Mysteries of space:

My entry for the Journalism Contest 2002 which won the third prize

Look there! Something flashed.... What can it be? An aeroplane or a meteor or could it be an alien spaceship???

Hmmm!!! Sounds interesting, doesn't it? The curiosity of the human mind to find out meanings to things happening around him led to the development of science and what can be the best possible candidate to start from? Especially at a time when there was nothing to do after the Sun God had went fast asleep. Then was the time for the twinklers to come! The beauty of the night sky has always bewitched man. The stars in the sky twinkling like diamonds, the bright band of the milky way stretching out in the sky like a beautiful stretch of a river and lots of other things mystifying and sometimes horrifying! Let us take a plunge into the history and get to know what this beautiful thing has in store for us.

The first attempts of getting to know the sky began by identifying some patterns in the sky and giving them names. Some of famous mythological characters and some down to earth objects! The patterns remained relatively stable but then there were some stars seen which were moving around haphazardly...at a pace more than that of others. These were named the wanderers: the planets. But when observed over a long period of time they seemed to exhibit some regularity in their motion. And the gifted ones could then predict positions of these objects to a great deal of accuracy without knowing actually what these wanderers are!

That was not all! Occasionally used to come unusual visitors to the sky with their long tails with them. These mysterious objects used to swing across the sky in paths unpredictable. These used to raise fear and doubt in the minds of man.

And sometimes used to flash some unusual stars, so bright that even sunlight could not stop their light from entering our eyes. Everything seemed to be so mysterious. Man hapless used to give a great amount of thought on it but to no success.

But were we going to be quiet and just watch these things happen and that too with no aid? Man invented the telescope! It brought us up to the doorsteps of the heavens. Things could be seen with better magnification and greater detail. With this instrument Galileo found the moons of Jupiter and then strongly criticized the Aristotelian view of the earth being at the centre of the universe as it was supposed to be then. Science seemed to progress and the mysteries getting revealed. Copernicus's theory gained popularity as it was based on a sound foundation and was supported well by experiments. The planets now were considered to be in our family consisting of the Sun, Earth and some more small wanderers. Kepler gave his laws of planetary motion and greatly added to our knowledge of these wanderers.

This was just the right time for Newton to enter the picture. From his mind flowed out the theory of Gravitation. The theory explained Kepler's laws and everything seemed to be in harmony with whatever was happening. The same laws governing the earthly objects seemed to be followed by the supposed to be divine objects. The telescopes kept on looking into the sky and finding out newer and newer things.

Einstein's theory of Relativity caused a major renovation as far as our ideas of space and time are considered. His general theory predicted the bending of light rays near masses and the verification again came from a solar eclipse observation. The precession of Mercury's orbit was long a question before the Newtonian theory and the problem was solved well by the theory given by Einstein.

Nebulae and star clusters, galaxies and dust clouds. These things still keep fascinating us. Nothing has changed much. People still look at the sky today but the eyes have improved. It is not just the visible portion of the radiation that we keep looking at. Our insatiable quest to know the universe has resulted in tremendous efforts being put forward towards its study. And the outer space has never disappointed us. It has continuously confronted us with phenomenon that keep on revealing new things. Phenomenons, which challenge present theories, some supporting them! And above all helping us know ourselves better!

Many of the things seen in the sky today can be attributed to some past notes taken down by our ancestors. For example, in 1054 A.D. a star started shining from nowhere and became as bright as the full moon! It would be visible even during daytime and there are written reports about it. If you view the same place today with a nice enough telescope and a beautiful night sky, you find the remnant of the star explosion that took place there. The remnant now better known as the Crab Nebula. Halley found the occurrences of the comet he had seen in history books and concluded that the time period of the comet to be 76 years. Not only this, he predicted the reoccurrence of this comet and the comet did not disappoint.

Today too space mysteries continue to bewilder us. The radiation from the centre of our galaxy, some radio sources, possibility of dark matter hanging around, tremendous energy releasing Gamma ray Bursts, Supernovae, Comet-planet collisions, black holes, the cosmic microwave background radiation?. the list seems to be endless.

And then are we the only ones who are bewildered and bewitched watching the sky around us? Are we alone? Well no one yet knows the answer but it is quite possible that there will be someone or the other who shall be watching our sun much in the same way as we watch their! The search for extra terrestrial intelligence continues and with the advent of technology gets more and more intense.

At the same time the search for the origin of life on our own mother earth is mysterious. We still do not know how life exactly originated on earth. Do the comet planet collisions bring spurts of life? Or are we remnants of some other civilization that brought about its own downfall! Well all these are mere speculations and the witness for all these events is the space surrounding us. It has seen all this happen and has stood by us from years watching us, our progress?.

Life has changed these days though. If people from a city area were to read this they surely will say that I am lying. There is nothing interesting about the sky. The bountiful of stars has reduced to a few, and who has the time to watch them! Pollution in the city areas and light all around has put a curtain over the beautiful night sky. To the common the sky has no longer remained a fascination though the natural instinct continues to make them wonder when big news flash across! But is this what space wants, that just a handful few keep a look on it?

Space shall always stand in front of us with its huge arms ready to embrace us, presenting new mysteries to us to make us know it better. It has made us think, grow and develop and shall continue to do so. Why does it do so itself seems to be a mystery, doesn't it???

Surhud Shrikant More.

Department of Engineering Physics.

H#3 204