Human beings are the only intelligent life on earth, born millions of years ago, and formed civilization more than 5,000 years ago. From the day human civilization was formed, some scholars who were at the forefront of mankind began to constantly ponder such questions: “Who are we?” “Where are we?”, “Where do we come from?”.
It is precisely because scholars in ancient times continued to ponder these ultimate questions that some interesting myths and legends slowly appeared. Because the ancients lacked scientific guidance, there was no way to research and explore these ultimate questions of deep thought, and they could only attribute the answers to God.
Later, with the continuous progress of human civilization, we entered the age of science and technology hundreds of years ago. With the assistance and guidance of scientific power, scientists began to explore the truth of this world, and focused their attention on the vast universe.
Before human beings walked out of the earth, we were full of yearning for the universe. At that time, we basically knew nothing about the universe. With the help of science and technology, mankind has finally stepped out of the earth and embarked on the road of exploring the mysteries of the universe. There are many mysteries in the universe, such as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and whether there are extraterrestrial civilizations.
To explore the secrets of the universe, we need the assistance of astronomical telescopes and detectors. Although astronomical telescopes can observe very far away, it is only a kind of fuzzy observation. If you want to understand more detailed scenes in the depths of the starry sky, you still need The probe goes.
After human beings walked out of the earth, they began to continuously launch probes into the universe, among which the Voyager spacecraft went the farthest. We all know that the existence of extraterrestrial civilization has always been a mystery that the scientific community wants to solve. Human beings who have just walked out of the earth started the search for extraterrestrial civilization.
The Voyager spacecraft in this plan is the forerunner. It carries a compact disc that records the information of the earth and human beings, and it continues to advance beyond the vast solar system. The Voyager spacecraft was launched in 1977. In the same year, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft into space. Their mission is to keep going out of the solar system, hoping to be captured by alien civilizations one day. Know the existence of the earth and mankind through the CD-ROM carried above.
In the process of continuous advancement, the Voyager is not doing nothing. In addition to searching for extraterrestrial civilizations through them, scientists also hope to learn more about the solar system through them. Therefore, as the Voyager traveled all the way, it was constantly sending various starry sky photos to the earth.
Through these photos, we have a lot of knowledge about the farther parts of the solar system. In these photos, there is a photo that makes humans fall into deep thinking.
This photo is the home of the earth taken by Voyager 1 at 6.4 billion kilometers away. We all know that the best place to take a picture of the earth from space is the moon. Taking a picture of the earth in the lunar orbit, we can see a blue Huge beautiful planet.
The earth is very beautiful in space. This kind of beauty is far from being comparable to other planets. This may be the characteristic of the planet of life. Taking pictures of the earth from different starry sky positions is also a wish that scientists have always wanted to realize. The Voyager can take on this task, so it will give a close-up of the earth at different starry sky positions along the way.
And as the Voyager keeps moving away from the earth, the earth is getting smaller and smaller in the photos taken. After reaching 6.4 billion kilometers away, the Voyager took the last photo of the earth. The position of the earth in this photo was completely dark, and we could not see the earth with our naked eyes. Only after zooming in did we see a fuzzy earth particle.
In this photo, the earth is only 0.12 pixels, how small it is. And now Voyager 1 is more than 20 billion kilometers away from us. Even if the earth is photographed, we can’t see the earth from the photos at all, even if it is magnified many times.
Seeing this has silenced many people. In our eyes, the huge homeland is too small in front of the vast universe. We used to think that the earth is the dust of the universe, and a particle of dust is actually very large, but through this photo, we realize that the earth is only a dust in the solar system.
We all know that the diameter of the solar system has reached more than 2 light years, and it will take at least 30,000 years for Voyager 1 to fly out. The solar system is only one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies with a diameter of 100,000 light-years. The earth is not even dust in front of the Milky Way galaxy, the solar system can only be regarded as a dust in the Milky Way galaxy.
So is the Milky Way big? In fact, it is also very small. It is the local group of galaxies more than the Milky Way, with a diameter of 10 million light-years. In this local galaxy group, there are dozens of galaxies similar to the Milky Way, and the local galaxy is not the largest. There are larger cosmic structures above it, such as the Virgo Supercluster, which has a diameter of 110 million. Light years.
There are at least 100 galaxy groups and clusters in the Virgo super galaxy, so is the Virgo super galaxy the largest cosmic structure? The answer is obviously no, there are many larger star cluster structures on top of it. At present, the observable universe of human beings has a diameter of 93 billion light-years. Why is it said that it is an observable universe instead of the entire universe?
That’s because the universe is constantly expanding, and galaxies that are farther away from the earth are moving away from us faster, while galaxies 17 billion light-years away are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so the photons emitted by those galaxies cannot Naturally, we can’t observe what reaches the earth.
The observable range is the range in which the expansion of the universe is less than the speed of light, and the expansion of the universe beyond the speed of light is currently unobservable. Even within the current observable universe, there are millions of superclusters, and this range may be just the tip of the iceberg of the vast universe. The real universe is much broader than we thought.
In the face of such a vast universe, does the earth dare to call itself dust? Of course we dare not. At the same time, we must also understand that the earth is not even dust in the universe, and there are so many planets like the earth that we can’t count them. Even if it is a small to extreme probability that a smart civilization will be born, then there is nothing in the universe. There are so many civilizations that we can’t even imagine.
The universe has been born 13.8 billion years ago. During such a long period of time, life and civilization will be born at different points in time. Human civilization has only existed for about 5,000 years. It can be seen that there may be many alien civilizations in the universe that are much stronger than humans.
We still can’t find alien civilization, mainly because human beings have limited scientific and technological strength and have no ability to get out of the solar system. The alien civilization has not yet discovered the earth, probably because the universe is too vast, and the solar system itself is on a barren earth on the edge, so it is not easy to find.
Humans cannot discover alien civilizations, and alien civilizations are not easy to discover the earth. This is actually good news for mankind. Hawking once said that alien civilizations are not necessarily friendly. If alien civilizations come with hostility, then the huge power gap may bring huge disasters to the earth and mankind.
A photo has brought deep thinking to mankind, let us realize that the earth is so small, and human beings are also very small. If we want to become a bigger ant, we need to continue to work hard to develop science and technology. Only when science and technology become really powerful can we continue human civilization and even become the overlord of the universe one day.