Earth is a planet of amazing beauty, conquering with its incredible beauty of landscapes. But if you look into the depths of space, using powerful telescopes, you understand: there is something to admire in space too. And photographs taken by NASA satellites, therefore confirmation.
1. Galaxy Sunflower
The Sunflower Galaxy is one of the most beautiful cosmic structures, known to man, in the Universe. Its sweeping spiral arms are made up of new blue-white giant stars.
2. Carina Nebula
Although many consider this image to be photoshopped, it is actually a real shot of the Carina Nebula. Giant accumulations of gas and dust spread over more than 300 light years. This region of active star formation is located at a distance of 6,500 - 10,000 light years from Earth.
3. Clouds in the atmosphere of Jupiter
This infrared image of Jupiter shows the clouds in the planet's atmosphere colored differently depending on their height. Because the a large number of methane in the atmosphere limits penetration sunlight, the yellow areas are the clouds at the highest altitude, the red ones are at the middle level, and the blue ones are the lowest clouds.
What's really amazing about this image is that it shows the shadows of all three of Jupiter's largest moons - Io, Ganymede and Callisto. An event like this happens about once every ten years.
4. Galaxy I Zwicky 18
The image of the galaxy I Zwicky 18 looks more like a scene from Doctor Who, which gives a special cosmic beauty to this image. The dwarf irregular galaxy puzzles scientists because some of its star formation processes are typical of galaxy formation in the most early days Universe. Despite this, the galaxy is relatively young: its age is only about a billion years.
5. Saturn
The dimmest planet that can be seen from Earth with the naked eye, Saturn is generally considered the favorite planet for all aspiring astronomers. Its remarkable ring structure is the most famous in our universe. The image was taken in infrared to show the subtle hues of Saturn's gaseous atmosphere.
6 Nebula NGC 604
More than 200 very hot stars make up the NGC 604 nebula. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture the nebula's impressive fluorescence caused by ionized hydrogen.
7 Crab Nebula
Compiled from 24 individual images, this photograph of the Crab Nebula shows a supernova remnant in the constellation Taurus.
8. Star V838 Mon
The red ball in the center of this image is the star V838 Mon, surrounded by many dust clouds. This incredible photo was taken after the star's outburst caused a so-called "light echo" that pushed dust further away from the star and into space.
9. Westerlund 2 clusters
The image of the Westerlund 2 cluster was taken in infrared and visible light. It was published in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope in Earth's orbit.
10. Hourglass
One of the creepy images (in fact, the only one of its kind) that NASA has taken is of the Hourglass Nebula. It was named so because of an unusually shaped gas cloud, which was formed under the influence of a stellar wind. It all looks like a terrible eye that looks from the depths of space at the Earth.
11. Witch's broom
All the colors of the rainbow can be found in this image of part of the Veil Nebula, which is 2,100 light-years from Earth. Due to its elongated and thin shape, this nebula is often referred to as the Witch's Broom.
12. Constellation of Orion
In the constellation of Orion, you can see a real giant lightsaber. This is, in fact, a jet of gas under enormous pressure, which creates shock wave in contact with the surrounding dust.
13. Explosion of a supermassive star
This image shows the explosion of a supermassive star that looks more like a birthday cake than a supernova. Two loops of star remnants extend unevenly, while a ring in the center surrounds the dying star. Scientists are still looking for a neutron star or black hole at the center of a former giant star.
14. Whirlpool Galaxy
Although the Whirlpool Galaxy looks great, it hides a dark secret (literally) - the galaxy is full of predatory black holes. On the left, the Whirlpool is shown in visible light (i.e., its stars), and on the right, in infrared light (its dust cloud structures).
15. Orion Nebula
In this image, the Orion Nebula looks like the open mouth of a Phoenix bird. The picture was taken in infrared, ultraviolet and visible light to create an incredibly colorful and detailed image. The bright spot in place of the bird's heart is four giant stars, about 100,000 times brighter than the Sun.
16. Ring Nebula
As a result of the explosion of a star similar to our Sun, the Ring Nebula was formed - beautiful hot layers of gas and the remnants of the atmosphere. All that's left of the star is a small white dot in the center of the picture.
17. Milky Way
If someone needs to describe what hell looks like, they can use this infrared image of the core of our galaxy, Milky Way. Hot, ionized gas swirls at its center in a giant whirlpool, and massive stars are born in various places.
18. Nebula Cat's eye
The stunning Cat's Eye Nebula is made up of eleven rings of gas that predated the formation of the nebula itself. Wrong internal structure, is believed to be the result of a fast-moving stellar wind that "teared" the bubble shell at both ends.
19. Omega Centauri
Over 100,000 stars clustered together in the globular cluster Omega Centauri. The yellow dots are middle-aged stars, like our Sun. The orange dots are older stars, and the large red dots are stars in the red giant phase. After these stars shed their outer layer of hydrogen gas, they turn bright blue.
20. Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula
One of NASA's most popular photographs of all time is the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. These giant formations of gas and dust were captured in the visible light range. The pillars change over time as they are "weathered" by stellar winds from nearby stars.
21. Stephen's Quintet
Five galaxies, known as "Stefan's Quintet" are constantly "fighting" with each other. Although the blue galaxy in the upper left corner is much closer to Earth than the others, the other four are constantly "stretching" each other apart, distorting their shapes and tearing their arms.
22. Nebula Butterfly
Informally known as the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302 is actually the remains of a dying star. Its ultraviolet radiation causes the gases ejected by the star to glow brightly. Butterfly wings span more than two light years, that is, half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star.
23. Quasar SDSS J1106
Quasars are the result of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The quasar SDSS J1106 is the most energetic quasar ever found. About 1,000 light-years from Earth, SDSS J1106 emits about 2 trillion suns, or 100 times the entire Milky Way.
24. Nebula "War and Peace"
The nebula NGC 6357 is one of the most dramatic pieces in the sky and it's no surprise that it has been unofficially dubbed "War and Peace". Its dense network of gas forms a bubble around the bright Pismis 24 star cluster, then uses its ultraviolet radiation to heat the gas and push it out into the universe.
25. Carina Nebula
One of the most breathtaking images of space is the Carina Nebula. The interstellar cloud, consisting of dust and ionized gases, is one of the largest nebulae visible in the earth's sky. The nebula consists of countless star clusters and even the brightest star in the Milky Way galaxy.
Ring in the mountains
It lies in the spurs of the Greater Caucasus Range, in the two rivers of the Greater Zelenchuk and Khusa. Huge, white. From a bird's eye view, it looks like a fragment of the mysterious "Nasca drawings" on the coast of Peru. And like those drawings left ancient civilization, it seems that this ring is a sign for aliens. Identical straight lines diverge radially from the center of the ring. On them, from time to time, "ships" with metal square sails move. There is complete calm in the valley, but the sails are bent, a ray of the sun beats in them, as if not from the earth, but the cosmic wind fills them.
And here I stand in the middle of the ring and see it from the inside. Around - a wall of almost closely pressed to each other metal platinum, the height of a two-story house. Some of them are facing the sky. Suddenly, somewhere overhead, as if from heaven, a voice amplified many times over by a loudspeaker is heard: “Attention! On a flat one, you can work out the following program. A minute passes, another ... In the ringing silence, the upturned edge of the metal ring slowly levels off and at the same time its other edge deviates upwards, towards heaven.
The barely noticeable movement of huge planes creates the impression that all this is happening not in reality, but in a fantastic dream. Here one of the “ships” swayed and floated to the center of the ring ... it slides along the rails - these are the very radial straight lines emanating from the center of the ring. And the "solar sail" is the same metal plate as those that make up the ring.
All this is RATAN-600 - the world's largest ring radio telescope with a variable profile antenna, commissioned in 1974. RATAN is an abbreviation from the words Radio Telescope of the Academy of Sciences, the number 600 is the diameter of its annular mirror in meters. An incredible device, the size of a stadium stand, is located in a high mountain valley, at an altitude of almost a kilometer above sea level. The mountains surrounding the valley reliably protect RATAN from extraneous interference and atmospheric instabilities.
Second window
Exactly 80 years ago, in 1932, radio engineer Karl Jansky, studying the source of radio interference, discovered an unknown noise. In his publications, he noted that "... the direction of the arrival of hissing interference changes gradually during the day, making a complete revolution in 24 hours." In the course of his further experiments, Karl Jansky gradually came to the conclusion that the source of unknown interference is the noise of the sky - the radio emission of our Galaxy. So, in the course of the fight against radio interference was born new science radio astronomy.
The first scheme of the starry sky according to the radio telescope
The radio telescope has become a “second window” to the sky for a person, allowing him to see many phenomena and objects that were previously inaccessible to observation with optical instruments. With its help, it was possible to "probe" our Galaxy and establish its spiral shape. Quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources) and pulsars were unexpectedly discovered. Radio astronomers have detected "CMB radiation" - cosmic microwave radio emission from "nowhere" to "nowhere"; according to modern cosmological theories, we hear an echo big bang at the time of the birth of the universe.
For radio astronomy, there are no barriers in the form of clouds or bright daylight - radio beams make it possible to observe the "elusive" Mercury, which, due to its proximity to the Sun, is difficult to observe with ordinary telescopes - the planet rises above the horizon only at dawn and disappears from the sky immediately after sunset . The sensitivity of radio telescopes staggers the imagination - the energy received by all radio telescopes in the world over the 80 years of the existence of radio astronomy is not enough to heat a drop of water by a hundredth of a degree.
Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors
To see the ring in detail, you have to walk more than one hundred meters along mowed grass past odorous haystacks. In general, RATAN is really an amazing object: the usual earthly world and messages from the distant depths of the Cosmos. And while scientists are busy with their space affairs, among the giant details of their instrument, the valley continues to live its normal life.
Receiver-irradiator
We come close to the plates that make up the ring. There are 895 of them in total, and each is 11.4 x 2 meters in size. There are wide gaps between the plates, and they themselves are not at all solid, but consist of smaller plates. Excuse me, - the reader will chuckle - how is this carelessly assembled structure capable of picking up cosmic signals? Take a look at the radio telescope of the Arecibo Observatory (USA, 1963) - this is a real antenna!
305 meter antenna of the Arecibo observatory, about. Puerto Rico. The fixed antenna of the radio telescope is built on the site of a natural depression; only the feed is suspended on cables. The only downside is the limited field of view. Arecibo cannot observe objects below 20 degrees above the horizon
In fact, the "curved" RATAN antenna has an enviable accuracy and is capable of bearing the coordinates of celestial objects with an accuracy of one arc second. In the process of creating large radio telescopes, it turned out that it is impossible to increase the size of mirrors indefinitely - the accuracy of their real surface gradually decreases. Scientists and engineers ran into an insurmountable technological problem, until a proposal was received to dismember the reflecting mirror into individual elements and with the help of geodetic and radio methods to make perfectly smooth surfaces of any size from them.
RATAN-600 was created on the basis of N.L. Kaidanovsky. The Soviet astronomer proposed an original design, when instead of building a solid round antenna, a ring of reflectors is used. The ring itself is the primary reflector, it is the first to collect the energy of cosmic radio signals. Taking a given part of the sky into the "sight", the reflecting elements of each sector are set along a parabola, forming a reflective and focusing band of the antenna, while not violating the ideal smoothness of the annular reflector. At the focus of such a strip are irradiators, they collect and register radio waves collected by a giant antenna. The annular shape of the antenna provides an overview of the entire visible part of the sky, and the presence of several feeds allows you to simultaneously observe several space objects.
I hope this scheme will allow readers to understand the ingenious, and at the same time so simple, principle of operation of the RATAN-600
Perhaps we will not bore the reader with a list of scanty scientific characteristics like "brightness temperature limit" or "flux density limit". We only note that the true diameter of the "ring" is 576 meters, and the effective area of the antenna is 3500 square meters. meters. The radio telescope is capable of receiving instant spectra of celestial objects in the range (0.6÷30 GHz). Other information about RATAN can be easily found on the official website of the Russian Astrophysical Observatory http://w0.sao.ru/ratan/
Operation Cold or At the Edge of the Universe
At RATAN, for the first time, radio emissions from the large satellites of Jupiter - Io and Europe, were received, which are thousands of times weaker than the radiation giant planet. Distinguishing them is like hearing the breath of a KAMAZ driver through the roar of the engine at the other end of the street.
For almost 40 years, the radio telescope has been continuously observing the Sun, studying the state of our star, determining the nature of its excitations, and even learned how to diagnose “solar disturbances”. Systematic studies of the Milky Way and extragalactic objects of deep space are being carried out.
On March 17, 1980, the RATAN scientific team began an experiment code-named "Cold" with the goal of looking as deep as possible into the Universe. The equipment was tuned to receive extremely weak signals, the sensitivity of the radio telescope was provided by ultra-low temperatures - the receivers were cooled by boiling helium vapor with a temperature of minus 260°C.
For 100 days, RATAN continuously looked at one point in the sky, as a result, due to the rotation of the Earth, not a point, but a narrow strip appeared in its field of view. Thousands of new objects were registered, billions of light years away from us, including the instantaneous spectrum of the OQ172 quasar, the most distant object in the Universe at that time. The density of distant objects in space was non-uniform - the farther RATAN looked, the more and more the number of radio sources decreased. It can be assumed that somewhere they do not exist at all - there must be an opaque impenetrable wall - the “edge” of the Universe. And who knows if physicists are joking when they draw a border fence near the OQ-172 quasar?
The unique astronomical instrument RATAN-600, "listed in the Guinness Book of Records", is now in the department of the Russian Astrophysical Observatory and continues to explore the Universe. 20% of RATAN's working time is allocated for international researchers, the rest of the time the radio telescope works at the request of Russian astronomers. There are a lot of applications - the average competition is 1:3. The grandiose Soviet project was duly appreciated by scientists from all over the world.
Every day new real photos of the Cosmos appear on the site portal. Astronauts effortlessly capture majestic views of the cosmos and planets that appeal to millions of people.
