Cosmic...

The Universe - so for the Hubble Telescope's 18th birthday, NASA has released high definition pictures of galaxies colliding (see Hubble Gallery at Wired). A couple of things I would like to discuss here, the first being - how dangerous of a place is the universe? I mean the fact that life has remaining somewhat stable here on Earth for some 3.7 billion years is amazing considering everything that could have happened, cosmically, that could have ended it. Think about it - let's say you are a species on a relatively unimportant planet orbiting around a minute star (like us). Let's say, hypothetically, that our great galaxy which has no regard whatsoever for our well being, is pulled towards, or pulls towards us, another galaxy. What happens to us? All of a sudden there are stars everywhere! And how close could these stars get? Who's to say? Just judging by those pictures, it would definitely fuck some things up. And what's more, speaking universally, some of those galaxies are 500 million light years away! That means that if the dawn of man (approx. 10,000 years ago) had someone built a rocket that could travel the speed of light and left towards these colliding galaxies, they would only be 1/50,000 of the way there! That is mind-bogglingly insane to think about the size of the universe, and for those who think that we trashed this planet and just need to move to another solar system and start over - Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years away, the fastest object in space we have ever successfully launched traveled at a tenth of the speed of light - 43 years to get there. And who's to say there is even a habitable planet there? The closest one THOUGHT to be able to support life is 10 light years away. Long story short, we're boned. In other news, the concept of life outside of this planet - how could it not exist? I mean, yes there's no evidence (there isn't - if you think there is, then you're crazy) - but what are the odds in the enormity of the universe that life only was able to form in a stable environment in one place? Really? Think about it - we're not alone and odds are that any life is so far away, even in cosmic terms, that we will never ever know it and their would they.

So those are my words today - have a nice day. Ta.