Space Today

Are there other lifefroms out there?

The Mystery of “DARK ENERGY”

Our mission is to explore more

than what the human race

expects, to go beyond our

understanding and explore.

Here we try to go beyond earth

and our understanding of it by

exploring the space and beyond.

Scientists strive to know who we

are and where we came from, our

job is to present these findings

in manner that would cater

for the average human being.

They too deserve to grasp an

understanding of the universe

and how it all began.

We strive to present theses facts,

findings, scientific debates

Mission Statementthrough a variety of articles, fun

facts, and mini games that will

convey the messege quickly and

efficiently.

Omar Ihab Salama

Youssef Ezzat Magdi

Omar Ibn El Khattab Ezz

Moataz Hossam El Din Shokeir

Marwan Abdel-Moniem

READ MORE INSIDE

1- Where and When we Stand in THE UNIVERSE2- Solar System Exploration3- DARK ENERGY4- DARK ENERGY V.S. Matter5-Hubble Space Telescope6- Is There An Edge To The Universe?7- Black Holes 1018- Where did it all start?9- Are there any life forms outhere?

After hundreds of years of observations,

speculations and researches, astronomers

have managed to reach an acceptable ratio of

information about the universe we live in. a lot

of mysteries are now facts that we study in our

test books. But all in all we have only managed

to know and study normal matter correctly

and that occupies only 5% of our universe.

The other 95% is made up of 70% dark energy

and the other 25% is dark matter.

Our universe is 13.7 years old; so if one sim-

ply considers the vast amount of large masses

in galaxies, stars and planets; shouldn’t we rec-

ollapse already due to all of those gravitational

forces. I believe that 13.7 billion years is more

than enough to slow down the forces from the

big bang or even worse recollapse again but we

are living proof that the gravitational forces

have not yet taken its toll on the universe. Af-

ter all who am I to have a belief when I know

very little about astronomy and cosmology. All

of my questions were answered when I have

learnt about the dark energy which occupies

almost two thirds about the universe.

More is unknown than is known. We know

how much dark energy there is because we

know how it affects the Universe›s expansion.

Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But

it is an important mystery. There are so many

explanations for that mystery but nothing of

them has y been taken into account as a fact

yet.

The first explanation is the property of space;

space has many spectacular properties and

one of them that space has its own energy and

as more space comes to existence more energy

comes with it. Another explanation is derived

from the quantum theory of matter. This the-

ory states that the space is full of temporary

particles that keep on appearing and disap-

pearing but when this is tried to be put equa-

tion result came out wrong by large portions.

Yet another one which that Einstein’s theory of

gravity is not correct and that gravity cannot

effect the expansion of the universe but Ein-

stein’s theory, till our time, has not been fully

challenged by a better theory that could de-

scribe more correctly.

One could consider the theory that agrees

with his beliefs, disagree with them all and

think of the dark energy as a mysterious force

beyond man’s capability of understanding or

even propose a new prediction of the dark en-

ergy. But till this moment there is no predic-

tion or hypothesis that can be fully corrobo-

rated to be considered as a scientific fact. And

in front of such strong forces a human can-

not but be humble and I quote Albert Einstein

when he said” Everyone who is seriously in-

volved in the pursuit of science becomes con-

vinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of

the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of

man, and one in the face of which we with our

modest powers must feel humble.”

Citation for this article:

Where and When we Stand in THE UNIVERSE

Omar Ibn El Khattab Ezz

For thousands of years people believed that

the Earth was the center of the universe, but

as time passed philosophers, scientists and as-

tronomers have proved with evidence that the

Earth isn’t the center of the universe and that

are other planets that revolve around the sun

like our planet, and therefore the solar system

was discovered.

The Solar system was formed 4.6 billion

years ago from the collapse of a giant molecu-

lar cloud.The solar system is located local In-

terstellar Cloud, Local Bubble,Orion-Cygnus

Arm, Milky Way Galaxy. Our Solar System

is occupied mainly by the Sun, planets and

thousands of small bodies like asteroids and

comets. The Solar system’s mass is approxi-

mately 1.0014 solar masses, the majority of the

system’s mass is in the Sun and almost all the

remaining mass is in the planet Jupiter. There

are eight planets in the Solar System so far, the

four smaller inner planets are Mercury, Venus,

Earth and Mars which are also called the ter-

restrial planets , the two largest planets are Ju-

piter and Saturn which are mainly composed

of hydrogen and helium, the two outermost

planets are Uranus and Neptune which are

mostly formed from ices such as water, «Our

Solar System».

