Space Exploration: Our understanding for the Universe

            For centuries, philosophers and physicists alike have been asking critical questions about our universe. Where do we come from? How did the universe begin? Why is the Universe the way it is? How will it end if at all? Many of our current theories of the Universe have been proposed and supported or critiqued by rather recent observations of our extraterrestrial surroundings. With innovation and the exploration of space, scientists learn more and more details about the properties of the Universe. Stephen Hawking summarizes our current understanding of the Universe in the following:

            "From sitting at the the center of the Universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a Universe that is infinite and expanding. But this is far from the end of a long history of inquiry. Huge questions remain to be answered, before we can hope to have a complete picture of the Universe we live in... From the Big Bang to black holes, from dark matter to a possible Big Crunch, our image of the Universe today is full of strange sounding ideas, and remarkable truths. The story of how we arrived at this picture is the story of learning to understand what we see." (PBS, 2003)

            Even before it was technologically possible for man-made objects to reach space, humans have always strived for a greater understanding of our surroundings. These curiosities as well as our human nature to explore, to seek adventure and discover the unknown first hand are what drives us to reach out and explore the unknowns of space.

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