To infinity and beyond

A trip to outer space

I´d pay anything to visit Kepler-452b, earth’s cousin, located at the Cygnus constellation. 

This is an exoplanet orbiting Kepler-452, a star very similar to our sun. Its composition is considered to be very similar to earth, but several times larger. Just imagine all the things we could do with all that space, all the places to discover and all the new life forms we could find!!! 

We could be travelling to this planet soon enough, after all, it’s only 1400 light years away, with our current technology it would take about 25 million years to reach this planet, so we better pack for a long trip :D 

The planet itself is probably full of volcanoes, with big clouds covering the planet, and a year would last for 385 days; we won’t get much more days of vacation at this planet, huh? 

Due to the size of the planet and its location, any life likely existing would continue to evolve for another 500 million years; if we’ve come this far in only a fraction of that time, we can only guess what the residents of this planet could do. 

The star of that galaxy, Kepler-452 is older than the sun, but since the planet is bigger, the probabilities of the planet lasting longer than earth are a lot higher. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are using the Allen Telescope Array to scan for radio transmissions from alien life forms, with no results to date. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t intelligent life, but their culture and tradition could be substantially different from ours and maybe they don’t use electricity or electromagnetic waves. 

Signs of life

We can find all sort of places to explore in these planets, and we could do it on our own two feets; but how can we know if we aren’t intruding on other beings’ territory? 

When the light from stars go through the atmosphere of a planet we see something similar to a bar code. The pieces missing from the light spectrum tells us what elements are present in that atmosphere. Seeing methane and oxygen could signal an atmosphere very similar to ours, while seeing smog or pollution could also be a good signal. There’s also the possibility of life unique to these planets, creatures made of gas molecules; or liquid entities, some microorganisms have been found to live inside nuclear reactors and other unlikely places where no other entities could survive. 

Other places to see on the road

Part of every good trip is the places we see en route to the destination. In a trip of 1400 million years, there is a lot to see, from black holes to supernovas, gas giants, constellations, wormholes, a lot of sightseeing indeed. 

The diamond planet

Would you believe me if I told you there is a planet made of diamond!?!?!?, it’s real and it’s worth 27 nonillions, that’s about 27 * 10 ^ 29, or 27 with 30 zeros; though diamonds are valuable because they’re scarce, a planet full of diamonds would make them cheap. 

The trifid nebula

The picture speaks for itself, what a sight!!!

 

The freezing star

Stars are hot, really, really hot; but not this one, WISE is a frozen star, with subzero temperatures, everything is frozen, at about -40 C. 

Alcohol cloud

Yeah, a cloud containing the measly amount of 300 trillion liters of beer. We could pass by, drink ourselves until satisfaction and then keep surfing space until reaching our next destination. 

Pillars of creation

The creation part refers to the fact that they are composed of molecular hydrogen and dust, and this could be the source that sparks new stars. 

Quasar

Another beautiful sight full of light, literally. Quasars are made of matter surrounding black holes in the form of discs; yet another destination to add to the list. 

Supernova

And to end the list, we end it with a bang. Supernova is basically the death of a star, where it explodes, radiating all its energy in a few seconds, melting everything around it. 

Final words

This is just a fraction of all the places we can see in outer space, amazing isn’t it? All those worlds, all those unknown places, just waiting for us to be discovered!!! 

This post is an entry to the contest hosted by nuoctuong. You can find the rules and the rewards in the contest post 

Kind regards
Eilder Jorge  

 All images are courtesy of www.maxpixel.net