Why Do We Explore Space?

For years, I have fostered the notion that we are living in the most pivotal point in humankind’s history. (Perhaps one day it will catch on!) The block of geocentric cosmic time that contains the past 150 years or so—that time since the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States—and the next 150 years is likely what will determine our future on this pale blue dot. But, that’s a lot of responsibility to consider just to answer this simple question. So, let’s lose some of this baggage and try to home in on a reason.

            First, there seems to be this ubiquitous (yet factually unjustified) assumption that humans are inherently competitive and that we are just born to be better than each other. In other words, it’s built right in! Nonsense! This is patently false. Outside of the context of perhaps five fundamental necessities to grow and live optimally, nothing is inherent. That is, regardless of where you are from, what color your skin is, whether you believe in gods, etc., as a biological entity, to grow and function optimally, your body requires a specific set of necessities to be fulfilled. Those are: 1. Clean, fresh water; 2. Nutritious food; 3. Clean, fresh air; 4. Close contact with others (especially as newborns); and, 5. Sunlight. If there is an imbalance in either direction in any of these necessities, trouble can and likely will arise through disease. While malnutrition can certainly cause chemical imbalances in the brain directly leading to aberrant behavior, behavior itself is environmentally influenced—even at the genetic level. (I would love to continue this argument but I fear I’m getting super side-tracked so I’ll just move on.) So, competitive behavior is forced by the environment. (Of course, the tumultuous times during the Cold War certainly played a key role in the development of NASA and our space program. But, this is still considered an environmental factor.)

            Second, we talk a lot about money. But, does anyone in our society even know that money is created out of debt? Has anyone heard of fractional reserve banking? Or is it just that people don’t know or need to know where money comes from—they just know they need it? For a supposedly intelligent species, we act so foolishly sometimes on such a grand scale. Similar to the myth of human nature being used to justify or denigrate abhorrent behavior, the myth of the necessity of money directly stifles our rapid ascent to a globally unified society beyond politics, poverty, and war. Think about it: the only reason that politics exists is because of inherent inefficiencies in a monetary/market system based upon debt and speculative trading of fictional assets; the only reason poverty exists is because a debt-based monetary/market system exists (poverty is entirely a human invention and it is ‘justified’ in any number of equally disgusting manners); the only reason war exists is because it is the biggest business ever created besides banking itself. “But we need it to live!” we tell ourselves. It’s really fascinating to live in a society that has the technology to feed, clothe, and house every single person on the planet with ease and without a price tag, yet would rather spend time bickering about who others should marry, who makes more crumbs—the “burger flipper” or the paramedic, whose god is so much better, whose president kicks more ass, or whatever the flavor of the hour happens to be. Senselessness! Yet still we explore—unfortunately in this case, more ways to be even stupider. (Space—the final frontier…LOOKOUT! America’s coming to bring you some freedom and democracy!)

            Finally, we could say that we explore simply for the sake of exploring. The unknown is a fascinating realm to delve into. Perhaps our frontal lobe is what really sets us apart from other species of Earth. Specifically, our highly sophisticated prefrontal cortex allows us to plan future events in detail. So, if we are to point to a part of us that is truly responsible for the reason why we explore, point to the prefrontal cortex. We wouldn’t be able to plan any of this without it!

            I suppose we now explore space because, once we were able to reach beyond all we had ever known, all we had ever known didn’t seem so significant anymore. Now we are perpetually trying to fill an ever-growing void both in outer space and within our minds. Perhaps we are trying to redefine our significance without realizing that it never was. In any case, humankind will likely continue to explore the unknown (hopefully) for millennia to come; for, all that is now known was once unknown.