The Sun is the center or rather the heart of our

Solar system, without this hot ball of glowing

gases and it’s enormous energy there would be

no life on Earth. The sun is the closest star to

Earth, at a mean distance from our planet of

149.60 million km (92.96 million miles). This

distance is known as an astronomical unit (ab-

breviated AU), and sets the scale for measur-

ing distances all across our solar system.The

sun, a huge sphere of mostly ionized gas, sup-

ports life here on Earth. Seasons, ocean cur-

rents, weather and climate are all derived from

the connection and interactions between the

sun and our home planet,»Sun».

Our solar system planets were the only known

planets to mankind, until the year 1991 when

radio astronomers detected the first extra solar

planets orbiting a dying pulsar star, Since then

more than 450 planets have been found orbit-

ing other stars.According to NASA («Beyond

Our Solar System.») there›s a chance to find

«Earth-type» planets if a search of the nearest

1,000 stars to our sun is achieved, and if these

planets are found they must be solid bodies

with masses roughly between 0.5 - 10 Earth

masses. These planets need to be found at

distances from their parent star such that the

planets temperature and atmospheric pressure

are supportive of the existence of liquid water.

There›s yet more to explore in the solar sys-

tem, and with the aid of modern technology

and further intensive research the secrets of

the solar system and the universe will be re-

vealed.

Solar System Exploration Molecular cloud: A molecular cloud, some-

times called a stellar nursery if star formation

is occurring within, is a type of interstellar

cloud whose density and size permits the for-

mation of molecules, most commonly molec-

ular hydrogen (H2). Molecular cloud. 2012. .

Solar mass: The solar mass is a standard unit

of mass in astronomy, used to indicate the

masses of other stars, as well as clusters, nebu-

lae and galaxies. It is equal to the mass of the

Sun, about two nonillion kilograms: 1 solar

mass = 1.9891 × 1030 kilograms Solar mass.

2012. .

Works CitedUnited States. NASA. Solar System Exploration, Our Solar System. 2012. Web. <http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=SolarSys>.United States. NASA. Solar System Exploration, Be-yond Our Solar System. 2012. Web. <http://solarsys-tem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Beyond>.United States. NASA. Solar System Exploration, Sun. 2012. Web. <http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/pro-file.cfm?Object=Sun>.

By Omar Ihab Salama

FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSEEXPLORE WITH

FUN FACTSThere is still so little known about outer space by modern science, but of that little we do know, there are

some extraordinarily amazing things. This is a list of the top 10 cool facts about Space.

8. LightweightFact: If you put Saturn in water it would floatThe density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float. The actual density of Saturn is 0.687 g/cm3 while the density of water is 0.998 g/cm3. At the equator Saturn has a radius of 60,268 ± 4 km – which means you would need an extremely large glass of water to test this out. 7. Constantly Moving

Fact: We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a secondOur Galaxy – the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. In addition, the galaxy is travelling through space at the rate of 305 kilometers per second. This means that we are traveling at a total speed of 530 kilometers (330 miles) per second. That means that in one minute you are about 19 thousand kilometers away from where you were. Scientists do not all agree on the speed with which the Milky Way is travelling – es-timates range from 130 – 1,000 km/s. It should be said that Einstein’s theory of relativity, the velocity of any object through space is not meaningful.

6. Farewell old friend!Fact: The moon is drifting away from EarthEvery year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. This is caused by tidal effects. Consequently, the earth is slowing in rotation by about 0.002 seconds per day per century. Scientists do not know how the moon was created, but the generally accepted theory suggests that a large Mars sized object hit the earth causing the Moon to splin-ter off.

5 Ancient LightFact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thou-sand years oldThe energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! The temperature at the core of the sun is 13,600,000 kelvins. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.

