My Interest In Astronomy
Entry posted by Emperor Goblinus
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Salve! Welcome again, to the court of the Emperor. As I mentioned in the last entry briefly, I will probably be minoring in Astronomy, with my area probably being geologically active moons, extrasolar planets, and the possibilities of life beyond Earth. Let me tell of how I became interested in this field in the first place.
Space has always fascinated me. I used to love to watch documentaries about the stars, moons, and planets. A particular interst of mine for a while was black holes (see second picture). For anyone who may not be sure of what a black hole is, a black hole is formed in the wake of the supernova of a massive star. Sometimes, the remnants of the star fall in onto themselves form an area with such a powerful gravitational pull, that it sucks in and destroys anything that gets to close, including light (hence, making them 'black'). Due to their near invisibility, it is extremely hard to spot a black hole. The are usually discovered when certain objects, like stars or space dust, seem to be pulled towards a regian of space where there appears to be nothing. Sometimes, we can see a trail of plasma coming off of a star seemingly dissapearing into nothing. In reality, the star is being "eaten" by a nearby black hole. In some instances, we can spot jets of energy being blasted off from the black hole, the remains of the black hole's last meal. An excellent book on this subject is Kimberly Weaver's The Violent Universe. We do know that there is a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, and probably other galaxies, formed from several smaller black holes, that have lumped together, that turns the galaxy. Other mind-boggling discoveries and theories about black holes have come about, that I will talk about in another entry.
Anyway, back to my astronomy interest. In addition to my interest in black holes, I was and currently am, greatly interest in the possibilities of life, intelligent or unintelligent, in the universe. Currently I am taking a course on this very subject. What makes it so interesting is that we now know that the current environment that we live in is not the set norm for all life. Organisms have been found in the deepest realms of the ocean, powered not by the sun, but by geothermal vents. This gives some credence to the theory that there might organisms in the oceans of the geologically active Jovian and Saturnian moons of Europa and Enceladus. There could possibly be microbes floating in the chemically-rich atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. There could be life buried deep under the frozen surface of Mars. In this vast, vast universe, the possibilities are almost endless. Though it's unlikely, though not impossible, that we'll find the exotic lifeforms of the science fiction films and books that we all know and love, who knows? This interest in the possibilities for extraterrestrial life has also made me become interested in extrasolar planets in general. So far, we've found over 150 extrasolar planets, including hot "super-Jupiters" (Jupiter-like planets several sizes larger than our Jupiter that are close to their sun), cold Earth-sized planets, Venus-like worlds, and others. This realm is only beginning to be examined in depth, and ins quite fascinating.
Currently for my Astronomy class, I am combining two of my interests and I am doing a report on how and why the Byzantine Empire succeeded for some time, and then failed, and how that might be related to other civilizations, terrestrial and extraterrestrial.
The reason that I am minoring, and not doing a double major, is that the Astronomy major requires several Math and Physics courses. While I'm not necessarily bad at either of those subjects, they would be an unneccessary drain on my time, energy, and possibly, my GPA. With a minor, I only have to take a few Astronomy courses, nothing else. I get to focus on my area of interest, without forcing myself to get involved in things that I am not interested in.
So that's the story of my astronomy interest. Remember to pay your respects to the Senate and the People of Rome on the way out. Vale!
Next: Was Theodosius I really "Great?"
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