Most often, a high-quality photo of the Cosmos is provided by the NASA aerospace agency, laying out for free access incredible views of stars, various phenomena in outer space and planets, including the Earth. Surely you have repeatedly seen photographs from the Hubble telescope, which allows you to see what was previously not available to the human eye.
Previously unseen nebulae and distant galaxies, emerging stars cannot but surprise with their diversity, attracting the attention of romantics and ordinary people. Fairy-tale landscapes of gas clouds and stardust reveal mysterious phenomena to us.
the site offers its visitors the best pictures taken from the orbiting telescope, which constantly reveals the secrets of the Cosmos. We are very lucky, as astronauts always surprise us with new real photos of the Cosmos.
Every year, the Hubble team releases an incredible photo to commemorate the anniversary of the launch of the space telescope, which falls on April 24, 1990.
Many believe that thanks to the Hubble telescope, which is in orbit, we get high-quality images of distant objects in the universe. The pictures are really very good quality. a high resolution. But what the telescope gives out are black and white photos. Where do all these mesmerizing colors come from? Almost all this beauty appears as a result of processing photos with a graphic editor. And it takes quite a lot of time.
Real photos of Space in high quality
The opportunity to go into space is given only to a few. So we should be thankful to NASA, astronauts and the European Space Agency for regularly bringing us new images. Previously, we could see this only in Hollywood films. We have photos of objects outside the solar system: star clusters (globular and open clusters) and distant galaxies.
Real photos of space from the Earth
A telescope (astrograph) is used to photograph celestial objects. It is known that galaxies and nebulae have low brightness, and long exposures must be used to capture them.
And this is where the problems begin. Due to the rotation of the Earth around its axis, even with a slight increase in the telescope, diurnal movement stars, and if the device does not have a clock drive, then in the pictures the stars will be obtained in the form of dashes. However, not all so simple. Due to the inaccuracy of setting the telescope to the celestial pole and the errors of the clock drive, the stars, writing out the curve, slowly move across the field of view of the telescope, and point stars are not obtained in the photograph. In order to completely eliminate this effect, it is necessary to use guiding (an optical tube with a camera is placed on top of the telescope, aimed at the guiding star). Such a tube is called a guide. Through the camera, the image is fed to a PC, where the image is analyzed. In the event that the star shifts in the guide's field of view, the computer sends a signal to the telescope's mount motors, thereby correcting its position. Thus achieve point stars in the picture. Then a series of shots are taken with a slow shutter speed. But due to the thermal noise of the sensor, the photos are grainy and noisy. In addition, spots from dust particles on the matrix or optics may appear in the pictures. You can get rid of this effect with the help of a caliber.
Real photos of the Earth from space in high quality
The richness of the lights of night cities, the meanders of the rivers, the harsh beauty of the mountains, the mirrors of the lakes looking from the depths of the continents, the boundless World Ocean and a huge number of sunrises and sunsets - all this is reflected in real pictures of the Earth taken from space.
Enjoy a wonderful selection of photos from the portal site taken from space.
The biggest mystery for mankind is space. Outer space is represented to a greater extent by emptiness, and to a lesser extent by the presence of complex chemical elements and particles. Most of the space is hydrogen. There is also interstellar matter and electromagnetic radiation. But outer space is not only cold and eternal darkness, it is an indescribable beauty and a breathtaking place that surrounds our planet.
The portal site will show you the depths of outer space and all its beauty. We offer only reliable and useful information, we will show unforgettable photos of space in high quality taken by NASA astronauts. You will see for yourself the charm and incomprehensibility of the biggest mystery for mankind - space!
We have always been taught that everything has a beginning and an end. Only it's not! Space has no clear boundary. As you move away from the Earth, the atmosphere is rarefied and gradually gives way to outer space. Where the boundaries of space begin is not exactly known. There are a number of opinions of different scientists and astrophysicists, but no one has yet provided concrete facts. If the temperature had a constant structure, then the pressure would change according to the law - from 100 kPa at sea level to absolute zero. The International Aviation Station (IAS) has established a high-altitude boundary between space and the atmosphere at 100 km. It was called the Karman line. The reason for marking this particular height was the fact that when the pilots rise to this height, the earth's gravity ceases to influence the flying apparatus, and therefore it goes to the "first cosmic speed”, that is, the minimum speed for the transition to a geocentric orbit.
American and Canadian astronomers measured the beginning of the impact of cosmic particles and the limit of control of atmospheric winds. The result was recorded at the 118th kilometer, although NASA itself claims that the boundary of space is located at the 122nd kilometer. At this altitude, the shuttles switched from conventional to aerodynamic maneuvering and, thus, "rested" on the atmosphere. During these studies, the astronauts kept a photo report. On the site, you can view these and other photos of space in high quality in detail.