3. Solar DietFact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar windsSolar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun due to the high tempera-ture of the corona and the high kinetic energy parti-cles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time. Also, did you know that 1 pinhead of the sun’s energy is enough to kill a person at a distance of 160 kilometers? [Sourced from Planet Science]

4. The Big Dipper is not a constellationFact: The Big Dipper is not a constellation, it is an aster-ismMany people consider the big dipper to be a constella-tion but, in fact, it is an asterism. An asterism is a pat-tern of stars in the sky which is not one of the official 88 constellations; they are also composed of stars which are not physically related to each other and can be vast distances apart. An asterism can be composed of stars from one or more constellations – in the case of the Big Dipper, it is composed entirely of the seven brightest stars in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation.

1. George’s StarFact: Uranus was originally called George’s StarWhen Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope.

2. Extra MoonsFact: Earth has at least 4 moonsOkay – that is not actually true – but it is very close. In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered an asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth. For this reason the planetoid and earth ap-pear to be following each other. The periodic plane-toid is named Cruithne(pronounced krin-y?) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts). Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne, is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen. Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered. These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other plan-ets in our Solar System. In the image above (courtesy of Paul Wiegert), the earth is the blue circle with a cross in it, and Cruithne’s orbit is shown in yellow.

Dec 10-11 - 2nd Australian Exoplanet Workshop, Canberra, AustraliaDec 10-12 - Workshop: The Next Generation of Hemispheric Redshift Surveys and the Prospect for TAIPAIN, Sydney, AustraliaDec 10-13 - 5th International Workshop on Astronomical X-Ray Optics, Prague, Czech RepublicDec 10-17 - Winter School on Astronomical and Cosmological Surveys, Mumbai, IndiaDec 11 -[Dec 06] X-37B OTV-1 F-2 Atlas 5 LaunchDec 11 - Asteroid 1168 Brandia Occults HIP 18805 (5.7 Magnitude Star)Dec 11 - Asteroid 2009 BS5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.022 AU)Dec 11 - Asteroid 43844 Rowling Closest Approach To Earth (1.655 AU)Dec 11-14 -[Dec 03] Meeting: The Search for Quantum Gravity - CDT and Friends, Nijmegen, The NetherlandsDec 12 - Moon Occults MercuryDec 12 - Comet P/2011 N1 (ASH) Closest Approach To Earth (2.262 AU)Dec 12 - Comet 129P/Shoemaker-Levy Closest Approach To Earth (3.078 AU)Dec 12 -[Dec 05] Asteroid 2012 XA Near-Earth Flyby (0.037 AU)Dec 12 - Asteroid 4179 Toutatis Near-Earth Flyby (0.046 AU)Dec 12 - Asteroid 2187 La Silla Closest Approach To Earth (1.550 AU)Dec 12 - Asteroid 10792 Ecuador Closest Approach To Earth (2.164 AU)Dec 12 - 45th Anniversary (1967), Pioneer 8 Launch LaunchDec 12-14 - Cosmological Radiative Transfer Comparison Project Workshop IV, Austin, TexasDec 12-14 - 2012 DoD Commercial SATCOM Users' Workshop, Arlington, VirginiaDec 12-15 - ALMA First Science Workshop, Santigao, ChileDec 12-15 - Conference: Compact Stars in the QCD Phase Diagram III, Guaruja, Brazil

Timeline and Events

1. What is the closest planet to the Sun?

2. What is the name of the 2nd biggest planet in our solar system?

3. What is the hottest planet in our solar system?

4. What planet is famous for its big red spot on it?

5. What planet is famous for the beautiful rings that surround it?

6. Can humans breathe normally in space as they can on Earth?

7. Is the sun a star or a planet?

8. Who was the first person to walk on the moon?

9. What planet is known as the red planet?

10. What is the name of the force holding us to the Earth?

11. Have human beings ever set foot on Mars?

12. What is the name of a place that uses tele-scopes and other scientific equipment to re-search space and astronomy?

13. What is the name of NASA's most famous space telescope?

14. Earth is located in which galaxy?

15. What is the name of the first satellite sent into space?

16. Ganymede is a moon of which planet?

17. What is the name of Saturn's largest moon?

18. Olympus Mons is a large volcanic mountain on which planet?

19. Does the sun orbit the Earth?

20. Is the planet Neptune bigger than Earth?

1. Mercury - 2. Saturn - 3. Venus - 4. Jupiter - 5. Saturn6. No - 7. A star - 8. Neil Armstrong - 9. Mars - 10. Gravity11. No - 12. An observatory - 13. Hubble Space Telescope

