If you are a dork like me and want to waste every possible second of the day you have (which seems to be my goal in life), then you should spend a few hours on space.com and prepare for your head to explode. I briefly touched on it with my “Water on Mars” post, but space fascinates me, as I’m sure it does everyone else. I mean, you’d have to be pretty unimaginative and boring to not at least care somewhat about what’s going on out there. But here’s the best part: no one knows what the hell is going on out there! Scientists and astronomers (of which I wanted to be one, but came to the stunning conclusion that I was in no way smart) are basically like TV viewers and space is like the public access channel. SOMETHING is going on there and it is absolutely fascinating, but no matter how long you watch it and how many theories you come up with, it’s not going to make a lick of sense. Where do we come from? What are black holes? Dose the universe have an edge? Why are two drag queens singing gospel songs in a graveyard? Mysteries, my friends. Mysteries.
One particular article caught my attention today, and it was so cool I had to share it with you (and by you, I mean YOU. You are my only reader). I always want to talk about this stuff, but I end up not really understanding it and instead draw pictures of E.T. at American Apparel. But this one has me giddy with excitement. In short, there is something out there that is pulling huge clusters of galaxies around, all in the same direction. It’s like in Go, Dog, Go, where they are all heading to the tree party (kinda). Scientists claim that there is nothing in the known universe that could cause stuff this big to move at these speeds (and this is independent from the fact that everything is moving because the universe is expanding), so they say there is something OUTSIDE the universe causing this. OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE! And they are calling this phenomenon “Dark Flow.”
First, let’s discuss the name. “Dark Flow.” It sounds like a heavy-metal/rap fusion band. Scientists, who are the biggest dorks ever, always seem to come up with the coolest names for things. Like “event horizon” (one of my favorite terms ever) or “dark matter” or naming all the planets after ancient gods instead of something like “the red one.” The only time they’ve ever really fumbled the ball on a name is “black hole.” What about “darkness arena?” Or “warp zone?” Second, wow. Things outside the universe pulling things around? And they are so far away, further than any light has ever traveled since the creation of OUR universe, that there is no way we can see them. On top of that, the article implies that our universe is self contained, kinda in a bubble, and the “rules” that apply here might not apply in other bubbles outside our bubble. I mean, just think about that for a second. Wow. And then on top of that, they use the word “structures” to describe the objects that are pulling. Now, structure to me is an artificial word. You call something built a structure. You don’t call something “natural” like a tree a structure. It’s almost like I can imagine that the universe is under construction, and that out there at the edges you have the construction zone and it’s giant cranes that are pulling things around… no thanks, I’ll pass on another brownie!
Fascinating. Just fascinating. I hope someone shares my enthusiasm because I am going to be thinking about this all day.
Also, did you read the one about the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator that was built deep under the Swiss? Where scientists are going to smash particles together and try to create the conditions of the Big Bang in order to understand the mysteries of the universe? And how some people thought this would bring about the end of the world? Well, they turned it on for a test and then something “broke” somewhere (I’m not a scientist so I can’t understand all the deets) and now there’s a problem. They say that something happened with some magnets somewhere, but think about it. When it was turned on, the world was supposed to end, or at the least a portal was supposed to open. Now it’s shut down. Hmmm. What are the Swiss not telling us
Also, China has a functioning space program? Why wasn’t I told?