Solar system. Photo of space in high quality
The solar system is represented by a number of planets and the brightest star - the sun. The space itself is called interplanetary space or vacuum. The vacuum of space is not absolute, it contains atoms and molecules. They were discovered using microwave spectroscopy. There are also gases, dust, plasma, various space debris and small meteors. All this can be seen in the photos taken by the astronauts. Producing a high quality photo shoot in space is very easy. At space stations (for example, VRC) there are special "domes" - places with the maximum number windows. Cameras are attached to these places. The Hubble telescope and its more advanced counterparts greatly helped in ground-based photography and space exploration. Similarly, astronomical observations can be made at virtually all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In addition to telescopes and special instruments, photographing the depths of our solar system can be done with quality cameras. It is thanks to space photographs that all mankind can appreciate the beauty and grandeur of outer space, but our portal "website" will demonstrate it clearly in the form of a photo of space in high quality. For the first time during the DigitizedSky project, the Omega Nebula was photographed, which was discovered back in 1775 by J.F. Chezo. And when astronauts used the panchromatic context camera during their exploration of Mars, they were able to photograph strange bumps that were unknown to date. Similarly, the nebula NGC 6357, which is located in the constellation Scorpio, was captured from the European Observatory.
Or maybe you have heard about the famous photograph, which presented traces of the former presence of water on Mars? More recently, the Mars Express spacecraft has demonstrated the actual colors of the planet. Channels, craters and a valley became visible, in which, most likely, once was present liquid water. And this is not all the photos depicting the solar system and the mysteries of space.
In 1959, NASA, the US space agency, embarked on a project to search for intelligent life in the depths of space. Subsequently, the project was named SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - "Search for extraterrestrial intelligence").
Soviet equivalent of SETI
Soon similar works began to be carried out in the Soviet Union. So, in the first half of the 60s of the twentieth century, a program was launched at the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute to detect signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. It was attended by outstanding physicists, academicians and doctors of sciences: V.A. Ambartsumyan, Ya.B. Zeldovich, V.A. Kotelnikov, I.E. Tamm, S.E. Khaikin. The program, which became the Soviet version of SETI, was called "Project Au".
It developed against the backdrop of events that our country was going through, from the launch of the first space satellites to the political upheavals of the late 20th century. Nevertheless, much has been accomplished in 50 years. Several all-Union and international conferences and symposiums with Nobel laureates: Englishman F. Crick, American J. Towns and Russian V.L. Ginzburg. In parallel with the discussion of the problem of searching for “brothers in mind”, astrophysicists conducted observations of the cosmos, mastering more and more of its spaces.
“But it is impossible to treat extraterrestrial civilizations in such a consumer way,” says Alexander Zaitsev, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, chief researcher at the Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. - If everyone in the Universe is looking for other people's messages, but they themselves do not send anything, then what is the point of looking?
Therefore, from the radar telescope in Yevpatoria, Zaitsev sent as many as three "letters" - in 1999, 2001 and 2003. "Correspondence" contained both digital (texts) and analog (music) international information and went to several solar-type stars. It will take more than 30 years to reach the goal of the message, but there is still a chance in the 70s of this century to get an answer.
Long before that, in 1962, the USSR “launched” three words into space: “Mir, Lenin, USSR”, and in 1974, from a radar telescope in Arecibo (Puerto Rico), an American signal flew into the depths of the Universe. The world has not heard anything about the answers to these "epistles".
The Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Astronomical Institute have compiled a list of 100 star systems closest to the Earth. Of that 100, 58 could clearly be SETI objects.
“But all these are attempts to find a civilization similar to ours,” says Anatoly Cherepashchuk, director of the Astronomical Institute, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. – What if other civilizations are millions of years older than ours, and they communicate with each other using dark matter? What if it is the presence of dark matter and dark energy that explains the silence of the universe?
I think that the efforts of astrophysicists and physicists today should be focused on unraveling the nature of dark matter and dark energy. And then we ourselves will be able to "twist" the fields, create tunnels in space-time, send signals through them to other civilizations. Our messages will be delivered instantly, because this is a fundamentally new connection that will allow us to explore the Galaxy and, finally, understand who we are.
"Product" of intelligent beings
According to Academician N.S. Kardashev, a meeting with civilizations of three types is possible in the Universe.
The first type are civilizations similar to the earth, the second type - those who have mastered the energy of their star, the third - those who have mastered the gigantic energy of the Galaxy. Representatives of the latter should be able to artificially create tunnels in space-time, analogues of the so-called "wormholes", and move in them instantly, at speeds greater than the speed of light.
The academician believes that the existence of mirror worlds constructed from particles that are mirror-symmetric with respect to ordinary particles.
However, scientists have not yet received confirmation that there is extraterrestrial life in the solar system and its immediate vicinity. In particular, Yuri Gnedin, Deputy Director of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, spoke about this.
