Showing posts with label Cosmos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cosmos. Show all posts

April 12, 2009

Happy Easter! A Greeting to take to Brave New Worlds!

Egg NebulaToday, it's either you greeted someone or you have been greeted with a "Happy Easter!". Such exchanges have a deeper meaning that goes beyond those simple words. Easter has something to do with Life, the greatest force in the Cosmos.
We seek life in every planet to know our place in the universe. And we plan to someday fare in space. The human race has a potential future bound for the stars to colonize other worlds. But as individuals, we are here for a moment, and then gone. Like a twinkling flicker, the spark of life within us is but a momentary gift. Our bodies are star stuff and we will rejoin the dust of earth. The featureless state of death is the ultimate fate, even for the most advanced lifeform that thrives a thousand galaxies away. So I suppose that any civilization that arises will have some kind of "Easter" in a similar vein, some kind of hope for immortality.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics runs true in every part of the cosmos, and Entropy is the tombstone of every living thing. The hope of the Singularity is but a life-extension fancy. And the defeat of Death is in another realm.
Easter is a great chronicle of humanity's longing to be saved--or perhaps a Saviour's longing to save humanity--from Death. Whichever is the case, such longing will remain in the human psyche wherever life takes them, even to other planets!
And wherever any form of life takes hold, perhaps in much due time the highest state of sentience and consciousness will never fail to grasp the mortality of itself. And will tend to make the most of that dwindling spark.
As such, a Happy Easter is meant to be celebrated with the utmost joy. For happiness can be had at each moment, whether you believe you will return to nothingness or whether you will attain the everlasting life that you hope for.
Hug your loved ones and kiss them, as you say those words. Revel in the wonder that your greeting will be shared by them and their children's children onward as they take it to the stars, and onto those brave new worlds.
Happy Easter!

April 20, 2008

Other Platforms of Life

Imaginary but possible lifeforms on a jupiter-like planet. Photo from page 42 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
A post at io9 mentions the possibility of life aside from the usual carbon-based or water-based type.
I'm reminded of the musings and calculations of the late Carl Sagan (with his colleague E. E. Salpeter) regarding the form of life that may arise from a Jupiter-like planet. They would look like gigantic Jellyfish basked in gasses (such as ammonia and methane) that may be poisonous to us, but is the basis of their very life.
Because life that happens to sprout in a certain environment thrives off the available "resources" that happen to be there. We've seen it in extremophiles on our very own planet. It may very well be the case elsewhere.
With the multitude of combinations of different properties of stars and exoplanets (such as mass, temperature, chemical make-up) the possibilities and variety of life across the universe might be endless and may be totally anything we could ever imagine.

February 21, 2008

Carl Sagan's Legacy Stamped

Carl Sagan, author of my favorite book - Cosmos, just came up in the blogosphere today in the form of a stamp.
It appears that the Sagan Appreciation Society is planning a petition for the US Postal Service to issue a postage stamp honoring astronomer and science writer Carl Sagan.
A metaphorical thing indeed for someone who stamped a huge legacy in the minds and hearts of skygazers and space explorers.