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The Future of Astronomy

Space is expanding and the Universe is, literally, growing. The future of Astronomy and Astrophysics is wide open! With this in mind, I'll attempt to narrow the immediate future of Astronomy down to three basic directions.

1. Space Exploration: Since the days of Battlestar Galactica , A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and Star Trek, people have wanted to travel to distant worlds at light speeds. Einstein's laws of relativity tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. However, we can certainly get close.

While Star Trek makes people believe that light speed travel and interplanetary radio wave conversations are easy, they are not. Light and radio waves travel much faster than the human eye can possibly follow. Those nice Trekkie holograms may be feasible one day but the interplanetary conversations in real time are not even in the distant future.

For space exploration, we should expect manned shuttles to Mars. We can expect faster and more productive space stations. If we follow Newton's and Einstein's laws using invariant mass propulsion, human beings quite possibly will reach 10% of light speed. The current space shuttle travels around 25,000 to 30,000 miles per hour. With the direction that technology is going, we could very well reach speeds more than double those in the very near future. A trip to the moon and back, with plenty of time for research, in less than two days!

2. Cosmology: This is the quantitative study of the Universe. Cosmology almost always deals in the mathematical . Cosmology really took off by using Einstein's theory of relativity. This theory allowed cosmologists to study and, more importantly, understand very distant objects .

In the very near future, Cosmology will quite probably determine the origins of the Universe, the ultimate materials that make up space and the ever elusive, dark matter. Right not, Cosmology is entering it's Golden Age!

To understand Cosmology and where it's going, think BIG. Cosmologists study the entire Universe. Not just Earth and our galaxy. Cosmology studies the Universe in it's entirety. From beginning to now. That's more than the mind can begin to comprehend . But, they are certainly trying! Here lies a large portion of growth in Astrological and Physics future.

3. Extraterrestrial Life: I believe that this area of Astrophysics will grow as the first two grow. As we understand how to traverse the solar system and the Universe quicker and smarter, I believe we will discover

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