Outer Limits - News From Captain Curtis

Hello again my friends,

I know it’s been like forever since I posted a blog. It’s the summer season and I just get busier and busier doing all the things I can’t do during the winter. And since I work at a seasonal business, summer is our season.
So, you might ask, what have I been doing with myself all this time. Well, let me tell you. My sister, Charlene bought two cool jet ski’s and almost every weekend since, we’ve been out on the water. Great place to be! Especially here in south Alabama. Now that spring has sprung and summer is upon us, the grass will grow. Cutting grass is a every weekend thing. Well, that is if we could get some rain around here. It’s a dust bowl!

I had my telescope out looking at Jupiter and it’s moons with Brenda, Bruce, and Ray. Still a cool sight and will continue to be until late fall. Some nights you can actually see the moons by the naked eye. Just look to the south east from sunset all night as Jupiter will make it’s way towards the west.

I’ve still been doing a little research on the latest space news. It just takes time for me to put it all together to make some common sense out of it.
I found a nice little article on the universe and some ideas from scientists about the age of the universe.

How old is the observable universe?

While some of the smartest scientists in the world have been working for decades to pin down an age for the universe, it's still an elusive number and subject to hearty disagreement. The most commonly cited estimates are between 12 billion and 15 billion years.
Estimates come by finding distant sources of light (a star or galaxy 10 billion light-years away is 10 billion years old). But the estimates also depend on the rate at which the observable universe is expanding, which in turn is related to its exact composition and evolution.
And evidence presented in the past couple of years tells us the pace of expansion is actually accelerating. This unexpected discovery has only served to further confuse things, because no one can figure out what is causing this acceleration.
Researchers speculate that it might be the result of some strange and unknown matter or energy whose force of gravity repels, rather than attracts, over long distances.

By Robert Roy Britt

Cosmic map

For centuries, humans have looked to the heavens for their gods and goddesses and clues for finding the nature of the universe.
Now, the largest ever-produced map of the universe gives those lost in the dark some direction, but is also confirms that the universe is full of dark energy, a strange force pushing galaxies apart at ever faster speeds.
This utterly inexplicable force is one of nature's great unsolved mysteries. Map or no map, scientists admit they're pretty clueless about what's going on.
"We now have a precise view of what makes up our universe, but little idea as to why," said Ofer Lahav, the head of the Astrophysics Group at University College London. "It is intriguing that the ordinary matter our bodies are made of and that we experience in everyday life only accounts for a few percent of the total cosmic budget."
This mysterious force is said to make up about 75 percent of the mass-energy budget of the cosmos.

By Sara Goudarzi

The Mind Boggling universe

There may be nothing more mind-boggling than the universe. Imagine -- we're halfway through 2001, in the heart of the Information Age, nearly 400 years after the telescope was invented and we don't yet know how big the big house is nor what, if anything, lies beyond.
"As much as we have progressed in science, we are still finite creatures with limited conceptual abilities and imperfect observational tools," said James Sweitzer, director of astrophysics education at the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space.

By Robert Roy Britt

Someone once asked me why I was so interested in the universe. My reason, curiosity mostly, but also, the universe is all around us and we are part of it. We’re not on the outside looking in, we’re right in the middle of it. And as tough as it is for some to grasp, we could be gone in the blink of an eye. Physically, that is. We as souls of energy will exist forever. And that’s a subject all it’s own.

Captain Curtis