to infinity (and beyond)

By Nadia Vaillancourt, Year 11

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins,

carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains.

93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames,

we are all just stars that have people names.

-Nikita Gill, ‘93 Percent Stardust’

Space. The final frontier. The overly romanticized vacuum that could probably kill you in more ways than anything on Earth.

The embodiment of humanity’s inability to sit still and be content with what we already have.

Every year, new and exciting advances are made in humankind's exploration of outer space, challenging us to see beyond the observable universe and, quite literally, reach for the stars. 2017 has been no different, so strap in, because we’re going on a trip in our favourite rocket ship down memory lane as we explore the most fascinating and awe-inspiring cosmic events this year has offered us so far.

I’m sure most of us (myself very much included) have wondered what it would be like to live on a planet other than our own. Earlier this year, NASA made a discovery that reinvigorated this hope for many. 7 Earth-sized exoplanets were found orbiting one star, TRAPPIST-1; more importantly, 3 of them are located in the ‘habitable zone’ near the star where life could potentially exist. All 7 of the rocky planets have a high potential for water on their surfaces, meaning the chance of finding alien life in the TRAPPIST-1 system is high. Unfortunately, reaching the TRAPPIST system is an achievement that is still years away - 40 light years, to be exact. For scale, space shuttles that orbit the Earth at nearly 30,000 km/h would take around 1,488,000 years to reach the TRAPPIST system. TRAPPIST-1, named for the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope in Chile, is still a dream somewhat beyond our reach. Nevertheless, what we already know about the TRAPPIST system is fascinating in its own right. Despite its similarities to our own cosmic neighborhood, the scale of the far-off system is completely different to our Solar System. All 7 exoplanets are closer to the TRAPPIST-1 star than the planet Mercury is to our Sun. That means if you were to stand on one exoplanet’s surface, and the others were relatively aligned, you’d be able to see other planets more easily than we can see the Moon from Earth! Although the TRAPPIST system is significantly smaller than our own, it could be nearly twice as old: researchers suggest that it is probably between 5.4 and 9.8 billion years old, compared to our system’s mere 4.5 billion years. (Side not: should we start celebrating our Solar System’s birthday? Discuss.) At the moment, TRAPPIST-1 and its 7 exoplanets are a perfect example of ‘so close yet so far’. Spotting it was the easy part. Nonetheless, for all the knowledge we might or might not be able to gain from home, I can’t wait for the day when Earthling tourists are running around the TRAPPIST planets, snapping selfies with whatever passes for a phone in the distant future. Of course, we’ll all be long dead by then, but we can dare to dream.

A ladybird is around 400 times smaller than a human. A human is around 400 times smaller than the Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa is around 2000 times smaller than the Moon, which in turn is around 400 times smaller than the Sun. What makes this interesting is that the Moon also happens to be around 400 times closer to Earth than the Sun, meaning that when the two celestial bodies align in the sky, the Moon blocks out the light from the sun, causing an eclipse. The annular eclipse, often called the ‘ring of fire’ eclipse, shone down on the South Atlantic Ocean on February 26th of this year, visible from Patagonia, Argentina and Angola. However, this wasn’t the eclipse that was featured most prominently in headlines and on social media during 2017: that was the Total Solar Eclipse experienced by the USA on August 21st. Along a strip of 60 - 70 miles stretching across Oregon to South Carolina (called the path of totality), the Moon fully eclipsed the Sun, momentarily interrupting the day with up to 2 minutes of night-like darkness. The rest of North America saw a partial eclipse, where the semi-obscured Sun looks like a crescent in the sky. #Eclipse2017 was watched by 88% of America’s adults - meaning more people watched the eclipse than the the Super Bowl, the Game of Thrones season finale or the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square - and was celebrated on Twitter by an onslaught of #EclipSelfies. The next eclipse that we’ll be able to see from the Philippines will be a partial solar eclipse on July 17th, 2019, so mark your calendars and get your wacky eclipse safety glasses ready!