14. The Milky Way Galaxy - 15. Sputnik16. Jupiter - 17. Titan - 18. Mars - 19. No - 20. Yes

ANSWER KEY

QUIZ YOURSELF

After hundreds of years of observations, speculations and

researches, astronomers have managed to reach an acceptable

ratio of information about the universe we live in. a lot of

mysteries are now facts that we study in our test books. But all

in all we have only managed to know and study normal mat-

ter correctly and that occupies only 5% of our universe. The

other 95% is made up of 70% dark energy and the other 25%

is dark matter.

Our universe is 13.7 years old; so if one simply considers

the vast amount of large masses in galaxies, stars and planets;

shouldn’t we recollapse already due to all of those gravitational

forces. I believe that 13.7 billion years is more than enough to

slow down the forces from the big bang or even worse recol-

lapse again but we are living proof that the gravitational forces

have not yet taken its toll on the universe. After all who am I

to have a belief when I know very little about astronomy and

cosmology. All of my questions were answered when I have

learnt about the dark energy which occupies almost two thirds

about the universe.

More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark

energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe›s

expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is

an important mystery. There are so many explanations for that

mystery but nothing of them has y been taken into account as

a fact yet.

The first explanation is the property of space; space has many

spectacular properties and one of them that space has its own

energy and as more space comes to existence more energy

comes with it. Another explanation is derived from the quan-

tum theory of matter. This theory states that the space is full

of temporary particles that keep on appearing and disappear-

ing but when this is tried to be put equation result came out

wrong by large portions. Yet another one which that Einstein’s

theory of gravity is not correct and that gravity cannot effect

the expansion of the universe but Einstein’s theory, till our

time, has not been fully challenged by a better theory that

could describe more correctly.

One could consider the theory that agrees with his be-

liefs, disagree with them all and think of the dark energy as

a mysterious force beyond man’s capability of understanding

or even propose a new prediction of the dark energy. But till

this moment there is no prediction or hypothesis that can be

fully corroborated to be considered as a scientific fact. And in

front of such strong forces a human cannot but be humble and

I quote Albert Einstein when he said” Everyone who is seri-

ously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced

that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit

vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we

with our modest powers must feel humble.”

Citation for this article:

DARK ENERGYOmar Ibn El Khattab Ezz

About one-quarter of the universe consists of dark matter, which releases no detectable energy, but which exerts a gravitational pull on all the visible matter in the universe.

Because of the names, it’s easy to confuse dark mat-ter and dark energy. And while they may be related, their effects are quite different. In brief, dark matter attracts, dark energy repels. While dark matter pulls matter inward, dark energy pushes it outward. Also, while dark energy shows itself only on the largest cosmic scale, dark matter exerts its influence on indi-vidual galaxies as well as the universe at large.

In fact, astronomers discovered dark matter while studying the outer regions of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The Milky Way is shaped like a disk that is about 100,000 light-years across. The stars in this disk all orbit the center of the galaxy. The laws of gravity say that the stars that are closest to the center of the galaxy — which is also its center of mass — should move faster than those out on the galaxy’s edge.

Yet when astronomers measured stars all across the galaxy, they found that they all orbit the center of the galaxy at about the same speed. This suggests that something outside the galaxy’s disk is tugging at the stars: dark matter.

Calculations show that a vast “halo” of dark matter surrounds the Milky Way. The halo may be 10 times as massive as the bright disk, so it exerts a strong gravitational pull.

The same effect is seen in many other galaxies. And clusters of galaxies show exactly the same thing — their gravity is far stronger than the combined pull of all their visible stars and gas clouds.

Are dark matter and dark energy related? No one knows. The leading theory says that dark matter con-sists of a type of subatomic particle that has not yet been detected, although upcoming experiments with the world’s most powerful particle accelerator may reveal its presence. Dark energy may have its own

A ring of possible dark matter highlights this HubbleSpace Telescope image of a distant galaxy clus-])ter. ]NASA/ESA/M.J. Jee/H. Ford )Johns Hopkins

particle, although there is little evidence of one.

