Colonizing Mercury - The Idea

Mercury

The Idea of colonizing Mercury is hard to achieve as it requires more fuel to go to mercury than to escape Solar system!

Mercury being the closest planet to sun, has a surface temperature about 450℃ during midday and -180℃ during night.The Probes that have gone there had elaborated system of protecting themselves from heat. Protecting humans from heat will be difficult.

Mercury doesn't have atmosphere and it is constantly under exposure to solar wind, which possess high radiation.

The another big problem of colonizing mars would be "Why anyone would want to?" There's no good reason in doing the same. Probes  missions can be done better than any manned exploration.

So, it is easier to rather colonize mars than mercury which world is today looking forward to do so.

Aniket Kulkarni

Footnote : 

Image source : Mercury image

Mars - interesting facts you need to know

Mars

The fourth planet of solar system has got some interesting facts for you !

The largest mountain  as well as largest Volcanic Mountain in solar system is Olympus Mons located on Mars which is about 3 times that of Mount Everest!

The Northern hemisphere of Mars is lower than Sourthen Hemisphere of mars. If there was a ocean on mars, most of the water  would be on northern hemisphere.

Mars is a very cold planet, its 20% of  air freezes during winters !

Mars has two moons - Phobos and Diemos. Phobos circles mars 3 times a day while Deimos circles the planet every 30 hours!

Mars One Mission will be first ever mission to send humans on planet Mars in 2024. 705 candidates have been chosen and are being trained for the mission

Mars is next most planet  on which humans will start a living.

Mars see you soon !!

Aniket Kulkarni

Footnotes:

Image source : Mars image

Is there sound in space ??

Sounds in space

Have you ever wondered about existence of Sound in space. Can we talk to one another in space, the same way as we do talk on earth?

Well the answer is NO.

Sounds need medium to travel. Sounds travel through the medium called 'air' on earth. There is no air in space. So obviously, there cannot be sounds in space.

I'll take  an example,

The waves of water, in this example the 'water' acts as a medium for waves. 

Don't think that sound can only travel through air, even water and iron can act as a medium for sound to travel!

Sounds cannot exist in space since there is no medium for sound waves to travel in space.

If sound cannot tavel in space, how can astronauts communicate to each other ?

Well, astronaut wear a space suit which has air inside it which helps in communication.

They speak through microphone, which converts sound waves into electrical signals, electrical signals convert into radio waves.

Radio waves :

Radio waves can travel through space because radio waves are electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves do not require any medium to travel because they are made up of both particle and wave. The best example for electromagnetic waves is 'light'.

 These radio waves enter into the receiver of another astronaut and convert into electrical signals and finally into sound waves. 

In this way,Astronauts communicate in space.

Aniket kulkarni

Footnotes: 

Image source: Sounds in space image

Milky Way - All you need to know

Milky Way

Milky way is a huge whirlpool that takes 200 million years to rotate once.

It is made up of  100 billion stars, dust and gas.

It is so much huge that, it takes 1 lakh light years to pass from one end to other end of milky way.

When a person sees milky way at night (yes it is possible to see milky way at night under specific conditions) , he sees only 0.0000025% of whole milky way.

The center of galaxy contains a black hole named sagittarius A* which is hard to see because of dust and clouds blocking view

The sun,earth and rest of solar system is located 27000 light years away from milky way's Galactic center, on the inner edge of a minor arm of galaxy, named orion arm.

If earth orbited the sun at the same speed that stars orbit at the centre of milky way, then earth would take only 3 days to revolve around sun.

Aniket kulkarni

Footnotes:

Image source :Milky way image

The 2.7% chance of asteroid hitting earth

99942 Apophis

Yes!! That is the name of the asteroid which is going to hit surface of earth on April 13th 2029 !!

The chance of hitting the earth's surface is just 2.7%. But we can ignore such a thing!

The mass of asteroid is estimated roughly to be 27 billion kg and  diameter to be 1210 feet.

On april 13th 2029, it will be nearest to earth and so there is a chance of the asteroid hitting earth's surface.

If the asteroid ever hits earth's surface, it will produce kinetic energy of 750 megatons ! The largest hydrogen bomb ever exploded, Tsar bomba in 1961 produced kinetic energy of  57 megatons. We cannot imagine the amount of damage it will cause to earth !

Asteroids also revolve around the sun but their path is highly elliptical.So, there is always a chance of their path intersecting the path of earth. That date is 13th of april 2029 and that date is not very far .

Only future can tell the consequences now !!


Footnotes :

Image source:Asteroid image

Moon - The importance of moon to earth

There would have been no life on earth, without Moon. Moon plays very important role to earth.

Formation of moon : 

The moon is believed to be formed when a planet of the size of 'Mars' collided with  earth billion of years ago. The debris  from the collision formed a ring around earth which later coalesced to form Moon.

What Role does moon play ?


1. Making earth rotation more stable. Without a moon, earth would wobble around and have more varied and less stable climate.

2. More mass, More gravity Hence more tides. We are here today because of these tides.

Tides : Tides bring in food and help dilute the waste products of creatures. Tides bring in fresh water(unsalted water). Tides prevent eutrophication by bringing in fresh water.

3. Without moon, there will be considerable changes in earth's path around sun.

4. Earth's rotation would increase. The fast rotation rate would lead to faster winds and stronger storms.

5. Without moon, the tilt of earth would increase which would create  a wild weather. Right now, due to moon earth is tilted at 23.5 degrees.

6. Without the moon  the tilt of earth would highly vary. With 0 (zero) degrees , we could barely sew sun. With 97 degrees tilt we will be found continuously 42 years in sunlight at a stretch and followed by another 42 years without sunlight.

Aniket Kulkarni

Footnotes : 

Image : Moon image