It’s not easy to say goodbye. The only thing worse than a goodbye is a goodbye that you know will never be followed by a ‘hello’. Quite honestly, I hadn’t known much about the Cassini spacecraft before I learned that it was going to die. I’d seen images from Cassini without realizing it - if you’ve ever seen a photo of Saturn or its rings, then there’s a good chance that you’ve seen Cassini’s pictures too. The spacecraft was launched in 1997 with a 20-year mission of exploring Saturn, and transmitting data back home as it wandered the moons and rings we ourselves can only dream of seeing up close. Other than being a literal space robot photographer (how cool is that?!), Cassini has discovered new moons, helped a space probe land on Saturn’s moon Titan, found oxygen on two of its moons (the first time oxygen has been found beyond Earth!), and even discovered water on the moon Enceladus. The question we’re left with, I suppose, is whether knowing all the incredible things Cassini achieved makes its Grand Finale a little bit more joyful or a little bit more heart-breaking. Cassini’s final action was a swan dive into Saturn’s atmosphere in order to destroy itself, which not only collected and transmitted new data until it had completely burned up, but also ensured that any microbes from Earth that might stayed with Cassini couldn’t contaminate any of Saturn’s potentially life-bearing moons. At 3:31am on September 15th of 2017, Cassini transmitted its final farewell, and 1.2 billion kilometers away on a little planet called Earth, I shed a tear for a friend I had never met. I hate goodbyes, but when I think about Cassini, I can’t help but smile. (And get a little misty-eyed, but that’s neither here nor there.) Cassini may have been metal and circuits, but through its discoveries something came alive, and though Cassini’s life well lived has come to a close, that something lives on in us. So, dear reader, I ask this of you: tonight, when you look up at the night sky, blow a kiss to the stars for Cassini.

For as many stars as there are in the sky, there is someone on our planet who wants to know more about them. (Don’t think about that math.) It would be impossible to recap everything NASA and other astronomical researchers have discovered this year, but here’s some other awesome space stuff that people a few hundred years ago would probably suspect was witchcraft:

• The Hubble telescope has spotted a galaxy that is nearly 10.7 billion years old. Believed at first to be a mistake, what surprised scientists the most was that this galaxy appears too perfect to be real. Compared to galaxies of a similar age, BX442 is an unusually ordered and symmetrical spiral galaxy.
• On October 26th, Pope Francis spoke with astronauts on the ISS. Tell me that is not a hilarious mental image.
• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is set to be launched this December to study the planets around the 200,000 stars closest to us.
• China’s Chang’e 5 lunar exploration mission is also set to launch this year. Although Chang’e is a sample mission, collecting lunar rocks and soil, it is only a cog in a bigger machine: China’s plans to land on the dark side of the moon by 2018.
• The next Supermoon, an occurrence where the Moon appears over 12% bigger than usual due it being at its closest point to Earth whilst also being a Full or New Moon, will happen on December 3rd. Get your telescopes and cameras ready (and don’t count on your smartphone cameras for this one folks; that is, unless you want a photo of a blurry blob).
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres this December! Get hype!
• And you know what, as long as we’re talking sci-fi, you should go watch Star Trek: Discovery. Whether or not you’re a fan of the older Trek, there’s a lot to love in this reboot, from refreshing diversity to thrilling, gritty storylines.

Space is possibility and impossibility. Space is all around us, but space is also somewhere most of us will never go. Space is poetry and beauty, space is maths and logic. There’s a reason that both writers and astronomers have been enchanted by the stars since the earliest light of humankind. The need to touch, to feel, to experience what we hold so dear yet can never attain is what makes us human. Throughout history, outer space has driven us to learn and to imagine. To ask ‘what’ and ‘why’ and ‘how’, even when there is no answer. In the grand scheme of the universe, we’re all just cosmic dust, forgotten by a universe that doesn’t care for us or our questions. And yet. There is so much beauty in the world. Through the good days and bad days, the planet we live on and the solar system it inhabits and the universe we all exist in will be there, endless and endlessly beautiful. When the darkness in your life eclipses the light, remember to look up, look around you, and realize that the only things worth fixating on are the good ones. Remember that in this universe, anything can happen, and the possibilities before us all stretch to infinity (and beyond).

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