WHAT ARE THE CHANCES ?..

High degree of excitement for cosmologists when NASA announce this afternoon that they may have found a replica Earth in a far corner of our galaxy. The Kepler Space probe has been searching for planets like our Earth in the `Goldilocks` zone - neither to hot nor too cold so life might be sustained - and has so far discovered at least 4,000 candidates.

Problem is that the most likely candidate for being a replica of Planet Earth, called Kepler186f in the constellation of Cygnus, is 2939 trillion miles away or 500 light years, which means that the light we see from it now left there 500 years ago.   But if it turns out to be exactly like Earth then I wonder what the chances are that, right now, some septuagenarian crank is busy typing away up there on his ageing key board and speculating whether there`s anyone out there.

Wouldn`t surprise me.

A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE..

It`s getting on for 38 years ago since the Voyager Space probes were launched.  The mission of the two spacecraft was to explore the outer planets of the solar system, which was achieved with spectacular results, sending back to Earth stunning images of Jupiter, Saturn`s rings and much more . And then they just kept going and going, and they continue to send their messages back home and will continue to do so until about 2020 when their transmitting power finally runs out.

Trouble is, the distances are now so great that it takes 18 hours or so for the messages to be received.  Important though that may be, the astonishing thing is that, after all that time and distance, the messages are able to be sent and received at all.  And what distances are we talking about here?   Well, discounting the fact that the spacecraft are travelling at something like 38,000 mph, meaning that the distance is forever increasing, Voyager 1 is about 12 billion miles away, Voyager 2 about 10 billion miles away and counting.

The picture above was taken by the space probe as long ago as 1990 - 25 years ago, when Voyager was a mere 6 billion miles from Earth - and when it was just about possible to make out the Earth showing up as  a blue dot in the red circle.   By now, it must be virtually impossible to make out the Earth in the vastness of space and whilst that might be `impressive` in itself, even that pales into insignificance when one realises that it will be some 40,000 years before Voyager gets even `close` to another, relatively nearby star.

  
Gliese 445 is in the constellation of Camelopardialis, `close` to the pole star Polaris and in about 40,000 years time, Voyager 1 will  pass within 1.6 light years of that star - merely the distance that light, travelling at 186,000 miles a second, will cover in a little over a year and a half.   You do the maths. 


So why am I boring you will all of this?   Well, the `blue dot` picture gives a clue.   Bearing in mind that eventually Voyager will forever be orbiting our Milky Way galaxy; that Planet Earth resides on an unremarkable spiral arm of an unremarkable galaxy; that our galaxy contains billions of other stars and planets and that there are countless billions of other galaxies......and a little perspective of our place in the great scheme of space and time begins to emerge.

Here on our blue dot we have developed to the point whereby spectacular pursuits like the Voyager mission have become possible and we speculate whether we are alone in the Universe.   But surely if another `civilisation` more advanced than our own were to observe life on Planet Earth today, we would doubtless be dismissed as primitive, unsophisticated and not worthy of attention.

Truly, Mrs. Brown`s Boys, Graham Norton, Russell Brand, Harry Redknapp and their ilk have much to answer for.    

I expect you wish I had stayed away now........

SMILE, PLEASE..

With apologies to NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE for nicking their photo, but I was impressed by this image of the Earth and the Moon, taken by the Cassini spacecraft from the outer suburbs of Saturn.   As this photo was taken on my birthday a few days ago, I was sorry to have missed being part of the mass wave and smile in which people here on earth were asked to take part.

The image is a triumph for Carolyn Porco who leads the Cassini camera team at the Space Science Institute at Boulder, Colorado, especially as pictures of our planet from the outer solar system are rare because, at that distance, the Earth is very close to the bright Sun. This image was taken when the Sun had moved behind Saturn from Cassini`s point of view, blocking out most of the sunlight.

But I guess the most striking feature is that the image confirms our insignificance in the imponderable vastness of space and time, consigns even Jose Mourinho, Wayne Rooney, Tony Blair, Russell Brand and the rest of the inflated egos to irrelevance and reaffirms the wisdom of living for the moment.   Well, it only lasts for a brief minute, so keep calm and keep smiling.

A WASTED JOURNEY ?

Last Wednesday, 24th August, using the 48 inch Palomar robotic telescope in southern California- which is designed to observe and uncover astronomical events as they happen- astronomers noticed a new star, dubbed SN 2011fe, in the relatively nearby spiral galaxy M 101, aka the Pinwheel Galaxy, just off the handle of the Plough constellation, otherwise known as the Big Dipper.

Located 21 million light years away, this is the closest Type 1a supernova seen in decades. A Type Ia supernova occurs when a white dwarf draws matter in from a companion star and dumps it on its surface until a runaway nuclear reaction ignites. While many such supernovae are discovered annually they tend to be much farther away at hundreds of millions or billions of light years away.  

Even so, I find it difficult to get my head around the distances involved here.  As light travels at 186,000 miles every second, the distance it travels in one year, never mind 21 million years, produces a number which is too much for these pages to cope with.  The other thing that always astonishes me is that we are, therefore, now seeing the image of an event that occurred 21 million years ago.   So it might be worth a look over the next few evenings as the new star becomes brighter.   You might need binoculars and a clear sky but if you can get away from the light pollution, you might just make it out just after dusk in the north-western sky.  

Just one thing occurs to me - if when the photons of light arrive here on planet Earth after their 21million years journey and they see the chaos that confronts them, they might feel inclined to turn around and head back home again.