Introduction to the Universe

The universe is filled with cosmic objects and dynamics that have no counterpart on Earth. In a literal sense, beyond the Earth is an alien reality, filled with alien worlds, objects, phenomena, events and dynamics that defy the imagination in their magnitude. They occur on such a scale that the human imagination is, at present, unable to truly grasp them in their totality.

These types of phenomena are what make Astronomy such a fascinating subject to study. They open our minds to a universe far greater — and stranger — than the majority are aware of. Astronomy is one of the core subjects that the general populace should be familiar with, because it is fundamental knowledge of our world that literally changes, expands, and enhances our perspective on the reality we all share — even of our own lives.

Exploration of the Universe

Throughout the course of this text you will gain a thorough introduction to the universe. The journey itself is long, especially if you choose to dive even deeper to a more technical level of understanding. However, in either case, you will come away with knowledge of the fundamental dynamics of the universe, cosmic objects and life cycles, and an understanding of basic properties and phenomena that make it all possible.

A few of the general themes that we will cover are:

• The Sun and Solar System — For thousands of years, the only access that we had to the cosmos was what we could see with our naked eye when we looked up into the sky, particularly at the night sky. it is only in the last two centuries that we have achieved a detailed, accurate understanding of what we are looking at. Only recently did we discover why the sun shines (nuclear fusion in its core) and develop telescopes, technology, and space craft enabling us to explore our galactic neighbourhood in any some detail. A canyon so large it would stretch from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. A tiny moon with gravity so weak you could throw a baseball into orbit from the surface.
• Stars and Stellar Evolution — Only in the last century or so have we begun to understand stars. How they were formed, how they generate light-energy, their life cycles, and how they die. A collapsed star so dense, you would have to squeeze the entire human race into a raindrop to replicate.
• Supernova Explosion — the brilliant death of massive stars, that plant seeds of life (heavy elements) into the space of the galaxy, which are also powerful enough to wipe out all life on the planets of their star system, and its neighbors.
• Light, Electromagnetic Radiation, and the Analysis of Starlight — The astronomical magnitude of cosmic distances is one of the greatest challenges faced by the field of astronomy. As such, starlight is the predominant source of information we have of space. However, contrary to the popular meaning of ‘light’, the majority of starlight is not visible, and exists across the entire electromagnetic spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, which are all, technically, light. For example, a certain radio wave frequency is an echo of the light from the creation event of the universe, a signal from the beginning of time in our universe, the Big Bang. This is called CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) radiation.
• Galaxies and Groups — Our Milky Way Galaxy, home to maybe 200 billion stars and untold number of planets, is but a single galaxy within the greater universe that is teeming with galaxies of various types. Galaxies can exist in Cannibal galaxies that consume smaller neighbour galaxies.
• Black Holes — One of the most exotic objects in the cosmos which play a crucial role in universal dynamics, organizing and creating stars and galaxies perhaps, and might hold the key to a Unified Field Theory.

Life: More Questions Than Answers…

In this introduction, I would like to leave you with one last impression (which I cover on its own in detail). Although this is not precisely of the domain of astronomy itself (at least not astronomy alone) one of the great questions that drives many scientists who choose to look into the Universe, is on the origin of life.

How did life come to be? Are we alone in the universe? How many galaxies are there, how many stars, and how many planets are in our galaxy alone — let alone within the rest of the universe? How many hold life?

Over the course of this text you will learn the basics of how atoms were created, and how stars are formed. How stars are factories that forge the chemical elements that provide the chemical complexity necessary for complex life. Furthermore, stars are generators. They produce energy and radiate light into the universe, which is also necessary for most forms of life.

Even that thought itself — that stars are fundamentally generators, factories, and stabilizers that create planetary ecosystems of a cosmic form — raises important questions about the intentionality of the universe. Questions that I believe go largely unaddressed. Perhaps because their are more qualitative than quantitative in nature, bordering even on the philosophical and theological, thus not easy to approach from a scientific perspective.

The way that I like to look at the situation is from the perspective of biology. If you observe the birth of a tree, you can see that a tree gives off its seed, which eventually makes its way into the ground. That apparently lifeless seed goes through an amazing transformation, breaking its shell and penetrating the ground to the surface before going through a number of other stages of life before it grows into a mature tree — only to repeat the cycle generation upon generation in a fractal pattern of life.

I see this same dynamic at play in the life cycles of stars. Stars are born and die. They form planets around themselves, with their own form of living dynamics (at least in the sense of hydro, geological, or volcanic dynamics at minimum). The end result of these natural processes? Well, worlds are created. And we know for certain that on at least one of these worlds, life is the natural result of these natural processes. Perhaps, we should look at space as a cosmic ecosystem that is alive, in its own way. Since — truth be told — we do not have a really good grasp of what life is anyways. Not yet at least.

Many scientists emphasize entropy as a fundamental dynamic of the universe — the tendency towards decay from an organized state to a disorganized state. There is truth to this view. However, I see far more organization than the opposite in the universe. The theory is that the universe began in a highly organized state (the Big Bang) and exploded towards disorder (a vast oversimplification, but not incorrect).

Yet every star acts as a fundamentally organizing force for its local environment. A star collects disorganized gas into a more ordered system, and appears to have the tendency to create an ordered planetary system and interplanetary environment around itself, which is the environment where planets are formed — further increasing order. The life cycles of stars over generations manufacture heavy elements, increasing chemical complexity, increasing the possibility of life — perhaps specifically creating the conditions for life itself — and laying the foundation for more complex forms of life.

My only point here, at this stage, is that we have a lot to learn about the universe. And maybe, just maybe, the Universe is more of a living system than most have yet conceived.

Notes

• “[D]ecoding the message of starlight has been a central challenge and triumph of modern astronomy” and in a very real way as opened our eyes to detail, knowledge, and insight about the universe that we would not otherwise have gained.” [1]

Resources

1. Astronomy. Openstax. Rice University.