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What lies beyond the clouds? What lies beyond the blue atmosphere that has fascinated the human mind all these years? What makes space so enchanting and mysterious at the same time?

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Humankind was driven by curiosity to give a meaning to the positions of the stars in the sky, thus creating astrology, or attempted to find the God that they believed was hidden beyond their vision.They looked up to the sky and questioned. For example, Galileo Galilei, a scientist who highly promoted the scientific revolution in the 17th century, endorsed the “Copernican Theory”, stating that the sun is located in the center while other planets, including our own, revolve around it. This forms the basis of our so-called knowledge of the Milky Way. Unfortunately, he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in 1633. In addition to Galileo, Descartes is an honorable mention with his own work in philosophy and astronomy which supported the ideas of the scientific revolution in the 17th century. He stated that space is an Euclidean in structure, infinite, flat, and not empty. However, none of these people could do what Isaac Newton did, as he created the fundamental laws of physics and gravity, which laid the foundation of research until the 20th century. He established his first law in 1687 through his book, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia. These and many more scientists of the 17th century all had a very significant impact on the scientific revolution. With this background knowledge, let’s move on to what makes it so mind-blowing.  

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As it is pretty obvious, space enchanted the human mind and caused many people to be interested in finding out more about it, but what more is there to even find out about? We have the Sun, the Earth, even the Milky Way. What more do we need ? It is known for a fact that only 4 percent of the visible universe has been discovered. Imagine what lies beyond our knowledge. It is so mysterious, astonishing, and horrifying if you think about it. 

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Let me put out some interesting facts:

1. The Sun makes up 99 percent of our solar system’s mass. Imagine how small the Earth is in comparison to the mass of the solar system, perhaps how insignificant us, humans, are in regarding the formation of the mass of the solar system. 

2. One Venus day is longer than one Venus year. This is about its significant rotation and size. Planet day refers to the time it takes for a planet to revolve around its own axis which is, for Venus, 243 days. Planet year refers to the time it takes for the planet to revolve around the Sun which is almost 225 days. Hence, a year is not always bigger in quantity than a day if you think about it. Not if you are on Venus.

3. On Saturn and Jupiter, it might be raining millions of pounds of diamonds every year. The atmosphere has such high heat and pressure that it might squeeze carbon to form diamonds. What a lovely planet that would be…

4. Venus orbits in the opposite direction than all the other planets in our Solar System. Its axis is estimated to be flipped by the Sun’s gravitational pull.

5. It is possible to fit all the planets in the Solar System between the Moon and the Earth. The average distance from the Moon to the Earth is 4,392 km. In addition, all the planets put side by side will result in a 380,008 km long shape, leaving us with an extra 4,392 km. 

6. A perilous crash is going to occur in 4 billion years between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. Fortunately, the Earth is not going to be destroyed. In fact, the galaxy product of this collusion has been named as Milkomeda/Milkdromeda. What a relief…​​ 

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I agree that these facts are unpredictable but still don’t explain why humankind is so attracted to space. Why humankind studied space is directly related to their curiosity, which is an intrinsic quality that makes humans so unique. One way we, humans, differ from any other species is our so-called feeling of curiosity. We get curious about something, then we research it, and then come to a conclusion. However, when it comes to space, it is not so easy. When you are studying space there is no way for you to come to a significant conclusion. Space is a concept, you can’t touch, feel or look at unless you put on a spacesuit or launch a shuttle to understand its most detailed equations and that takes a lot of courage. Looking at the first five shuttle launches, there is a one in five odds for the shuttle to be destroyed and for the astronaut to die in it. Hence, it must be very interesting to wonder if one is going to be floating gloriously in space or dead at the end of the day the space shuttle launches. A very selfless sacrifice is what astronauts are doing for the whole of mankind. Why people are willing to take that risk is a question I can’t answer though Chris Hadfield did in his TED talks. He delivered a speech about an astronaut floating through space without his ability to see because of an accident (fortunately, he was able to recover after he completed the spacewalk). I advise you to listen to that because he talked about how real danger and fear contradict, meaning you actually can overcome any risk by showing determination and courage. Another reason for humans’ interest in space might be their survival instinct. Currently NASA, the most well-known company studying space, is attempting to find another planet where humans can colonize as there is a very high probability for the Earth to deplete its resources very soon. “Is there a way for us to solve this?” is a question NASA is working on. Hopefully, there is.

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To conclude, space is so terrifying due to its mysterious side but enchanting at the same time that has caused the human mind to be interested in it all these years. Even though studying in space takes a lot of courage, some people are still willing to take the risk. Still, why space has attracted so many human minds revolves around a mystery; but it is clear that curiosity and survival instinct make a really big part of it. “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Maybe life is more than just being on Earth… 

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