Space, the black abyss that we humans have all but forgotten to look up at and marvel. Space, the favourite theme of Hollywood to make blockbuster movies on and indeed the final frontier of humanity.
I don’t know about you, but growing up, astronomy was a very intriguing subject for me. A part of the reason was that there was a ton of stuff we didn’t know about the universe and that was very exciting for me, because that meant we were seeking the answers.
We haven’t progressed much since then, inspite of learning a ton of new information and probably will need hundreds of thousands of years to even come close to knowing about even a meaningful amount of information about this unimaginably vast universe.
Therefore, it is important that we keep updated and as important as it is to learn new things, it is just as important to unlearn and relearn them. Not doing so is the reason why myths exist. Talking about myths, here are 5 that we you probably believe about space.
1. The Sun Is Yellow
If you take a look at the sun, it will seem yellow to you, heck even the sunlight looks yellow and yet, if you hold a white paper in your hand in the sunlight, it will appear white and not yellow.
That is because the sun is in fact white in colour and sunlight is in fact white light, something you must have learnt in school too. The sun only appears yellow because of the effects of the atmosphere on the rays of its light which is called the Rayleigh scattering.
However, if you went to space (how cool would that be) and took a look at the sun directly, you would notice that it was a white blob of light.
2. Moon’s Distance To Us
The moon is at an average distance of 384,400 km from the Earth and though we all know that, that number is huge, we can barely put it into perspective.
Therefore, I think almost all of us think that the Moon is much closer to us than it actually is. After all, the moon does appear too large to be too far away, right?
What if I tell you that you could fit all the planets of the Solar System (including Pluto) between the Earth and the Moon and still have about 4000 km to spare? Suddenly that distance doesn’t sound too little, does it?
3. Nothing Travels Faster Than Light
You must be aware of the very popular (and quite annoying) conclusion of Einstein that says, “Nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum.”
While that is correct, there are some phenomena that don’t follow this rule. Take space itself for example. We know that space is expanding and therefore the distances between galaxies is expanding too. There is no limit to how fast this expansion can happen, and thus it can exceed the speed of light.
Then there is quantum entanglement. When two particles are entangled, actions performed on one of them immediately affects the other particle even if those particles were separated by millions of miles. Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance”.
4. There Is A Dark Side of The Moon
Many people understand by “dark side of the moon” that half of the moon never receives sunlight and is fated to remain in darkness forever. This is completely false.
What it actually means is that only one half of the moon faces our planet at all times. It has to do with how the moon rotates as well as revolves around the Earth such that only one half is ever seen to us.
So, even though the other half is never see by us, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t receive sunlight. All parts of the moon receive sunlight in its 28 days phase. And no there are no transformers on the dark side of the moon either.
5. The Asteroid Belt Is Teeming With Collisions
Ever looked at the illustrations of the asteroid belt in your text books and thought that it must be such a violent place? Me too. The asteroid belt is a region in space between Mars and Jupiter which is occupied by numerous, irregularly shaped asteroids.
I always thought the asteroid belt was like how they showed it in sci-fi movies where there are asteroids continuously colliding and causing a raucous. I also always thought that space travellers in the future would have to make awesome manoeuvres to go through this belt.
That is not the case whatsoever. In fact, the asteroid belt is a very lonely place where asteroid collisions do not happen that often at all. That is because, although there is a huge number of asteroids present in the belt, the distances involved are so huge that seldom do they collide with each other.
I like your point about all the planets fitting between us and the moon - that does put its distance in perspective particularly if you think about those gas giants! Cool!
Yeah, it's the only way to visualise such a huge distance!! Thanks for reading :)
That asteroid belt. Take any game or sci-fi movie, it's always a cloud of big MOVING! asteroids. Such nonsense :D
Haha. I know right? It is pretty easy to manoeuvre through it actually.
thank you for sharing the truth
Thank you for reading about it :)
Great post, very interesting. space always fascinates me.
Yeah, I know. One can't help but stare at wonder at such beauty.
Cool article, I was fascinated with space and the possibility of travel to other galaxies as a kid. Sadly, humanity's focus has taken a downturn and we have a hard time even getting into orbit anymore.
Yeah, by now we should have already been way into the colonisation of other planets. However, we wasted a lot of time in the last century. Hope we get back on the right track.
I would add "the nature of black holes" but then you might need an entire post explaining just that ;)
Oh man, I was almost about to do that but I didn't, exactly for that reason! It will take an entire post to do that. haha
And here I was think the Sun was yellow.
I used to think the same. Or at least that's what Superman comics told me ;)
It's good to think about these topics sometimes, great pictures by the way!
Yeah, it really is. So fascinating :)
You can add Myth №6
You will not freeze in open space. Temperature in space, orbiting the Earth is +4°C.
Due to the fact that near the stars the temperature rises, and we live quite close to the Sun.