Instead, dark matter and dark energy appear to be competing forces in our universe. The only things they seem to have in common is that both were forged in the Big Bang, and both remain mysterious.

DARK ENERGY V.S.DARK MATTER

Youssef Ezzat Magdi

Goodbye MoonDue to tidal acceleration, the moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year. But don’t say your goodbyes just yet. At that rate, it will take a long time before the moon makes any headway in its path toward Venus.No Burping AllowedAstronauts cannot burp in outer space. No, they’re not just being polite. Because there is no gravity in outer space to separate liquids from gas in their stomachs, they cannot burp like we do on Earth. Their burps would come out "wet."Forever FootprintsFootprints last forever on the surface of the moon. Because the moon does not have wind or water like the Earth, the footprints left by astronauts on its surface will remain unchanged for millions of years.Space TravelThe Milky Way is traveling through space at a rate of 305 kilometers per second. It is also spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. This means that we humans

on Earth are shooting through space at a rate of 530 kilometers per second. Are you dizzy yet?The Silent CosmosIf you shouted in outer space, even the person right next to you would not be able to hear what you said. Sound travels as pressure waves through air. Because there is no air in outer space, there is also no sound. So don’t bother trying to tell your astro-buddy his fly is down, he ain’t gonna hear you.Liquids in Outer SpaceThe lack of gravity in outer space combined with the inherent surface tension of liquids causes them to form into free-floating spheres. That’s why astronauts often drink water out of a straw in a tightly sealed container. Although they can suck free-floating water bubbles in the weightlessness of zero-gravity space if they want to!Speed of LightBelieve it or not, the light that we see each morning when the sun comes up only took 8 minutes to get here. Yep, that’s even quicker than your daily commute. Booyah!

Cool Facts

1) What is a blue moon?

a) A wheat-based beer distributed by the craft brewing divi-sion of Miller Coors

b) Europe, ice moon of Jupiter

c) The second full moon in the same month

d) The painted bare bottom of a North Carolina Tar Heels’ fan

2) What is a shooting star?

a) A distant super nova

b) A meteor that incinerates itself in Earth’s atmosphere

c) An actor with a brief but notable career

d) A meteor that incinerates itself in Earth’s atmosphere

3) Bolide refers to:

a) A particularly elliptical orbit

b) A boron-rich asteroid

c) A blemish on a part of the body that you’d rather not discuss

d) Whatever it was that fell out the sky and made that hole in the ground

4) Mars is called the red planet because:

a) The Soviet Union made an ambitious effort to explore it

b) Of the bloody reputation of its namesake, the Roman god of war

c) “Blue moon” was already taken

d) It looks kinda red

5) The first Mars landing by an object launched from Earth occurred in what year?

A) 1965

b) 1981

c) 1971

Test your space knowledge

D) 1997

6) What is Earth’s most distant active spacecraft?

a) Sputnik 1

b) Mariner 4

c) Probably a kardashian

D) Voyager 1

7) Where do we live in our galaxy?

a) The Orion Spur

b) The Perseus Arm

c) Hector’s Toga

d) On the back of a roaming giant turtle, with our sun

orbiting us

8) How big is our galaxy? Pick the closest answer.

a) 1,000 light years across

b) 10,000 light years across

c) 100,000 light years across

d) 1,000,000 light years across

9) What is the color of our sun?

a) red

b) Yellow

C) orange

d) Purple

10) How will our soon die?

a) Slow death (white dwarf)

b) Quick death (super nova)

c) Heart attack

For more than 22 years now Hubble Telescope has been

providing scientists and the public with extraordinary

images of deep space. The Telescope has been in

orbit since 1990, and it is considered to be one of the

most advanced equipments that have ever been sent

to space. Hubble helped in making new significant

discoveries; it has also helped astronomers in their

search to understand the history of the universe and

its fate.

Why it was built?

Although the Telescope has been in orbit since

1990, but the first serious concepts of a space-based

optical observatory began just after World War II.