At the same time, he emphasizes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in SETI projects will continue.
According to the astronomer, the program to detect extraterrestrial civilizations, bringing together hundreds of researchers around the world, is mainly based on radio observation data.
Scientists are looking for signals that are artificial in origin. Such signals could be messages from aliens or even conversations between them.
The task of understanding the message is not set.
The main thing is to get a signal that will be reliably recognized as a “product” of intelligent beings.
And the head of the Department of Celestial Mechanics of the Astronomical Institute Konstantin Kholshevnikov adds:
- A planet where a technological civilization exists must have powerful radio emission. It is the constancy of the signal that can be a symptom of its artificial origin. However, so far we have not found a single serious sign of intelligent life.
But extraterrestrial civilizations are able to send signals using ultraviolet waves or even x-rays, since the alien "humanity" is probably fundamentally different from us, which means that the methods of transmitting information are fundamentally different.
The answer is in 200 years?
Considering that the light travels to the nearest star to us - Proxima Centauri - for almost five years, and to the other stars of the "top ten" - from nine to 60 years, communication with brothers in mind can drag on for centuries.
Light travels the entire plane of our Galaxy in 35 million years, which means that it is quite possible that the civilization that sent the signal disappeared long ago.
“Thus, we are exploring the evolution of the Galaxy over the past million years, like a historian who is exploring the history of some long-disappeared people,” Kholshevnikov clarifies.
Earth astronomers themselves regularly send messages into space, although they consider this activity almost useless. After all, if the nearest intelligent civilization lives at a distance of 100 light years from Earth, the answer will come only after 200 years.
One of the attempts to contact aliens was made in 2003, when a 70-meter transmitter at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Evpatoria sent letters from 90,000 people from different countries into space.
In addition, in 2003 it was announced the intention to significantly increase the intensity of search within SETI. To this end, the organizers of the project put into action new program Allen Telescope Array - ATA (Allen Compound Telescope).
It got its name in honor of one of the founders of Microsoft Corporation, Paul Allen, who allocated 11.5 million dollars from his own funds for ATA.
The program has an array of 350 parabolic satellite dishes with a diameter of about six meters each. At the same time, the field of view of a composite telescope exceeds the field of view of a radio telescope, which would have a single antenna with a diameter of 100 meters.
The transition to the use of ATA allows you to explore about 100 thousand, or even up to a million stellar systems.
The search speed will increase by about 100 times. As a result, researchers believe intelligent life outside the Earth can be detected within the next 25 years.
"We don't know what to look for..."
At the end of 2005, the leading astrophysicists, biologists and humanists of Russia, who are firmly convinced that life in the Universe originated not only on Earth, held a conference at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Karachay-Cherkessia called "Horizons of astronomy: the search for extraterrestrial civilizations" .
– It is impossible to expect quick results in this field of science. We are only taking the first trial steps here, comprehending the problem,” says Lev Gindilis, one of the founders of SETI in Russia. - There are several programs to search for extraterrestrial civilizations. Some scientists look for their traces in radio and optical telescopes, others themselves send messages to the most promising stars, others send them to the depths of the Galaxy spacecraft with information about our planet.
– the main problem We don't know what to look for. Our radio telescope, one of the most powerful in the world, has received a lot of signals, which we are not yet able to explain, - says Grigory Beskin, Leading Researcher of the SAO, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. – Perhaps their source is unknown natural phenomena, but it is possible that this is the result of the activities of another civilization. The age of the universe is 15 billion years, the age of the solar system is 4.5-5 billion. Most stars are much older than our sun. And if there are civilizations somewhere, then it seems that they are much “mature” than us. If they are also looking for contacts, they can use different methods, which we have not grown up to yet. We, earthlings, are “small”, almost undeveloped, until we understand at what level we should look for reasonable signals,” the scientist sums up the situation.
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INTO THE DEPTHS OF SPACE
"There are innumerable suns, innumerable lands... it is impossible for a rational and living mind to imagine that all these innumerable worlds, which are as magnificent as ours, or even better than it, were deprived of inhabitants like ours, or even better."
So wrote Giordano Bruno. Three and a half centuries have passed since then, at the stake of the Inquisition, the one who first dared to say against the church: we are not alone in the universe perished!
Bruno is dead, but his ideas are alive. The stars are the same suns as ours, only very far from us, said Bruno. His satellites are the earths, he stressed, the planets. modern science proved that planet-like satellites revolve around some stars.
From the stars closest to us - Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri - the light has been coming for more than four years. Three hundred thousand kilometers per second, one billion eighty million kilometers per hour, per year... no, the astronomical numbers of distances in the universe are too great. Four light years sounds shorter and simpler.
If we could go on a journey into space at the speed of light, then in four years our Sun would turn into a small star for us. Would we then see his family of planets, these dark bodies shining only by reflected sunlight?
