Chandrayan 1 is beginning of a new frontier

The successful launch of the India's maiden mission to moon Chandrayan 1 is "just the beginning" of the opening up of a new frontier of cooperation between the US and India on a wide range of sectors.

"It is an extraordinary moment in history. We have an India of 1.3 billion people looking to the heavens and now exploring the frontiers of Space,"

The liftoff of Chandrayan 1 was lustily cheered at the US Chamber of Commerce where the USIBC had organised a live broadcast of the historic occasion that saw the participation of officials from the White House, the State Department, the NASA and senior officials of the Indian Embassy.

The USIBC event also saw the participation of the Indian American community who were clearly thrilled. "It is a great day in our history.

I think it will beckon a whole new era in technological cooperation between our countries," Somers said. "In this Chandrayan 1 launch we have Raytheon Technology supported by NASA...

This is just the beginning of opening up a new frontier together and exploring the main technological cooperation across a range of sectors," he said. "American cooperation in India's first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayan 1 marks the beginning of a new era or trust and partnership between the two countries in the field of space science," said Ambassador Arun Kumar Singh, the new Deputy Chief of the Indian Mission in Washington DC.

"The inclusion of two US instruments on this spacecraft has provided further fillip to Indo-US cooperation in the space arena that dates back to the very beginning of the Indian space programme.

The very first sounding rocket, a Nike Apache was launched from Thumba on November 21,1963," Singh added.

Chandrayaan-1

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on Tuesday moved closer to the Moon with ISRO scientists carrying out orbit reduction manoeuvre at 18:30 hours for a duration of 31 seconds."The current orbit of Chandrayaan-1 is 255.3 km (the farthest distance from the moon) X 101.3 km (nearest distance to the moon).

The orbital period is 2.09 hours", ISRO spokesperson S Satish said. Further manoeuvres are planned in the coming days to bring the spacecraft to its final circular orbit of 100 kms above the moon's surface, Satish said.

THE BIG BANG

One of the most persistently asked questions has been: How was the universe created? Many once believed that the universe had no beginning or end and was truly infinite.

Through the inception of the Big Bang theory, however,no longer could the universe be considered infinite. The universe was forced to take on the properties of a finite phenomenon, possessing a history and a beginning.

About 15 billion years ago a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the Big Bang. At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point.

What exisisted prior to this event is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation. This occurance was not a conventional explosion but rather an event filling all of space with all of the particles of the embryonic universe rushing away from each other.

The Big Bang actually consisted of an explosion of space within itself unlike an explosion of a bomb were fragments are thrown outward. The galaxies were not all clumped together, but rather the Big Bang lay the foundations for the universe.
The origin of the Big Bang theory can be credited to Edwin Hubble.

Hubble made the observation that the universe is continuously expanding. He discovered that a galaxys velocity is proportional to its distance. Galaxies that are twice as far from us move twice as fast. Another consequence is that the universe is expanding in every direction.

This observation means that it has taken every galaxy the same amount of time to move from a common starting position to its current position. Just as the Big Bang provided for the foundation of the universe, Hubbles observations provided for the foundation of the Big Bang theory.

Since the Big Bang, the universe has been continuously expanding and, thus, there has been more and more distance between clusters of galaxies.

This phenomenon of galaxies moving farther away from each other is known as the red shift. As light from distant galaxies approach earth there is an increase of space between earth and the galaxy, which leads to wavelengths being stretched.

In addition to the understanding of the velocity of galaxies emanating from a single point, there is further evidence for the Big Bang. In 1964, two astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, in an attempt to detect microwaves from outer space, inadvertently discovered a noise of extraterrestrial origin.

The noise did not seem to emanate from one location but instead, it came from all directions at once. It became obvious that what they heard was radiation from the farthest reaches of the universe which had been left over from the Big Bang.

This discovery of the radioactive aftermath of the initial explosion lent much credence to the Big Bang theory.

do you know this

We certainly know that our universe exists, however, this knowledge alone has not satisfied mankind's quest for further understanding.

Our curiosity has led us to question our place in this universe and furthermore, the place of the universe itself. Throughout time we have asked ourselves these questions: How did our universe begin?

How old is our universe? How did matter come to exist? Obviously, these are not simple questions and throughout our brief history on this planet much time and effort has been spent looking for some clue.

Yet, after all this energy has been expended, much of what we know is still only speculation.

We have, however, come a long way from the mystical beginnings of the study of cosmology and the origins of the universe.

Through the understandings of modern science we have been able to provide firm theories for some of the answers we once called hypotheses. True to the nature of science, a majority of these answers have only led to more intriguing and complex questions.

It seems to be inherent in our search for knowledge that questions will always continue to exist.

Although in this short chapter it will be impossible to tackle all of the questions concerning the creation of everything we know as reality, an attempt will be made to address certain fundamental questions of our being.

It will be important to keep in mind that all of this information is constantly being questioned and reevaluated in order to understand the universe more clearly.

For our purposes, through an examination of what is known about the Big Bang itself, the age of the universe, and the synthesis of the first atoms, we believe that we can begin to answer several of these key questions.