Feature This week's community question is about surprises!

[MMohammed]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

 

[COLGeek]

In space, no one can hear you scream!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjfRhwn-4fw

 

[Wolfshadw]

@COLGeek - I had the exact same thought as I read the above.

-Wolf sends

 

[Pearl]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

That it doesn't move. It expands, or bends, if you will.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I think what surprised me the most was the immense size of the solar system/galaxy/universe.

When I was a kid, my Dad took me to the Science Museum and I learned how far the Earth was away from the Sun. I was like, "and it takes FOREVER just to get the 10 miles to McDonald's!".

Hey! I was five years old!

-Wolf sends

 

[StargazerUSA]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the density of empty space (between island universes - Galaxies) is leastly one atom per cubic meter!

 

[Catastrophe]

"the density of empty space"

Ah! But . . . . . . . . . there is far more in empty space than just atoms.

Cat

 

[AL M KF5SMH]

Speaking of Voyager, the radio signal that returns the reports is at an extremely low level when it arrives here on earth. Your local radio station may transmit at 50-100,000 watts, the voyager signal starts from Voyager at 22-23 watts and is heard here on earth at like a billionth of a billionth of a watt. LEO Sats usually transmit in the 500 milliwatt to 5 watt range for amateur radio.

 

[slickstah]

The utter lack of antimatter in the observable universe. I just read about an antineutrino being detected in the ice under the Antarctic. Where is all the antimatter?

 

[Catastrophe]

"Where is all the antimatter?"

Most of it got used up early on.

Generally speaking, with the rate of expansion, there are more and more locations rapidly becoming inaccessible to our methods of probe.

Cat

 

[Hudata]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

I've been fascinated by space ever since I was very, very small. I remember how shocked I was when I was five or six and my mother explained that there was no floor or "ground" to space. The idea that there could be no "bottom" and no objective "up" and "down" took me aback, and for the first time gave me a real inkling of what space really was.

 

[thom01801]

I have a question. First though I am all in favor of space exploration. Here is the BUT, As people once thought, you could dump all kinds of waste in the ocean and it would have no impact, conversely people once thought the air could not be polluted. We see today those ideas were wrong. My question is, how much of our atmosphere can we remove from the earth before it becomes impacted in a serious level. Every time a rocket is launched it is taking with it great amounts of our atmosphere through rocket propulsion. As we send more and more satellites, launches to space stations, Moon bases in the future and Mars we are taking vast amounts of our air from the earth. Any thoughts on this?

 

[COLGeek]

I have a question. First though I am all in favor of space exploration. Here is the BUT, As people once thought, you could dump all kinds of waste in the ocean and it would have no impact, conversely people once thought the air could not be polluted. We see today those ideas were wrong. My question is, how much of our atmosphere can we remove from the earth before it becomes impacted in a serious level. Every time a rocket is launched it is taking with it great amounts of our atmosphere through rocket propulsion. As we send more and more satellites, launches to space stations, Moon bases in the future and Mars we are taking vast amounts of our air from the earth. Any thoughts on this?

Seems you should start your own thread on this question. Placing here may cause it to be overlooked after other members respond to the original question.

 

[COLGeek]

I am still surprised and amazed by the enormity of the universe, something almost beyond the grasp of imagination. As a kid, it fascinated me to ponder the span of space. All these years later, and with better understanding, I am still in awe of it all.

 

[mbee1]

I have a question. First though I am all in favor of space exploration. Here is the BUT, As people once thought, you could dump all kinds of waste in the ocean and it would have no impact, conversely people once thought the air could not be polluted. We see today those ideas were wrong. My question is, how much of our atmosphere can we remove from the earth before it becomes impacted in a serious level. Every time a rocket is launched it is taking with it great amounts of our atmosphere through rocket propulsion. As we send more and more satellites, launches to space stations, Moon bases in the future and Mars we are taking vast amounts of our air from the earth. Any thoughts on this?

