sustain life. Sadly, we humans are destroying ourselves and are making our planet inhabitable. I said this before and am saying this again that if we don’t take climate change and global warming seriously, Earth will end up like Venus, a dead planet with unbearable conditions for humans to live in. Save Earth before it’s too late. I will cover the outer planets of the Solar system in the next blog. 

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.

What does a planet require to sustain life?

January 19^th, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad[1]

Planets are overwhelmingly cool. They are celestial bodies that orbit a star in an elliptical orbit. As much as we know, most of the stars in the universe have planets orbiting. We know the planets in our Solar System as ‘planets’. However, the planets that exist beyond the Solar System are called ‘exoplanets. Lastly, there is also another type of planets, which wander around the universe. By this, I mean that these planets do not orbit any star and move freely in the universe. There are many planets in the universe, some are very cold, some are very hot and some are water worlds. However, only some of the planets in the universe can sustain life. By this, I mean that life, as we know it can survive there without difficulties. Earth is one of these planets. Almost all of us know why humans and many other animal species can inhabit Earth. In this blog, I’ll explain what planets need in order to sustain intelligent life.

Firstly, the planet should have a rocky surface just like Earth has. Technically, it should have elements on it that are, let’s say heavier than helium. This will help us a lot as we can easily move around, planets can be planted and grown, the shelter can be placed easily. We will be able to move around easily to explore the new planet and planets, as well as trees, could be benefited from.

Secondly, the planet should be revolving around a stable star, which has stable brightness. Some stars change their brightness after some centuries or even years. Therefore, the planet won’t be stable if it orbits around such a star. We also want the planet to be orbiting around a single star, not binary (two stars) which is very common. Even if the planet exists in a binary star system, the stars should be either too close or too far from each other for the stability of the planet as well as normal orbit.

Moreover, the most important thing, which we require from such a planet, is water. The planet should have liquid water on its surface. For this, the planet has to orbit its star in the goldilocks zone. Goldilocks zone is the zone around a star where liquid water can exist. If the planet is too far from its star, it’ll be very cold for water to exist in liquid form and if the planet is very close to its star, the surface would be extremely hot and the water won’t be liquid too. We can take examples of Mars and Venus. Venus is literally hell. It has a surface temperature of 462 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, 
Mars is very cold and has an average surface temperature of 60 degrees Celsius.

Furthermore, we want the planet to be neither too big and dense nor too small or too dense. If the is too dense and large then it would be like, lets sat Jupiter (gas giant). On the contrary, if it is very low in density and has a small size, then it would face the fate of Mars. As I have said in one of my first blogs, Mars was once a planet like Earth. However, due to its very low density and size, it couldn’t hold on to its atmosphere. Therefore, it lost its atmosphere to Solar winds and is now a dead planet though it can be revived if we terraform it.

Picture credit: www.usnews.com

Habitable planets are very hard to find but, we have still found a lot of planets that can be inhabited by intelligent life. However, the main problem is, how do we go to these planets. It would take us billions of years to reach these planets. We have also found a habitable planet in the closest star to us (Proxima Centauri) but, even traveling to this planet with the current technology would take us almost 60,000-80,000 years. Till we come up with technology that can help us travel to these distant planets, we will have to wait on Earth.

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[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9^th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.