The earth’s size relative to the size of the universe is not even equivalent to a single grain of sand compared to the size of the earth. We are not even a single grain of sand.
Category: Astronomy
Ancient Civilizations Out There?
They think the known universe is just shy of 15 billion years old. That’s a long time. Compare that to how long humans have been around — approximately 2 million years at the most. That’s not even 1 second on the time dimension of the universe.
But if you were to look at the night sky without any light pollution, you would see just gads — that is countless — stars near us. And then again, we now know there are countless whole galaxies out there. Given the time dimension of the known universe, it raises the very likely scenario that there are civilizations on other planets, somewhere, that have been around not for merely millions of years, but perhaps even over a billion years.
Just think how far a civilization might actually advance in knowledge/technology in over a billion years…when you look at how far we have come in merely a couple million years? A civilization that has advanced in over a billion years would probably see our civilization as comparable to the way we view ants…not even ants.
Other Worlds
Astronomers believe that, of all the stars one can see in the clear night sky, well over half of them are not one star but 2 or more stars. We see these multiple stars as one star because they are so far away that they blur together or merge in our view of them.
It is also becoming increasingly clear that it is not at all uncommon for any star to have planets and their own solar system circling them, just like our own solar system circles our sun.
While we live in a solar system with only one star, there must be many solar systems that are under the influence and light of multiple stars, given that many seemingly single stars are actually multiple stars.
This raises the interesting idea that the planets in situations where there are multiple stars close together may not experience the day/night cycle that we experience because when these planets rotate they may always be facing sunlight, i.e., there is another paired star on the “nighttime” side.
Just imagine what that means. Such a world would never have our night, so inhabitants would never ever see stars. They would not know of the existence of the stars in the universe, and therefore would not have anything like a true understanding of the real universe. They would live in a bubble, in a world in effect encapsulated by sunlight, never ever able to see beyond that sunlight.
Another impact of not having the experience of ever having a night, that is, of always existing in daylight, is that their sleep/rest cycles would not be modulated, as ours is, by the day/night rhythm. So what would induce the need to rest/sleep in such a world where there was perpetual daylight? Or perhaps our type of sleep, ushered in by the darkness of night, would not exist there as well — the inhabitants of such a world might not experience our type of sleep at all. Our world is modulated by intense activity during daylight hours, followed by sleep/rest during the night, but without a night, their world might be this steady state of low-grade activity all the time, which might eliminate any need for sleep/rest.
Earth
Why does the earth rotate?
Did you know that Venus rotates in the opposite direction? How could that be?
Henry's Views 