The Drama in the sky

We all have evolved with a sight that looks at what is in front. It has a definite purpose and has kept us all alive for the past two hundred thousand years. Naturally so, many of us do not take a moment to lookup into the sky and wonder what is going on up there in the grand Theatre at the expense of a pain in the neck.

The fact is seven billion of us with all the other billions of species in this bio-sphere inhabit, what can be termed as only “a speck of dust” in the cosmos. We, the audience are so involved in the daily chores and mundane activities that we tend to ignore the forces and its size and scale that exist out there. To top that, what we can see and observe contributes to only four percent of this universe, the rest ninety six percent is all unknown and un-answered to us.

To get a sense of the size of space the easiest way is to reverse engineer. The creation of the universe was thirteen and a half billion years ago and so the farthest object from which we will receive light will be thirteen and a half billion light years away and hence deduce that, the width of this universe is thirteen and a half billion light years. But that is not the truth. Einstein’s theory has proved that space is not a constant vector and space can expand, hence with the distribution of all the mass since Big Bang, space between individual elements has expanded as well. Now it’s closer to ninety one billion light years across! (1 light year = 9.46 X 10¹² kilometre) Every time we look out into the darkness of space we are witnessing just a tiny corner of this cosmic stage.

Understanding what started the genesis of this universe is a subject matter on to itself, but trying to comprehend what this space is filled up with, is a mighty challenge. The reason why it’s believed to be made of something is because of the remnant from the start, the Big Bang. The Cosmic Microwave background (CMB); which is all pervasive has created one of the most beautiful pictures of our universe which shows that the entire space is not just cold and desolate but has an average temperature of four degree above absolute zero everywhere. This accidental discovery by two radio astronomers who mistook this reading for interference by pigeon-poo in the antennae changed our understanding of the cosmic stage and how it was all set up.

Looking at the objects that we can observe with our naked eye also does not reveal the full story. All the stars that we see are from our own galaxy called the Milky Way galaxy. There are hundred billion stars in our Galaxy! Some of the dots of light that we do observe are actually not stars but they are other distant galaxies and each one of them has the same number of stars as our galaxy has. There are hundred billion such Galaxies! Just multiplying the numbers will test the calculator. But this is just a count of the stars, if each star has an average of five planets and each planet has an average of two moons then numbers grow exponentially. Other than stars, planets and moons there are other heavenly bodies like neutron stars, black holes, Pulsars, Brown dwarfs and many more that are not accounted for. Each of these characters has their own little role to play which is as dynamic as it can ever get.

Each of these objects has a different origin and is at different stages in their life cycle. The Nebulas are the stellar nurseries where massive gas clouds of Hydrogen leads to the birth of tiny stars. Star creation is a constant process all across the universe. When the accretion of gas reaches a critical mass enough to support a nuclear reaction, the birth of a star takes place with a bang, powerful enough to disperse the gas clouds nearby to allow other stars to form. Like all good things that has to come to an end, our good old Sun did begin to shine four and a half billion years ago. The Sun, in spite of just spending four percent of its total Hydrogen fuel all these years has reached its middle age. In another five billion years the Sun would have spent all the Hydrogen in the core and the Hydrogen in the outer core will begin to fuse making the star bloat in size. In this Red Giant phase our beloved life supporter and God in every religion; it will swallow all its children. It’s a tragic end but it’s inevitable.

Some of the valiant stars like our Sun might exit the stage in a subtle gesture, but some larger stars make their exit known. Just like how the saying goes, the larger you are, the harder you fall; same goes for enormous stars. They die a spectacular death giving out enough energy as all the stars in the galaxy put together. It’s only in these stars are elements greater then Iron in the periodic table are forged. The ring on your finger was made by these super explosions, aptly called Super Nova. Our humble solar system was born in the cradle of the residue of such an explosion. If not for such destruction, none of us would be around.

The plot of the whole universe is that every violent, cataclysmic destruction will always lead to the creation of some thing new. But that cannot be said about what the villain of the play has to do. Black holes are one such mystic creations of the natural world that defies all laws of physics. The effects of being around or close to one of these have been explained but at the centre of a Black Hole fundamental physics looses ground.

Try to imagine this scenario of a person being close enough to the Black hole where the choice of return is no more. This is the event horizon. The evil monster pulls in hard on any of the approaching prey which includes light. (Hence black). The person gets pulled more at his feet then his head because the force of gravity is that high as we get closer to the object. The person gets elongated. This is called spaghettification; yes, it’s a technical word. The distant observer can see this person being stretched, but the victim would feel everything is normal. Gravity is directly related to space and with increasing gravity space compresses. Time is related to space and hence a minute on the victims’ watch would be hours for the observer. These are phenomenon that the lay man cannot understand but it’s real at the same time.

One of the characters, like in all tales tries hard to grab attention. It lets everyone in the universe know where they are. These small stars are remnant core of a star that exploded. They are so extremely dense that a tea spoon full of matter from the star will weigh as much as the entire humanity, but more so these stars have gained a massive angular momentum that they being the size of our planet spin tens of times every second. As they spin, from the poles a focussed high energy radio beam shoots out sending out a repetitive pulse. Some of them are so accurate that it would beat an atomic clock. These pulsating stars are called ‘Pulsars’.

In this epic saga there are a few roles that we all as a human race are yearning to see. Many have been trying since decades to find them and many more are being very hopeful that they will show up one day or the other. Planetary search around other stars has been fruitful in the recent years and several hundreds have been discovered. Some exotic ones, where the entire planet is one big ball of Diamond, a miner’s paradise and some that sound synonymous to Hell. Massive gas giants orbiting very close to the host star, so close that its upper atmosphere is getting blown away. But amidst all these extremities, there are hopes of finding a sanctuary for life just like how the earth has been. The planets in the goldilocks zone are those that are not too far and not too close to the host star just enough to keep water in liquid form on its rocky surface. Not so long ago such an exoplanet has been discovered where the entire surface is covered by water. Discovery of even the simplest form of alien life will change the perception of humanity about them selves. It might question the foundation of a few of the religions that our race has followed since centuries. A good shake up once a while is always for the good.

For all of us, who are just mere spectators, who have not seen the beginning of the play nor will ever get to see the curtain fall; The one small momentary scene that we get to see in this tiny life time of ours on the “pale blue dot, suspended in a ray of light” as Carl Segan once said, is the drama. If we are the only intelligent beings, then it proves how significant we are to this vast Universe and on the contrary, if there are multitudes of life spread across the depths of space, it might prove that our existence was just another accident.

Either way a wish full climax to before we are asked to get off our front row seats will be if another spectator of the same drama from another part of this universe just makes a conversation with us to ask “How is the show from there?”