The Universe is a vast, limitless sea of questions. Beyond the meager view from this fourth-rate ball of dirt, there are things we cannot imagine--galaxies that burn with the intensity of 100 Milky Ways, "holes" in space and time that are so gravitationally powerful that nothing can escape them, and maybe the most intersting of all, the orbiting of other planets around other stars, which gives us the possibility that WE ARE NOT ALONE. When faced with such information, which is a miniscule sampling compared to the amount of knowledge that's out there, it isn't hard to figure out why someone--like me--can get so involved in it. Stars and the space they occupy are some of the most amazing things to me, and on this meager scrap of internet, I will give you my favorite info, links, pictures, and quotes all about what's beyond the sky.

{A VERY VERY Brief History of Time}
"We are stardust." Joni Mitchell knew what she was talking about there. Approxmately 12 to 15 billion years ago, there was the beginning, an explosion so intense that galaxies created near the time of the explosion are still speeding away on the momentum from it. It was called the Big Bang. The name's origins may seem obvious, but they are not. It was originally a derogatory term coined by the English astrophysicist Fred Hoyle in 1950. However, much to his horror I'm sure, the name stuck. This explosion wasn't actually like any explosion we know of. At the point of the Big Bang, the Universe was infinitely dense and unimagineably hot, and all material in the Universe was packed into a space smaller than that of an atomic nucleus. This structure violently expanded first creating a soup of particles and the cooling so that the particles could stick together. This formed the lightest of the elements--hydrogen, helium, deuterium, and some lithium. Things remained basically the same until, about 1 billion years after the initial explosion, galaxies and stars began to form. Our galaxy was not formed, however, until about 3 billion years after the Big Bang. The Universe continues to expand because of this violent explosion that was our beginning.

{Black Holes}
One of the most interesting structures in astronomy is the black hole. A black hole is the result of the collapse of an extremely massive star, one that is at least 2 or 3 solar masses (meaning 2 or 3 times the mass of our Sun). It burns all of its fuel up, and then collapses. The star is so massive that its gravity sucks it in on itself, creating what is now called a black hole. Their gravitational field was is so intense because of the previous enormous mass that nothing, not even light, can escape it. Black holes are purely theoretical, but the evidence for their existence is quite strong.

{Are We Alone}
As far as I am concerned, the answer to that is no. Recently there have been several discoveries of planets relatively the same size and sort as our Earth orbiting stars. Besides that, I think that it would be an awful waste of space for ours to be the only planet that is "alive". I have to believe that somewhere out there, a civilization, much like or perhaps more intelligent than our own, exists, and someday, we'll find each other. Now, whether it will be humanoid creatures, E.T.-like people, or the popular greys, I don't know, but I do know that they simply have to be out there. There's a mathematical equation, called Drake's Equation, that approximates the probability of life existing on other planets. If you'd like to try to solve it, click here.

{Science Fiction}
Being the astronomy buff that I am, I love science fiction. Star Trek, Star Wars, you name it. Even Lost in Space, as cheesy as it was. My favorite sci-fi is the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams (and basically anything else he wrote as well) and the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster. I'd recommend either to you if you're interested.

{Real Science}
Sci-fi is great, but to get REAL information, there are several good books that might help.

• A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking
• The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg

{Links}
NASA's Home Page
Constellations and Their Stars
Your Sky...the sky over YOUR or ANY location on any day and at any time
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Tallahassee Astronomical Society
Astronomy Magazine
Astronomy and Astrophysics Club at Yahoo!

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