Astronomy: the Lantern of Cosmic truths
The sky tells many stories, some give us details of our primitive universe, while others give us details of the mythology of the past.
Today we are going to return to both, and we will do it with the most beautiful star, known as; Rigil Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri) and his partner, Proxima Centauri.
Alpha Centauri is the third brightest star in a system made up of three components, the main of which is a yellow one of magnitude -0.01, although considering that the system cannot be resolved with the naked eye, their combined magnitude of -0.29 makes this place late. We find it in the Centaurus constellation, just 4.36 light years from the Solar System, constituting the closest system.
One of its components, Proxima Centauri, is the closest star to us, 4.23 light-years away. It is a very small red star, only visible with powerful telescopes. The system is not visible at latitudes greater than 20º N.
The centaur is one of the best-known classical myths; it is Chiron, a creature with the body and legs of a horse, and the torso and arms of a man.
Centaurus occupies position 13 in the extension of the 88 constellations. It is a constellation that is located at the northern end of the Milky Way. In Centauri is Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.22 light years away. It is a red dwarf much dimmer than the Sun and a flare star.
In mythology, Cronus, who was married to Rhea, fell in love with Philyra, a nymph daughter of Oceanus. The latter, to escape harassment, became a mare, but Crono cunningly transformed into a horse and joined her. From this union Chiron was born, with the body and legs of a horse but the torso and arms of a man.
Chiron was abandoned by his parents and they moved to Mount Pelion. He trained great heroes like Achilles, Asclepius and Jason. Heracles accidentally wounded him with one of his arrows poisoned with the blood of the Hydra. Chiron, being immortal, did not die but could not be cured either, until he exchanged immortality with Prometheus. In another version, however, the arrow that accidentally hit Chiron immediately killed him, Zeus placed him among the constellations.
When caveman were hunters and foragers, they used to look up to pole stars at night to navigate to their caves. That was exactly when astronomy begins. And they were primal astronomers.
In the past there was a seasonal calendar for cultivation, and harvesting of crops. Different crops were meant to be cultivated in different seasons. And people back then, noticed something in sky, and they tried to draw the patterns of stars and their calendars were based upon this. And people rather would use the stars position as the mean time for their agronomy bussiness.
In case if you were asked, whether what might be the first profession of the human species. Then astronomy is indeed the first profession of our species.
Now we are at the advent of technological advances made in the field of Astronomy. Our earliest technologies could be traced back to thousands of years ago, when humans are still in the era of stone age. Over the time, we grew from the level of crafting tools to building technologies to explore the stars. Currently, artificial gravity has remained one of the several challenges facing humanity in extending the duration of Crewed Mission in space. Many solutions have been proposed on how we can implement artificial gravity in future space stations. The good news is that some space agencies are taking the bold step to implement these fascinating solutions in future space stations.
With 4KB RAM Computer, and other less sophisticated technologies, NASA was able to send Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk on the moon in 1969. Currently, we have advanced technologically that we use to send humans to the moon and beyond. But these deep space crewed missions are still delayed as NASA and other space agencies are looking at establishing permanent human presence on moon and Mars.
Hence, the need to improve all available space technologies are currently on the rise. If all goes as planned, space agencies will deploy advanced technologies in sustaining humans on the moon, Mars and beyond.
Since humanity never imagined today’s technologies around 100 years ago, we may find it unbelievable to imagine technologies that our descendants will invent in the next one 100 years. But one thing is certain, Humans will one-day explore the surface of Mars without the need of a spacesuit or helmet.
Technological advancement will make life on Mars more hospitable for everyone to stay safe both within and outside their Martian habitats.
Even though we have only covered 1.3 light seconds away from our home planet, humans have invented technologies that could enable us look billions of light years into the Cosmos and study the early phase of the universe. One day, we will become advanced enough to send humans out of our Planetary System to explore the interstellar space and see what the universe preserved for humanity at such a great distance. If we will ever attain such a milestone, we will rewrite our history and become galactic warriors that went from exploring 1.3 light second away from home planet into exploring the vast nature of interstellar space. As a baby civilization, we will surely grow to explore a larger part of the 93 billion light years Universe we live in.
We look towards the Stars, especially the sun, because that’s where our energy is coming from. But one day, humans will breakout of our planet of birth and explore the stars just like the science fiction movies. We are slowly approaching the future where humans will become space faring species and spread life to deserted and isolated planets both within the solar system and interstellar space.
Our Earth is a rare gem planet orbiting its host star in the center of shooting gallery of asteroid, comets, and meteorites. After the formation of our home planet around 4.5 billion years ago, hazardous space rocks have continued to crash into our atmosphere and Crashing at different regions of the Earth.
It was as result of these impacts that the dinosaurs went to extinction around 65 million years ago. However, the dinosaurs would have been here if they had a space program. However, mother nature has enabled the human civilization to tap from its abundant natural resources and advance technologically. We are slowly building technologies that will protect us from flying space rocks and hazardous natural disasters such as earth quakes, tornadoes, and many others.
Space agencies are building powerful radar systems and sophisticated technologies that can detect and change the trajectory of hazardous space rocks in the future. We are indeed lucky to have space programs that focuses on protecting our home planet for our civilization and future Earthlings that will dwell in this planet and probably in Mars.