There were many reasons which lead to this unique

invention. Lyman Spitzer, a professor and researcher

at Yale University believed that space-based optical

observations are much more accurate and useful

than ground-based observations. He explained in

his paper Astronomical Advantages of an Extra-

Terrestrial Observatory that Earth’s atmosphere blurs

and distorts light coming from stars, in addition that

the atmosphere blocks X-rays emitted from high-

temperature phenomena in stars and other objects, so

they cannot be detected by instruments on the Earth’s

surface, but they can be detected by a space telescope.

Take off!

NASA originally planned to launch in 1983, but

the program experienced a considerable delay.

All the pieces of Hubble were in place by 1985, so

NASA planned for a launch in October 1986, but

unfortunately a tragedy occurred when the space

shuttle Challenger lifted off in Florida but only minute

later it exploded into a million pieces. When shuttle

flights resumed in 1988, Hubble was finally launched

aboard Discovery on April 24, 1990. After a few weeks

of operation the images sent from Hubble were Fuzzy,

after a fruitful investigation scientists finally revealed

a spherical aberration in the primary mirror, due to

a miscalibrated measuring instrument that caused

the edges of the mirror to be ground slightly too flat.

Engineers were able to come up with a way to fix to the

problem in time for Hubble’s first scheduled servicing

mission which was in 1993. In December, 1993, the

crew of STS-61 embarked on a service mission to

replace a number of Hubble’s parts, the problem was

fixed and Hubble began sending sharp and spectacular

images. Hubble Telescope was supposed to retire by

the end of the last decade, but servicing mission 4

which took place in May 2009 is expected to extend

Hubble’s life into at least 2013.

Future Space Telescopes

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble’s

successor, is currently in the works to be launched

Works Cited

Okolski , Gabriel. United States. NASA. A Brief His-tory of the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA, 2008. Web. <http://history.nasa.gov/hubble/index.html>.

“Hubble Essentials.” Telescope. Web. 8 Dec 2012. <http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essen-tials/>.

Hubble Space TeleScope as soon as possible. JWST’s orbit will roughly be 1.5

million km away from Earth; JWST will unveil secrets

about the birth of stars, solar systems and galaxies by

peering through the dust that blocks visible light. The

telescope is scheduled to launch this decade.

By Omar Ihab Salama

Once in a while, a really big idea comes along.

One that completely changes our concept of who

we are. In 1543, Nicoulas Copernicus proved that

earth is not at the center of the cosmos. In the

1920s, Edwin Hubel observed that all the stars

and galaxies were rushing away from each other,

sparking the idea that the universe has not been

here forever but was created in one explosive mo-

ment. The Big Bang. We have long imagined the

universe to be infinite in size. But maybe cosmol-

ogists now think that the universe is finite. Some

believe they even know its chain. If we do discov-

er an edge to the universe, we will have to find an

answer to another unsettling question: “what lies

beyond the edge?”

If you play a game of asteroids, every time your

spaceship reaches the top, it re-appears again at

the bottom. This cycle continues infinitely. This is

more or less what happens to our universe. The

universe is all together linked just like the aster-

oids game. That is why we feel it is never ending.

If a light beam exits the universe from one side, it

re-enters again from the other side. But to prove

this, it needs billions of years for the light beam

to take a loop around the universe. That’s why it

is not testable and needs a lot of work, equipment

and technology that we have not yet reached in

Is There An Edge To The Universe?order to prove such a theory.

If you stand in a room that has these character-

istics, you would have a torch or a light emitting

object. If you light at one side of the room, the

light will reach the end of the room and the light

is teleported to the other side of the room and you

see an image of your back on the side where the

light comes from. The room would appear as if it

had mirrors everywhere, whatever side you look

at, there is a picture of you. This is what happens

in the universe. And since we cannot totally dif-

ferentiate between all galaxies and star, maybe

most of them are just an illusion to others that al-

ready exist.

Another scientist claims he knows the exact

shape of the universe. He states that the universe

is a twelve sided, football shaped universe. This

is because each side has a correspondent on the

other side where the light is teleported to when

it exits from the opposing side. With so many

work and equations, he was able to prove his

theory. Each edge is identical to every other edge

but with a small twist of 36 degrees. If the earth

was surrounded by this football shape with all the

properties, you would see images of the earth all

around us but in different angles and views. But if

the edges are billions of light years apart, it would

have escaped even the most careful astronomers.

