2 posts tagged “astronomy”

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Jupiter

Jun 9, 2007
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This is What I saw last night.

I brought my telescope out last night, not expecting much. I pointed it toward a bright star above the eastern horizon and slowly brought it into focus, and this is what I saw. It's actually Jupiter with it's four largest moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. At first it just showed up as a white dot, but as I perfected the focus and trained my eyes, I could actually start to make out the actual ripples in the storms swirling around in the Jupiter atmosphere. It gave me chills. It's amazing to me that we, as a human species have actually sent a probe that punctured the atmosphere of that little white dot. Even more amazing is that one of those four moons, Europa is known to have frozen water, which could allow it to harbor life. So in theory, some creature could have been staring right back at me (given that the probability of life on Europa only lends to micro-organisms, this is extremely far-fetched). I love astronomy.

An interest in Science

Aug 25, 2006
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For the past few years my interests have taken a sharp turn. Where as my youth was filled with interests in impressing girls with my guitar, or mastering the art of soccer; my current interests have been motivated by something much more basic. I've been nurturing a growing interest in science and the origin of the Universe. I can remember as a child being comforted by the fact that if a question popped into my little head, either my Mom or my Dad would have a profound answer that would leave me feeling fulfilled and satisfied. I can also remember looking up at the stars one night in my backyard, my mind in that youthful state of meditation (my parents liked to say I was "off in my own world") and coming to a question that neither my Mom or Dad could not answer. Why are we here? They didn't know. How could they not know? I mean after all they had, up till then, been the source of all of my knowlege. Even though I was taken back for a while at this new flaw in my parents, I consulted my trusty set of encyclopedias (the internet wasn't available for the general public at the time) and I found that the answer wasn't written across any of those pages either. For years this question festered in my head, spawning other un-answerable questions like "what is past the edge of the Universe?" and "What caused the Big Bang?". These questions grew and expanded as I got older until, gradually, they became a comfort to me. Something my mind could always fall back on when in need of a challenge. These impossible questions forced me to think logically, where as my background in religion instructed me to place my "faith" in something that did not line up with reality. Having been given the opportunity to follow both science and religion, the only logical choice that seemed to line up with reality without placing blind faith in written words was science. And so I chose my path and here I am today, soaking up every advancement in Human knowlege I can gather. After a few years of studying physics, astronomy, quantum mechanics, etc... I have come to one conclusion: The only thing left to learn is everything.