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Astronomy_Astrology_Telescopes
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Space, The Final
Frontier
While
it was just a TV show, that little speech at the
beginning of the original Star Trek show really did do a
good job of capturing our feelings about space. It is
those feelings that drive our love of astronomy and our
desire to learn more and more about it. The thing that
is most exciting about studying the universe is also the
most frustrating and that is that no matter how expert
we get, we are always just getting started. But if it's
any consolation, some of the most advanced minds in
science and from history always felt that way about
space. Even the greats such as Copernicus and Einstein
looked up into space and felt like they were just a spec
in the presence of such infinity. Of course space is not
infinite. It has to be finite which means somehow there
must be an end to it. But if there is, nobody on this
tiny planet has figured out where it is. The only thing
that has brought us to The end of the universe・is our
limited ability to see any deeper into space. But
conquering the final frontier of space means more than
just seeing more stars and planets and building the
biggest telescope we can. There are some mind blowing
concepts about how space works that we have ahead of us
to conquer. The big bang and the expanding universe
alone was enough to set your mind to spinning. But then
we have the coming of Einstein and the theory of
relativity to set the entire idea on its ear. All of a
sudden space is not just three dimensions but the
dimension of time becomes exportable and the twisting
and maybe even travel through time seems almost
possible. The frontier of space is as much a journey of
the mind as it is of distance. When Steven Hawking
showed us the mysteries of black holes, all of a sudden,
time and space could collapse and be twisted and changed
in those intergalactic pressure cookers. If not for the
wonders of radio astronomy, these ideas would remain
just ideas but slowly science is catching up with
theory. But the brilliance of mathematicians and genius
minds like Hawking and Einstein continue to stretch our
concepts of space. Now we have the string theory that
could revolutionize everything we know about space, time
and how the universe relates to itself. We can't just
say, no, we have discovered enough. It's the final
frontier. The Starship Enterprise would not stop
exploring so neither can we. Because there is a hurdle
still ahead that has a name but no real answer to it
yet. It's called the Unified Field Theory and those that
know tell us that when the Einsteins and Hawkings of our
day crack that theory, every other theory will fall into
place. These exciting concepts seem some tools to put
the enormity of space in context. That may also be the
value of science fiction. Not only are science fiction
writers often the visionaries of what comes to be in the
future but they give us the idea that space is knowable,
that despite how big it is and how small we are, we can
conquer this frontier like we have conquered others
before us. For mankind, that is often enough. If we can
get the vision that we can conquer something, even if it
is something so massive, so impossibly huge, it seems
that we are capable of anything. And the love of
astronomy, maybe unlike any other force on earth, has
brought together mankind toward that common goal of
conquering the universe. The quest to establish an
international space station and to cooperate on
spreading our reach off of this planet seems to find
commonality between nations that otherwise cannot get
along on the surface of the earth. That alone may be a
reason that we must continue to support astronomy
locally and the space program nationally. It is
something that seems to bring peace rather than war and
make us a better people. But more than that it is as
though this is what we were created to do. To reach out
to the stars may be our destiny. If so then our love of
astronomy is more than a hobby, it't a
calling.
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