What is Space?

Space is usually the area outside the Earth's atmosphere. Typically when you look at the night sky you are seeing objects out in space. It is almost always related to astronomy. Sometimes it is defined by the lack of air. more...

 

Of course space can mean simply an area, volume or distance that can be measured by units of length like cm, inches etc. For example the distance or space between two points.

Distances in space are usually measured in large numbers like millions of kilometres, parsecs, light years or Astronomical units. (AUs)

What

Why

News

How

History

Future

What

Why

News

How

History

Future

How is space studied/classified?

Space can be classified in various ways:

What's the difference between space , outer space and a vacuum?

• Space is strictly a dimension
  
  
• outer space is the region outside the Earth's atmosphere.
  
  
• A vacuum is a volume of space with perhaps only a few molecules in it

Where does space begin?

Exactly where space begins is not very welled defined, even by NASA. This is because the earth's atmosphere thins gradually.

Here are two guidelines from NASA:

• 50 miles altitude (80km) - if a person flies to this height they can be awarded astronaut status
• 75.76 miles (121km) - is when space engineers start to really notice the friction of air during re-entry

A 2009 study from the university of Calgary has now suggested space starts at 118km. This where particle speeds reach easily over 1000km/h

What is the history of space?

The history of space is really about our understanding of the development of space.

Where did space comes from?

The most popular theory is that space was created from the Big Bang.

According to this theory space (and the universe) is about 8,000 to 12,000 Million years a old.

The theory of an expanding universe or expanding space was developed through Observations by an Astronomer called Edwin Hubble.

 

But when we normally think of space history it is about the history of space exploration or space technology. For example the first man-made object (satellite) to be put into space was by the Russians called Sputnik and led to the so called space race.

An image of the first satellite in space.
Source: www2.fht-esslingen.de/ telehistory/satellit.html

The future of space?

Where is space going to be in the future?

The most often suggestions include two basic possibilities.

• Space will continue to expand and end up producing a very cold distant universe. This could happen at a constant rate or it could happen at an accelerated rate.
• Space will contract and end up in the "Big Crunch"

 

Reference: Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology

Unfortunately, from recent observations by astronomers it is thought that the universe will be expand and eventually over the next few billion years the sky will get darker, although this is well beyond our life time or even the life time of our star the sun.

Most recent studies, based on computer models and observations suggest the universe should last another 24,000 million years but there is still quite a bit of argument about the exact figures.

Reference: Cosmic doomsday delayed