Hinode: Seeing the Sun Three Ways

          Through the concerted efforts of Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, the satellite known as Hinode (formerly Solar B) was successfully launched September 26, 2006 from Uchinoura Space Center. Equipped with a high-resolution optical telescope, an X-ray telescope, and an Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer, this innovative spacecraft was developed to “reveal the mechanisms of solar variability and study the origins of space weather and global change,” according to the NASA Heliophysics Roadmap.¹ These telescopes would be used simultaneously to observe the photosphere all the way to the corona while stockpiling data in their respective wavelengths. The underlying goal of the mission was to “help solve the mysteries of the Sun.”²

         Hinode—still in operation well beyond its 3 year design lifetime—has allowed astronomers to gain a much more robust understanding of the source of extreme heating of the corona while also acting as a wellspring for several other important discoveries about this giant plasma ball that is Earth’s life source. One of the aforementioned mysteries was the cause of monumental temperature increases from the photosphere, through the chromosphere, to the corona. Using the EUV Image Spectrometer, high-speed plasma flows have been observed that are thought to be the result of magnetic reconnection causing “the energy stored in the magnetic field [to change] into heat and plasma motions”.³ The high resolution of each telescope, coupled with the high-altitude orbit outside of the influence of atmospheric distortion at roughly 680 km, has allowed unprecedented views of the polar regions of the Sun otherwise extremely difficult to observe from Earth’s surface at such highly oblique angles. “As a result, Hinode found strong magnetic fields in the solar polar regions. Until then, it had been thought that only weak and diffuse magnetic fields existed in those regions. But, the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope (HSOT) discovered that strong magnetic fields, which exceed 1,000 Gauss (0.1 Tesla) similar to the sunspots, exist as compact magnetic patches throughout the polar regions” (NAOJ).⁴ Other observations of the Sun’s magnetic field through the HSOT “made it possible to verify the magnetic field structure which triggers solar flares by comparing simulation models to actual observations” (NAOJ).⁵ The common theme here is the interplay between differential rotation, magnetic field generation, and temperature disparities between the three outermost solar layers: the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona.

          Again using the HSOT and working with the idea of convective plasma movement, Hinode made a rather surprising discovery:

          The Hinode Solar Optical Telescope discovered that these magnetic fields cover the whole Sun. These magnetic fields are much smaller and have shorter lifetimes than sunspots. In addition they point horizontally along the solar surface. These magnetic fields are called transient horizontal magnetic fields. This result was made possible by Hinode's high precision spectro-polarimetry. Since these magnetic fields exist everywhere on the Sun, the total amount of their energy becomes potentially enormous, and there is a possibility that this could provide the energy for the coronal heating (NAOJ).⁶

     Of course, the possibility remains that a combination of these several factors is what causes the corona to heat to a whopping 1,000,000 K and beyond. However, it can at this point be confidently asserted that continued operation of Hinode will only enhance our understanding of the dynamics of solar magnetic fields throughout the Sun. Indeed, it already has!

              As with any spacefaring mission, the machines we build and fire out of our atmosphere must be resilient and capable of withstanding the unforgiving, extreme conditions of space. This typically results in spacecraft capable of continuing data collection far beyond their intended mission lifetimes. It can also lead to observing Earth-related astronomical phenomena, such as solar eclipses⁷, from a completely different perspective. Assuming funding is extended, scientists could be collecting and analyzing data from Hinode and other missions for years, perhaps decades, to come. And with the advent of faster, more compact computer chips, artificial intelligence, memory metals, more advanced EM shielding, and many other innovations of the 21^st century, humankind is on a path to colonize another world—perhaps Mars—within only ten years or so while continually minimizing the risks involved. The data collected from such pre-space-colonization missions can only enhance our ability to overcome the enormous challenges that the Sun alone presents in moving from this beautiful world to the next.

Fig. 1. A processed image from Hinode, dated 02 February 2018.⁸ ©NAOJ/JAXA/MSU

References

1.     https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090010233.pdf

2-6. http://hinode.nao.ac.jp/en/intro/science/discovery.html

7. http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/solar/eclipse20170821/index_e.html

8. http://hinode.nao.ac.jp/en/gallery/latest/