The Northern Lights

One of the world’s most fascinating and natural wonders are the Northern Lights. These magical lights come in a variety of dancing colors. This seemingly random light show occurs as a result of interactions of Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere with solar winds. Solar winds released by the Sun’s sunspot regions travel through space until they meet with Earth’s magnetosphere. Usually, the magnetic field is strong enough to block these winds, but near the poles, it is weak enough to be penetrated by the solar winds. The solar winds collide with Earth’s atmosphere and create the beautiful lights that we’ve come to admire.

How Hard is Interstellar Travel?

Traveling to other solar systems seem pretty easy in the movies, but in real life, it could get quite complicated. First of all, the closest star system to us is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.37 light-years away, which is very far from us even if we can travel at the speed of light. But even traveling close to that speed is a problem. The fastest manmade object in history was the Parker Solar Probe that reached speeds of 430,000 miles per hour using the gravity of the sun to accelerate it. That speed is only 0.064% of the speed of light! So maybe we could just use normal rockets to get there? Well, accelerating a spaceship to a tenth of the speed of light would take 4.50×10¹⁷ joules, which is about twice the yield of a hydrogen bomb. So reaching a fraction of the speed of light requires a dangerous amount of energy, so it seems like visiting the closest star system is impossible at the moment, let alone other galaxies.

Halley’s Comet

In 2061, Halley’s Comet will return to pass by Earth in 75-year long round trip across the solar system. But what else do we know about this mysterious visitor?

Studying the reports of comet sightings in 1531, 1607, and 1682, Edmond Halley deduced that these comets were in fact the same one and that it would return in 1758. Though Halley died in 1742, the comet did indeed return in 1758 and was named after its discoverer. When Halley’s comet returned in 1986, technology had finally allowed astronomers to study it. Probes from multiple international space programs were sent take close-up pictures of the comet for the first time. Research has shown that Halley’s comet is slowly losing about a thousandth of its mass with every loop around. Although it will still take thousands of years to finally die out, it is disheartening to see that not all things in the universe are permanent.