Yes, they will let us know about themselves. If they photographed the position of the Sun in the sky - not once or twice, but many times over many years - they would notice amazing thing: it strays first in one direction, then in the other side from the path assigned to it by law gravity. This would happen every few years. This is influenced by the movement of the Sun, its planetary satellites, in particular the largest of them - Jupiter.
It turns out that one can learn about the invisible satellites of a star just as reliably as if we flew to Alpha Centauri and were convinced of their existence with our own eyes.
And, even before making interstellar flights, we know that the planets are not alone in the universe. They are also found in other stars.
For almost half a century, Pulkovo astronomers have been photographing the star "61" in the constellation Cygnus. It turned out that in five years it shifts by an angle of three hundredths of an arc second. In the picture it is only five ten-thousandths of a millimeter! Perhaps the invisible satellite is to blame for this, which makes a complete revolution around its sun in five years. At the farthest point of its path, it is about three times farther from the star than our Earth, moving away from the Sun. Its mass is twenty times greater than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. It is possible that we are observing the combined disturbing influence of several planet-like satellites.
That's what astronomers were told by tiny deviations of tiny dots in photographs of the starry sky. You can imagine the accuracy of measurements in such pictures!
Recent years have brought new discoveries. An invisible satellite appeared at Proxima Centauri. Astronomers have studied the movement of the two hundred and forty stars closest to us. Approximately sixty of them have satellites. And meanwhile, says Pulkovo astronomer Professor A. Deutsch, "we are now only at the very beginning of a promising path, and there is no doubt that the coming years will bring us complete confirmation that many stars have their own planets."
As varied as the stars are, so varied are their planets. There is no doubt that among them there will be planets similar to our native Earth. Bruno spoke about lands three and a half centuries ago. Modern astronomers also talk about the lands.
Facts are stubborn things. And even the idealist Jeans - an English astronomer, an opponent of the plurality of inhabited worlds - finally admits under the pressure of facts: “On many planets there may be physical conditions not very different from our earthly ones and, thus, capable of supporting life similar to our earthly life. It's possible that life is much more common in the universe than we thought."
Life in the universe... So the planets of other star systems can be inhabited?
The works of Soviet scientists dealt a crushing blow to those who tried to present the emergence of our planet as a happy accident, exceptional and unique.
What happened in one corner of the universe could or could happen in another.
In the boundless expanses of the universe, separated by vast spaces, worlds are born, live, die, and “matter in its eternal cycle moves according to laws that, at a certain stage, here and there, necessarily give rise to a thinking spirit in organic beings.”
The latest achievements of science strengthen faith in the validity of these remarkable words of Engels.
Life is not the privilege of only our planet. Only idealists who deny the materialist dialectic of nature are unable to understand this. Only those who cling to religion-made ideas about divine creation world, they are afraid to admit the possibility of the existence of another earth, except for ours, the possibility of another life, except for earthly.
It is difficult to imagine what exactly the forms of life are in the worlds of distant suns. One thing is certain: in the course of development from the lowest to the highest, the “highest color of matter” inevitably arises - a thinking being. "... Once organic life is given, it must develop through the development of generations to the breed of thinking beings." In this statement of Engels lies the key to a materialistic understanding of the question of life in the universe.
What can be the appearance of thinking beings of other planets, if they exist? Some scientists answer: any other thinking being must necessarily resemble a person. This is the most convenient form for the "highest color of matter."
No, others argue. Why does it have to be human? The place of this small branch of the class of mammals, the detachment of apes, on other planets, under other conditions, may be taken by another group of animals. And perhaps there arose creatures that did not look like humans.
Let's not decide which of them is right. Another thing is important for us now - the question of the possibility of flying to the stars.
At one time, there was a whole discussion on the pages of the journal "Bulletin of Knowledge".
One reader argued this way. The inhabitants of other worlds did not visit the Earth. The earth is not the only cultural center of the universe. There may be higher cultures on other planets. And since no one has flown to us from other worlds so far, then interplanetary travel in general is an impossible dream.
But this way of putting the question is wrong. Indeed, if somewhere in the universe, besides the Earth, there is still life, and, moreover, highly developed, what prevents our neighbors from visiting us?
If the machines of intelligent beings of other worlds have not visited the Earth, then it does not follow from this that they have not visited other planets, Tsiolkovsky said. Yes, and in the distant past, as well as in the distant future, a visit to our planet could or could take place.
Cosmic speeds of tens and hundreds of kilometers per second are still unattainable for modern technology. Hard to imagine light years separating the worlds of suns.
However, if we assume that our celestial neighbors have a very perfect technology, powerful sources of energy, we must also admit the possibility of their visiting the Earth in the past, present or future.
