Doomsday, Aliens, and Thoughts

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Doomsday, Aliens, and Thoughts
By Juliene Lindy Tiu

The biblical theory that states God made the universe and the Big Bang Theory that says the cosmos was created through a massive explosion: these two are only some of the speculative theories as to how the universe was formed. Undoubtedly, there are a million more probable theories for this just like there are a million ways to kill a cat. It is just so ambiguous. I mean, how can we even know if any of our theories really do apply, since humans didn’t even exist during that time? All we have are second-hand findings that fuel the scientist’s drive to make inferences. Personally, I believe that recycled information is not a good enough basis to be concluding any such deduction.

However, I really shouldn’t criticize as much because curiosity and the desire to know everything (including how the whole universe was made) is just human nature. Naturally, people would want to take a guess pertaining to this particular topic, even if their hypotheses are not very accurate. Better an educated guess rather than nothing at all, right? So, I’d also like to take it upon myself to explore the various existing conjectures, and other related topics which led to their creation.

First up, is the Mayan calendar which predicted the location of the planet Venus with an error of only two hours per 500 years. Given that the equipment during that time was not very advanced, the Mayans did an excellent job in deducing the position of Venus in space. Moreover, they also managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. However, this is the part that kindles the light of doubt within me: they prophesized that the end of the world would be on December 21, 2012. I am very skeptic about this so-called prophecy because there have been numerous attempts to guess the date of the end of the world, and so far none of them have come up to par. Furthermore, in the video “Life of a star”, it is said that the sun is 50 billion years old and is middle-aged. Another 50 billion years or so, and the sun would have reached its maximum size, become a Red Giant, and melt away all the planets that orbit around it including the Earth. So, if the world was to end, wouldn’t it happen 50 billion years from now? However, I cannot just easily dismiss the fact that there may be other factors that could lead to Earth’s destruction, and let us again take into consideration that the Mayans did make a semi-accurate prediction about Venus. So, perhaps Doomsday really will come on their forecasted date? Your guess is as good as mine.

Next, we tackle celestial bodies. I’m really curious as to why our planet has only one moon, while Jupiter has four, and Saturn has 19! After a little Google session on the internet, I found out that while our planet has one, there are planets (Mercury and Venus) that don’t even have any! Apparently, the planets that have only a few orbiting satellites or none at all are called Terrestrial Planets, namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (has two moons). After reading further, I discovered that the other remaining planets were called Jovial Planets on the basis of the number of satellites they had, which when totaled numbered 90. It occurred to me then that the Terrestrial planets were actually the four closest to the sun, and that the Jovial Planets were the farthest away from it. The cause for this was actually because the temperature near the sun during the formation of the Milky Way was impossibly high, and there was nothing but gas and a few other objects near it, accounting for the low number of moons for the Terrestrial Planets. On the other hand, further away from the sun were lots of metal flakes and small pieces of rock which were then pulled in by the gravity of the surrounding planets. My brain was frazzled by the information overload, but after reading it twice, I finally understood the statements’ meanings. The universe is a tricky subject; I was definitely enlightened by the readings but I still find all this data to be a bit too profound and complicated.

On to the next video topic: Search for Life. Basically, this just presents studies revolved around the thought of there being life on other planets. Hence, aliens. This is an age-old story between believers and the nonbelievers. As for myself, I still don’t really have a definite side that I’m cheering on. Like I said before, there are just too many speculations and probabilities, add to those the so-called evidence of extraterrestrial beings and the arguments that oppose those. However, a thought did come into my mind. Back then, when man still thought that the Earth was flat, people also thought that there was no other form of life outside of their own. They believed that the world consisted of only the land they were living on, and the terrain that branched out from it which they could still trace on foot. However, they quickly dismissed the notion that beyond the waters that surrounded them, there were other land forms and quite possibly, other living creatures settling there. Luckily for everyone involved, there were more than a few brave souls who ventured out into the seas and discovered that there is, in fact, life beyond the seemingly infinite expanse of blue water. That, in turn, is how we human beings of different lands, colors, ethnicities, and cultures found each other. The bottom line here is that we thought we were the only ones on earth, and it turns out we are not, so who is to say that the same cannot be applied to the larger scale called the universe? Call them whatever you like, aliens, extraterrestrials, Martians, space invaders…it all comes down to life on other planets. It may not be on other planets in our solar system. Heck, it may not even be in our own galaxy! But still the concept perseveres; it is not a completely ridiculous question to impose: Are there other living creatures out there in space?