Youssef Ezzat Magdi

If you did not know about black holes, you came to the right

place. “Black holes are objects so massive that nothing could es-

cape the grasp of their gravity” according to NASA. Black holes

were long believed to be an entrance to other dimensions. But

Einstein’s theory of relativity concludes that black holes suck ev-

erything out even light. In short black holes are believed to suck

everything that comes in contact with it. Observation of the first

black hole was in the 1700s. That observation was very brief. A

lot of scientist took Einstein’s theory and then improved on it

and made other discoveries. Einstein first stated that in theory

anything can become a black hole if squeezed into a tiny enough

volume, even a rock. The question you might ask is that how

can something get squeezed into an enough volume. It is pre-

dicted that a white dwarf collapses into supernovae and a part

of its body mass might become a black hole. This is only done

in things such as stars because its extreme power can make an

object be squeezed into enough volume using that much pow-

er. Now black holes basically defy most laws of physics in our

earth, but they follow Einstein’s theory of relativity and other

various theories. Black holes in general are collapsing stars that

take a much smaller mass. Black holes absorb light because its

sucksion speed is extremely high even higher than the speed of

light! We call something a black hole when we send light to it

and don't recive light back. It also has to have planets revolving

around it which proves that it was once a star and collaped on its

self and became into a tiny mass with a huge gravitational pull.

Each year hundereds of thousands of stars were created. Black

holes are belived to be a one way trip into space time.

Black Holes 101Moataz Hossam El Din Shokeir

When we read such words as “Where did it all start” we

usually refer to something that happened recently or when

we are reading a history text book. But in this article you

should know that it will talk about how “everything” started.

This is something strange to try to come by. When we ask

ourselves where did our world or our universe appear as it

is today? A lot of us would say that it came together because

god created it. But, to not get religion and science misdi-

rected we should say that scientists try to find an explanation

to everything that matters to us. Well, if you did not know

about the scientific explanation you should know it. Scientist

believe that the entire universe was created by something

referred to as the Big Bang. The Big Bang is a theory which

states that space and time both were created with a massive

explosion of energy. This energy was extremely immense that

it created space and time. For this emense energy to start

all of the universe started evolving. In the first few seconds

of the universe, primitive atoms were created. these atoms

contained only protons and neutrons. After is three hunderd

million years electrons came together and they formeded

the first primative atoms. This occured when stars started to

from and they started to explode. When the universe created

atoms, it started to build upon them and then atoms became

one. The first atoms were hydrogen atoms. This is because

they contain 1 proton and 1 neutron and 1 electron. After

hydrogen was created, hydrogen atoms from the debries of

stars and then two hydrogen atoms came together to create

helium. This started the creation of all of the atoms of all the

elements that we know on earth today. This helped the uni-

verse extremely in creating the atoms. Then after a long time,

earth was created when the nessisary elements were formed

in the universe. So our existance is soley made because of the

big bang and how elements were created.

Where did it all start?

Moataz Hossam El Din Shokeir

Many have claimed to witness UFO sightings all over

the world, others have claimed to see aliens wonder-

ing in their crop fields. But are these claims true? No

scientific evidence can support these claims; how-

ever, life forms do exist in space.

Many hypotheses, some proven, say that life forms

such as bacteria do exist in our solar system and

throughout the universe. These hypotheses do rely on

many observations as well as studies relevant to the

physical laws. Both Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawk-

ing argued that it would be improbable for life not to

Are there any life forms outhere?

exist in space.

Other scientists believe that extraterrestrial is plau-

sible, but they refute the notion of the existence of

aliens and other intelligent life forms in space. Some

bodies in the Solar System have been suggested as

having the potential for an environment that could

host extraterrestrial life, particularly those with pos-

sible subsurface oceans. Though due to the lack of

habitable environments beyond Earth, should life be

discovered elsewhere in the Solar System, astrobiolo-

gists suggest that it will more likely be in the form of

extremophile microorganisms.

By Marwan Abdel-Moniem

List of Solar System objects

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