Of course, the arrival of a ship from the depths of the universe is an extraordinary, exceptional phenomenon.
Our Sun is an ordinary, ordinary star, and the universe is infinite both in space and in time. Therefore, speaking about the possibility of visiting the Earth by aliens from other star systems, we must not forget that this can happen extremely rarely. Such an event is much less likely than, for example, the fall of a large meteorite
Great are the difficulties of conquering the distance, which even the fastest messenger - light - travels for years. And for now, we can only fantasize about visiting our planet by the inhabitants of other stars or about flying to the stars.
Astronomy was called flights to the world space. In this word - the share of truth and at the same time a clear exaggeration. Yes, you can talk about swimming between the stars, but only in the vicinity of the closest star - the Sun. The road to other stars is a matter of a very distant time.
Carried away by thought far ahead, one can foresee that the future will bring confirmation - irrefutable, visual, visible - of the idea of a plurality of inhabited worlds among the stars.
This confirmation will be given by interstellar ships traveling to other suns, to other planetary families. And then stargazing will find its true meaning.
It has been a long time since the ship left its home planet and headed for a distant star.
The usual concepts of "day" and "night" have long lost their meaning for travelers. "Night" - when the windows are closed or the lights are off. "Day" - all the rest of the time. You get used to it, and it seems that it has always been like this, as if long years passed in small world bounded by the walls of the ship.
A starry sky, an unusual pattern of stars... The ship gradually picked up a monstrous speed in order to be transported to a star, to which a ray of light travels for years.
A few days - and the ship left the solar system. The sun turned into a bright star, and the ship rushed at a speed already comparable to the speed of light. And then the travelers saw the stars - not twinkling silver dots, which are visible from the Earth, and not multi-colored carnations that dotted the sky, as they seem to be behind the atmosphere. The stars, to which the heavenly ship flew towards and from which the heavenly ship moved away, changed color, shimmering with different lights, like a fabulous firework. Their radiance changed color, just as the tone of the whistle of a steam locomotive rushing towards us changes at high speed.
Weeks, months go by...
The telescope can already see a round dance of bright points around a small star. And now this is not a distant star, but a bright disk, similar to our Sun, whose light is painful to look at.
There are still millions of kilometers ahead, but it's time to start braking. Engines included. Like a tailed comet, an interstellar ship rushes through the sky. The islands of the universe, the family of another star, another sun, is close at hand.
New wonders are opening up before travelers. The planet, to which the ship is now approaching, turned out to have an atmosphere, it is all in a white shroud of clouds. There is, apparently, the atmosphere of another "oncoming" planet - it is covered with a bluish haze, like a veil hiding its surface.
It is difficult to see what is behind this veil - clouds are floating on it. Something dazzlingly bright flashed through the gap. What is this? The sea that reflects the rays of the sun? Or maybe snowy mountain peaks?
The ship circled the planet, gradually, circle after circle, descending more and more. It is visible now quite well - a huge plate, covered with clouds.
Instruments show that there is oxygen in the planet's atmosphere. Travelers noticed sparkles of the water surface. Oxygen and water? This means that even life on this unknown planet is possible!
With great speed, the ship crashed into the atmosphere of the planet. The ship's hull began to heat up. Even the cooling units were unable to deal with the heat, and the passenger cabin became unbearably hot. I had to start the brake engines at full power in order to slightly reduce the speed.
Already much could be seen on the surface of the planet with a simple eye. Vlol edge big mainland- a long mountain range. Further - huge expanses of water, ice and water again ...
Peering into the relief map spreading below, the stargazers saw a yellow spot behind the mountain range. Desert! Sand! This is a great landing site.
The ship turned towards the surface of the planet and began to rapidly descend. The flight was coming to an end. It became stuffy again in the cockpit. The roar of a hurricane was heard through the walls - the ship, like a meteor, cut through the air of an alien planet.
The yellow spot was getting closer. It's time! Muffled explosions, then another and another... This is the engine running, convulsively choking in short bursts, scorching the "ground" under the ship with hot breath.
The ship struggled with the gravity of the planet. Fire jets roared from the engines. The last jump up - and the giant ship began to slowly descend, as if on a pillar of fire. The pillar is getting smaller, and the landing site is getting closer. Another moment - and the descent is over. The ship lies on the surface of the planet.
The silence seems oddly strange. The porthole shutters are open again, and the landscape of another world, in the sky of which multi-colored luminaries rise, appears before the eyes of travelers.
Their indefatigable thirst for knowledge has brought them here, under an alien sky, to an alien planet. With excitement they look at other people's skies, at the world of another Sun.
Behind are trillions of miles of travel starship competing in speed with light. Somewhere in the bottomless expanse of heaven there was a star whose name is the Sun, a planet whose name is Earth...
The hatch opens.
Interstellar travelers enter another world...