Additionally, I’ve dwelled on the idea that perhaps aliens have already discovered our planet through some sort of technology a bit more advanced than our own, and that it is only because they still lack the proper transportation to descend on Earth themselves that we have not felt their presence (as much?). Also, maybe it is that they have explored our world, and found that we are not worth bothering with? Or conceivably, they are still currently gathering up all the necessary information about us to seek the best possible way to approach our kind? Or perhaps they are still waiting for the right time to fully utilize their knowledge about us? Or possibly, there have been visitations from these extraterrestrial life forms but the different governments which handle this kind of affairs chose not to disclose it to the public for fear of mass mayhem and panic? Again, there is just too much uncertainty involved, but I for one am enjoying making inferences of my own.

Furthermore, let us take notice not to exclude the skeptics from this paper. There has been a documentary shown in the Discovery Channel that different supernatural phenomena such as seeing aliens, ghosts, fairies, elves, and the like that have been experienced by various individuals are nothing more than the product of an above average exposure to magnetic waves or fields. Apparently, these magnetic waves interfere with our brain waves and cause us to have delusions. However, that can’t explain the very physical and concrete proof known as the crop circles. As to this phenomenon, I can’t ascertain that it is indeed the work of aliens. There are many conflicting arguments that support and oppose the implications of the crop circles. I’d like to think that they really are the work of something otherworldly, just to create an air of mystery and a hint of excitement.

Next, I want to expound on the “Life of a Star” video. Compared to our human years, the age of stars and other cosmic bodies are boundless. Sure, they’ll die out eventually, but it definitely takes a long time, and by long I mean billions of years. We can talk about different stars and their respective lengths of time in space, but then that wouldn’t have much of an impact on us human beings because what really cuts the cake for us is the center of our own galaxy (literally), the sun. So let’s proceed to the sun’s current age. As I mentioned earlier, the sun is actually middle-aged at five billion years old; that means its total lifespan is ten billion years. It is said that the oldest person that ever lived died at age 122. How’s that for comparison? I have no doubt that by the time the sun sputters out after destroying everything near it, every person on earth today would be gone, obviously. Still, there could still be hope that by then the people of earth have advanced so drastically that they have invented some sort of machine that could possibly alter or slow down the sun’s dying process and therefore, be saved, but that’s mostly just whimsical fantasy.

As for the last topic, “Scale of Space”, I think this was the video that really captured my attention. When I first heard the audio saying that a science center had built a scale model of the solar system, I thought: “So what? It’s just a tiny model.” But boy, was I proved wrong. What I thought to be a model with a one-meter radius was actually one that covered an entire town! It was one of the most awesome things I had ever seen. The sun, which is the center of our solar system, was situated in the science center itself, painted on the gate to be exact. Then, there was this one person who was tasked to showcase the locations of the planets orbiting the sun, and he did it by mounting a bicycle and pedaling all the way to his destinations. One planet was the size of an arm wrestler’s fist and was displayed in a glass case. Another planet was a little bit smaller and was found in a convenience store. I’m surprised the clerk didn’t kick the man out for loitering, and even more astonished that the mayor of the town even let the science center conduct the model in the first place. Going back to the topic at hand, the biggest planet, Jupiter, hung like a chandelier at a certain building. That was really a sight to behold. The earth though, was kind of small, maybe the same size as a poke ball. All of the distances from the sun in the science center and the planets in their respective areas were computed to suit the proportion of the remoteness of the actual solar system. There was definitely a lot of computation involved.

After having watched all five videos, I became a little more interested in space and everything that happens in it. Granted, I’m just a speck in the macroscopic view of the world, but I’d like to think that if I know more about the universe then I would understand it better. However, I am not going to delve too deeply in astronomical matters, especially with the subject of how the universe was formed. It is all too much questioning and not enough answering. Plus, why focus on the query of how it all began? Be satisfied with the fact that what is IS, and that you are living a life you are lucky enough to have, but then that would be too on the nose of figurative and psychological speaking; scientists would not bother with that artsy philosophical thinking. So, I guess it all ends in perspective: to each his own.