For example: readings of an onboard thermometer of the satellite TechEdSat, which rotated in earth orbit
But, it is worth noting that if you find yourself in the shadow of the Earth, the temperature drops to -160 °C.
Thank you for this excellent post @sauravrungta !
Yeah, that is another myth. It will take some time to freeze and that happens only in certain conditions. The most likely scenario is that the body swells to twice it size because there is no atmospheric pressure in space.
Thanks for reading :)
Very interesting article! I disagree at one point though. There is no faster-than-light signaling in quantum entanglement. This article explains this complicated concept: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/entanglement-spooky-not-action-distance (part 1)
and https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-spookiness-survives-its-toughest-tests (part 2).
Yeah, by that I didn't mean that there was faster than light communication. It's just that, when you measure the spin of one particle, the spin of another particle gets affected instantaneously, regardless of distance. And that is the spooky action at a distance.
All are apt. Real nice stuff OP. (y)
Thank you :)
well i hear that the sun is turning white now....haha lots of things are and are going to change and more....
Actually the sun is not turning white but it has been white all this time. It only appears Yellow to us.
I completely agree with your arguments that deny the myths, and I have learned a lot, so I ask you:
Will you make more posts talking about myhts?
Yes, I am thinking about making more myths-related posts. Stay tuned :)
I will!
Ahem...
There is a competing set of theories, most of which is not that disagreeable to most of what you have posted.
I am still trying to absorb it all, but you may want to explore the concept of the Electric Universe at Thunderbolts.info
Their argument is that electromagnetism is far more important to the structure of the universe than matter, so much so that gravity is a mere weak attraction/repellent force.
This EU stuff fixes the ad hoc ideas of black holes, neutron stars, dark matter, dark energy among others.
I am keeping my mind open.
The myths I have stated would be busted regardless the model of the universe :)
Great, easy to read information!
Thank you :)
The first one was surprised...
Yeah, after all we all see a yellow sun all the time, right?
Awww I was hoping to read about aliens. Still a good article nontheless
hehe, Maybe some other time ;)
The asteroid belt thing in sci-fi movies always makes me laugh. This was a great little list. I'm following so I can see more, thanks!
Haha, I know right? Lots of "tense" scene in those asteroid belts but the reality is that it is not too difficult to get through it.
All your statement was true
Thank you :)
Great collection of myth vs. facts.
Thank you :)
Great post . Very interesting @sauravrungta.
Thank you for reading :)
You are welcome :)
great info...
Thank you :)
Amazing
Yeah it is!
I knew that most of these things were fake not fact! :D
I paid attention in geology class!
haha, nice! But it must have been an astronomy class, no? :P
Nope, we learned some astronomy in geology... because we can see the sky from the earth Or some logic like that.
Oh I see!! :D
I understood #4 - i.e., I knew that it was not true that half of the Moon was in darkness. And I thoroughly enjoyed IMAGE #1 - gorgeous!
Found #5 interesting - as I did have a misconception.
Thank you so much for reading :)
Great post dude! Enjoyed reading through this one!
Thanks mate :)
I always saw the sun as white sometimes a hazy blue. Only see it as yellow/red in evening.
Yeah, but people commonly confuse it for Yellow.
You forgot the biggest myth of all! When we are taught about "space" it's described as a "vacuum" filled with "emptiness" and "nothing" and this couldn't be further from the truth.
We live in a universe of infinite energy, abundance and that space between earth and the other heavenly bodies is filled with that very energy we need to unlock to tap that abundance and escape our world of artificial scarcity!
Yeah, scientists now believe that 96% of the universe is made of dark matter and dark energy which they simply cannot observe.
when you are talking about quantum entanglement there is no traveling being done . The information is not traveling , it is already there because of the nature of the universe behaving like a hologram . Meaning every part holds the big picture of the all . So the speed of light is the limit .
I know. I didn't say that information travelled faster than light in that case. I just meant that technically, "things" happen at faster than speed light.
few things I'd like to add :
Using nature's units of speed, c (speed of light), distance to moon actually feels puny. Light takes about 1.3 seconds to travel to moon. Think about it, you're drunk in a club and sluggishly trying to dance to the music, by the time you make your move, light has already traveled to and back from the moon!
Speed of light c, sets a limit on the speed of information propagation in the universe, quantum entanglement doesn't send signals (information) , it is just pre-existing correlations found in particles that have the same origin. For a crude analogy, suppose you have a box with a red and a blue marble, you take one out randomly, it turns out red, then from that information you can deduce that the one in the box now is blue.
Space between galaxies are able to expand faster than c because of the same reason as above, there is no information signalling going on that is faster than c, i.e, stuff does not move from point a to b faster than c, it's just the distance ab itself that is growing.
Yup, I agree. In the quantum entanglement part and the space expansion part, I didn't mean to say that any information was travelling faster than light. It was just in essence.
Yep, just clarifying that point for those who may be misguidedly believing something like that.
Anyways, Cool content , keep steeming!
Thanks :)