If you calculate the mass which is ejected into space, most 99% actually impacts the atmosphere and is reabsorbed from any rockets we send to space, the loss is a very tiny number. The estimated loss of mass from the earth due to solar wind less gains from those same solar winds and cosmic dust and rocks is about 50,000 tons a year, The problem is the number is simply a guess with very large errors built into the calculations. Nothing man is doing comes close the the natural changes in earths mass. Look up the mass of the earth and you see the 50,000 tons figure is so small nobody has to worry about it. Moon bases or mars bases would use materials found there to supply the air for those bases so the next loss would be zero for earth. aside from a few tons of nitrogen assuming they wanted a nitrogen oxygen air supply.

 

[mbee1]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

Voyager is not and never will be outside the influence of the sun. It is pretty far away for stuff mankind made but the suns gravity and sunlight are still operating on the craft the same as it did on the day it was launched and the only difference is the effects are smaller as it is pretty far away.

 

[Duke0467]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

That no one can explain how it came to exist in the first place. there is no explanation for that first atom or molecule or whatever started the whole thing.

 

[daleraby]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

The most surprising thing that I learned about space is that it is inextricably linked with time and therefore becomes space-time. This should have been obvious, I suppose, but it wasn't.

 

[sam85geo]

At first "Space" was for stargazing; then came the sundry mathematics of Astronomy and Cosmology; then physics, psychology, biology and history stirred interest in related selective issues. Finally, a cold, mechanical philosophy came out of all of this. i.e.: Space, that portion of the Universe that surrounds planet Earth is simply part of the matrix where all of Earth's lifeforms exist for some random time going from conception through maturation, to death and eventually extinction. Those lifeforms are winners, past, present and future, in the greatest random event in our portion of the Universe.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Voyager is not and never will be outside the influence of the sun. It is pretty far away for stuff mankind made but the suns gravity and sunlight are still operating on the craft the same as it did on the day it was launched and the only difference is the effects are smaller as it is pretty far away.

While an argument could be made that the Sun's gravitational influence is indefinite and will always act on the Voyager craft, the general consensus is that once past the Heliopause, a craft is "beyond the influence" of the host star and in interstellar space.

Current estimates say the edge of the Oort cloud is around 100,000 AU. In the 43.5 years since launch, Voyager 1 has traveled approximately 152 AU. So, after some simple math, in approximately 28,618 years, Voyager 1 will have traveled beyond the edge of the Oort cloud.

Interstellar Accomplishments

In August 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to cross into interstellar space.

However, if we define our solar system as the Sun and everything that primarily orbits the Sun, Voyager 1 will remain within the confines of the solar system until it emerges from the Oort cloud in another 14,000 to 28,000 years.

Source

-Wolf sends

 

[Epiphany]

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I built many years ago a model of the local stellar neighborhood, with Sol at the center of a cube 35 light years on a side. I was surprised to see how common K and M class red dwarves were compared to G class stars like Sol. If I remember, there were 103 star systems in my little box, with only 3 of them larger than Sol. It made me wonder if SETI should be focused more on life evolving around common red dwarfs.

 

[Ricardo Vincente]

What I have learn in my younger days that space is a vacuum and you can only create a laser in a vacuum and that was in the 80's look how far man have come today with lasers also what baffling just outside our breathing atmosphere is this vacuum that surround this planet.

 

[Wynndell]

​

Hello and happy Monday, everyone!

I've got another fun question for the community. However, before that, I really have to point out how awesome everyone's responses have been to this weekly feature. It's so heartwarming to be amongst fellow space enthusiasts that are as passionate as I am!

Speaking of which, one of the things that keep me coming back to learning about space is how often I'm surprised by what I come across. I remember how shocked I was as a child to learn that space is utterly silent. More recently, I was thinking about Voyager and felt the same sort of shockwaves when I thought about how it is so far away right now...that it was outside of the influence of the sun!

It's stuff like this that truly amazes and continually surprises me. How about you? What is the most surprising thing you learned about space?

As always, we'll be featuring some of our favourite answers on the weekly community round-up!

What surprised me was how our magnetic field protects us from the solar winds.

 

[IG2007]

This is what always boggles me and puzzles me: The hugeness of the Universe. We don't even know how large the whole universe is. And we can't even observe the whole universe. That's something that will boggle my mind forever, no matter how much we know, the universe will always surprise us.

 

[Sr. Pauline]

What has surprised me most is learning that there are such a great number of galaxies.