The stuff between the stars

I have cultivated a habit to read aurally. Yes, it is a word.

Aurally is the adverb form of aural.
Aural is related to the ear, or sense of hearing.

I use the app Audio books, because unlike other apps, it does not entice you with fascinating promises of resplendid science fiction (my favourite genre), only to snatch it away as a “title not available in your country.” If you find a title, you can know you can have it.

So, the current book I am busy with, after finishing the fascinating biography of Elon Mush by Ashlee Vance, is, get this, “Astrophysics for people in a hurry” by the renowned Neil de Grasse Tyson. Who is Neil de Grasse Tyson? Inevitably you have come across his soothing voice telling the story of some cosmos on some documentary on Netflix or good old fashioned TV programming. Of course, he would be an astrophysicist, and science communicator, with a voice like that.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4642162/mediaviewer/rm3526863361/?ref_=tt_ov_i

I consider myself well read, and scientifically minded, but in no way was I prepared for the scientific jargon, period table elemental references and so on. Which is the very reason to keep on reading. No need to become an astrophysicist but being able to have some fascinating late-night conversations around the nature of our existence and our place in the universe/galaxy/realm is a fortunate thing when you have run out of political party insults, or religious analysis, or no new recipes to swop.

And who knows, if I ever happen to cross paths with Brian May, I would like to have a genuine (albeit star struck) conversation with him. In 2007 he obtained his PhD in astrophysics, which he began 30 years earlier, around the time Queen was formed as a band. You may have heard of Queen? Another one bites the dust? Killer queen? Bohemian Rhapsody?

So let me share with you, some fascinating titbits I learned during my travels to town this week.

The large Magellanic Cloud (named after the discoverer, Mr Magellanic), is in fact the nearest galaxy to our own. If you do not have a star gazing app, get it. It really is quite pretty.

My Sky Guide app does not tell me how far exactly, but its all relative anyway. Neil told me it is much smaller than our own, uniquely spiral shaped, Milky Way galaxy.

Milky Way – Wikipedia

A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. Basically, the Milky Way Galaxy is our “hood,” as in neighbourhood. Speaking in an interstellar sense.

If we want to look for a larger, but similarly shaped galaxy as our own, we need to tell our Sky Guide, to show us the Andromeda Nebulae.

What is a little concerning (relatively speaking) is that Andromeda Galaxy is apparently one of the few galaxies coming towards us, at a rate of 100km per second, rather than much of the galaxy receding as the universe expands at an increasing pace. Fortunately, this is relative. (PS – the book also delves into Einstein’s theory of relativity, or “GR” as me and my astrophysicists like to call it). The likely collision will only happen in a few billion years.

But it has just dawned on me, it makes sense in respect of how Neil explained the universe is expanding. Other than getting into the very complicated reasons why the universe keeps expanding, (which I still need to get my head around, something about dark matter, not being matter as we know it, having the opposite effect to gravity, as we know it?), what is fascinating to hear about, is the apparent shape of the universe. If the rate of expansion were constant, the expansion would look like a flat circle, expanding outward from the point of origin, which is the famous Big Bang theory. Not this (equally famous?) Big Bang Theory .

But the rate of expansion is increasing, and while I do not understand why it results in the described shape, it does make it easier to grasp as he explains it is kind of shaped like a saddle, that starts looping, eventually crashing back into itself.

Regarding the dark matter: It does apparently exist because it has some gravitational force, but we just don’t understand what it is yet. To me, it eases my mind to picture it as the stuff that is filling the void between the stars, or maybe the stuff that is at the edge of the universe, pulling the universe into its theorised shape. But that means there is stuff already outside the universe, so how can the universe expand into nothingness. And this is where I lose the plot.

The concept that inspired today’s topic, was a question I put to myself: What do you get when an extraordinarily complex and mind-boggling science gets “dummified” into a 3-hour audio book (albeit by a technical expert), and then further dummified (by a most certainly untaught commoner)? A back of the chappie wrapper encyclopaedia.

Which like the saddle folding back into itself, takes me back to how I came to like reading arbitrary topics – [Did you know -> a collection of random facts expressed in a short sentence that fit on the back of a 1 cent chappie].

Now that I have that off my chest, let me see if I can try and find the Sandman at 2am in the morning. Slumber well my trusted reader and digital follower.