This post contains many facts about missions, messages and life locations in the solar system. Stay tuned...

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Mega Facts on Space

1974 Arecibo Radio Message

We have seen the topic of extraterrestrial life in the previous post, but let us see an attempt made in 1974 to communicate with aliens (if there are any). The Arecibo radio telescope (the largest single-dish radio telescope) in Puerto Rico sent a message to a star cluster 25,000 light-years away. It would take 25,000 years. It consisted of a stream of binary numbers sent in a radio signal towards its target. The same technology would send us a message 25,000 years later. The decoded binary numbers would create the following diagram.

Arecibo Message (Credits to Google Images)

Let us see the meaning of each diagram. It has six parts.

1. The 1st diagram represents the numbers 1 to 10, written in a pixelated manner.
2. The 2nd diagram represents the atomic numbers of the elements needed to sustain life which are - Hydrogen (H), Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N), Oxygen (O), and Phosphorus (P).
3. The 3rd diagram represents the double helical shape and chemical components of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
4. The 4th diagram represents the DNA molecules.
5. The 5th diagram shows the human figure, the human face and a satellite.
6. The 6th diagram shows the sun with the planets.
7. The last diagram shows the transmitter, the Arecibo radio telescope.

Also, in the 6th diagram, we can see there are nine planets instead of the present eight planets. It is because it was produced in 1974 when Pluto was still considered a planet. Then in 2006, it was finally removed from the planet's category.

Possible locations for life in the solar system

The possible locations can be moons of planets of the solar system. Which are -

1) Europa - This moon of Jupiter is the third-largest moon and a member of the four Galilean moons. It has a surface of the ice. Scientists say an ocean of water may be found under the surface with aquatic life.

2) Enceladus - Saturn's moon Enceladus has a similarity with Jupiter's moon Europa. The only difference it has is that Enceladus has ice-erupting volcanoes.

3) Titan - Saturn's largest moon has an environment closely resembling earth's. It could be a good settlement for humans. But it has a temperature way too low for habitation.

4) Mimas, Epimetheus - These smaller moons of Saturn have conditions for life as their surface proves it.

Planets and dwarf planets can be also possible for sustaining life -

1) Mars - Everyone knows this, mars can have life or may have had a life once before. Rovers are searching for more clues to life.

2) Ceres - The largest asteroid in the asteroid belt is a dwarf planet. This can be an ideal location.

3) Pluto - Pluto may have ice and water on it. It is too far from here and may have some disappointing news about finding no life. Travelling to this object is a tremendously hard task and only 1 spacecraft had reached it, i.e. the nuclear-powered 478 kg New Horizons spacecraft which had photographed the terrain of Pluto's surface and its five orbiting moons.

Missions of the Space Age

The Space age is the period since we started sending humans, rovers and spacecraft out to the far reaches of space. This age started on 12 April 1961 marking a Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight for 108 minutes on a spaceship known as Vostok 1. 8 years later, on 20 July 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot onto the surface of the moon. This signature foot stamp on the moon would be still for 1,000,000 years. After this, it will start to erode. More spacecraft had visited the planets, let's see all of them-

1) Messanger 1 - This is the only spacecraft that had visited Mercury and photographed its landscapes. As mentioned in the 3rd post of this blog, Everything about our solar system, it was hard to catch up with mercury. Another detail to notice on mercury is the Caloris basin. 

Caloris Basin - The Caloris basin is an oddly created crater on Mercury. When the spacecraft had photographed Mercury, it showed an oddly cratered terrain on the opposite side of a crater. This stated that a collision had happened on the planet where the shockwaves and debris had travelled all over the planet to the opposite side and created a crater. 

2) Venus Express/Venera 1 - This Russian craft had orbited Venus and dropped a probe on the surface. The land conditions on Venus were so hostile that the probes had to live for 23 minutes before burning.

3) Juno, Galileo -  These orbiters had analysed the atmosphere of Jupiter. Jupiter, unlike the rocky planets, had no solid surface. This meant that you could just glide into Jupiter and come out on the opposite side. That becomes impossible when the heavy turbulence and pressure envelopes you in the atmosphere. Not to mention the belts of lethal radiation around the planet which can kill you in an instant whatever spacesuit you are wearing.

4) Cassini - The Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn and its rings. It had discovered the Cassini Division of the rings A and B (The structure of the rings to be written in the next post). Cassini had a probe, Huygens attached to it. It let Huygens onto the surface of Titan.

5) Voyager 1/Voyager 2 - The only 2 spacecraft which have officially crossed the heliopause and entered the region of interstellar space. They have only visited the outer planets, Uranus and Neptune. Both planets have been found mysterious flashing long strings of X-rays in the atmospheres. Another detail of the outer planets is that they were not visible from Earth and were discovered by telescope.

From Earth, we can see only the planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The outer planets were discovered with a telescope. In 1787, English astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus, but he thought it was a comet. Uranus's orbit is mysteriously changing shape as if it was pulled by another planet. Scientists calculated the orbit and position of this hidden planet and found Neptune. But the same effect is occurring on eTNOs (extreme Trans-Neptunian objects), which started the mystery of Planet 9. 

Heliopause - Heliopause is a boundary of the solar system. At 123 AU from the sun, it is the solar system's edge. Here, the interstellar space of the galaxy starts.

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Thank you for reading!

Aditya Kadiyala