Astronomy

 

"AstroPhotoDork.com - Free Astronomy Stock Photos for Emails and Personal Websites." AstroPhotoDork.com - Free Astronomy Stock Photos for Emails and Personal Websites. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://www.astrophotodork.com/

"CASA." CASA. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://casa.colorado.edu/>.

523.8 FER

Ferguson, Kitty. Black holes in spacetime. New York : Watts, 1991.
Discusses the formation and possible behavior of black holes and why we believe that they exist.

"Index of /News." Scrape TV - The World on your side. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://scrapetv.com/News/>.

"Necessary Cool ." Necessary Cool . N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://necessarycool.com/>.

"Space : Discovery Channel." Discovery Channel : Science, History, Space, Tech, Sharks, News. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. http://dsc.discovery.com/space/.

" Space Scan: Latest news and information on Space, Astronomy, Discoveries, Inventions, Science, Technology, Planets, NASA, Space Sculptures, Spacecrafts, Stars, Telescopes, Space Shuttles, Kennedy Space Center, Space Shuttles, and beyond." Space Scan: Latest news and information on Space, Astronomy, Discoveries, Inventions, Science, Technology, Planets, NASA, Space Sculptures, Spacecrafts, Stars, Telescopes, Space Shuttles, Kennedy Space Center, Space Shuttles, and beyond. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://www.spacescan.org/>.

" Sudip’s Place on the Net." Sudip’s Place on the Net. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. <http://sudipb.files.wordpress.com

Origin on Prezi

"How Are Stars Born?." Thunderbolts home. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. <http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/091106born.htm>.

"WMAP- Life and Death of Stars." Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. <http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/rel_stars.html>.

With many thriving cultures and the almost daily advancement in technology one can only expect for many theories on how all of this was created. The Universe, seeming to expand into nothingness, is one of the hot controversies in this society of debate. There are three main stories and/or theories revolving around the topic. Even if more ancient, it was actually what some people believed back when they were not as well educated as we are now in this modern era of science. The oldest theory that is still popularly known is the Greek Creation Story. Following this one there is the Bible, the most copied book in our history, with it's own theory which we refer simply as God's Creation. Now there is a new theory that has taken the scientific world by storm, the Big Bang. Each has or had their own followers and believers. Each has had their own affect on our history. The Universe is a subject of its own.

                Back when the belief system was based off of multiple Gods, or polytheism, the Greeks had a whole different idea on how the world around them was created. Their story went something along the lines of this; In the beginning there was only chaos. The world thrown into endless nothingness. Then out of almost no where appeared something with the name of Erebus, which is the unknowable place where death emerges and thrives. Everything else was still empty. Then comes along Love born to bring some order into the dark space that the Universe was. Then with Love came Light. Now that these were established Gaea, or the Earth, came into existence.

Erebus had an affair with Night, who became impregnated with Ether, or the heavenly light, and Day which is the earthly light. Along with Night there was Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, and others many others. Meanwhile Gaea, what we refer to Mother Nature, gave birth to Uranus, the heavens. Uranus later became Gaea's partner. Together they had three Cyclopes, three Hecatoncheires , and twelve Titans. One of their sons, Cronus, attacked Uranus and became the next ruler. Later he was informed that Gaea and Uranus had prophesied that he would be overthrown by one of his sons. He thought he could avoid this by swallowing his children. His wife, Rhea, hate him for it though. When she had to give birth to her sixth child she went into hiding, then left her child to be raised among nymphs. The child's name was Zeus. He later became the son who defeated his Father, Cronus.

Seems quite ridiculous doesn’t it? Well this is what people had believed in back when there was a lack of common science because they simply did not have tools to decipher fact from fiction.

     Now the Bible, which was printed in the 1380's (obviously way before our time), came up with their basic Creation story. The Bible is split into scripts and verses, so the story is split into seven parts. They all say this;

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness he called Night.  And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.  

Genesis 1:1-5 NRSV

And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’  So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome.  And it was so.  God called the dome Sky.  And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Genesis 1:6-8 NRSV

And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’  And it was so.  God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas.  And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’  And it was so.  The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind  bearing fruit with seed in it.  And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Genesis 1:9-13 NRSV

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth. ’  And it was so.  God made the two great lights-- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night-- and the stars.  God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.  And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Genesis 1:14-19 NRSV

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”  So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind.  And God saw that it was good.  God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”  And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.  

Genesis 1:20-23, NRSV

And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind.  And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”  So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”  God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.  And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”  And it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:24-25 NRSV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.  And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 2:1-3 NRSV

That is quite a bit of information, but in summary it's actually very simple. In seven days God created the Universe and the Earth, each day with a different element of its own. On the seventh day, though, He rested. That's how we got our seven days in a week calendar.

     Now with probably the biggest marvel in scientific history is the theory of the Big Bang. With the birth of probably the world's greatest genius, Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity in 1905, which stated that the speed of light is constant resulting in the famous E=mc2 formula. What most people are unaware of is that E=mc2 is energy equaling mass and the speed of light squared. Later in 1916 he published his General Theory of Relativity, instead of a three-dimensional space he drew one in four dimensions. The shape of space is determined by the mass in it. Gravity is bending with all the massive objects located inside, the bigger the object the more of a curve gravity has. This, surprisingly, has much to do with the big bang, which in case was actually a "big bang." All of a sudden the universe appears in a single point, which is unimaginably dense and hot. It explodes and in 10-43 seconds space and time are created. All forces are compacted into one superforce and the entire universe is smaller than a single proton. After that gravity becomes its own force and the universe still continues to expand. Electrons start to clash with protons and neutrons are born. So on and so forth the show continues for billions of years and the Universe is still expanding and this moment, just a much, much slower rate.

Wherever you come from or whatever you believe there are theories for everyone, and all of these could be plausible. If it's science or religion, everyone in this country has a right to freedom and to believe what they want.

Mark Eastman, Chuck Missler, The Creator: Beyond Time and Space, (1996) p. 11.

 

Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36.

Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548.

W. Wayt Gibbs, "Profile: George F. R. Ellis," Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No.4, p. 55.