Deep Ocean

The ocean floor is home to many unique communities of plants and animals. Most of these marine ecosystems are near the water surface, such as the Great Barrier Reef, a 2,000-km-long coral formation off the northeastern coast of Australia. Coral reefs, like nearly all complex living communities, depend on solar energy for growth (photosynthesis). The sun's energy, however, penetrates at most only about 300 m below the surface of the water. The relatively shallow penetration of solar energy and the sinking of cold, subpolar water combine to make most of the deep ocean floor a frigid environment with few life forms.In 1977, scientists discovered hot springs at a depth of 2.5 km, on the Galapagos Rift off the coast of Ecuador. This exciting discovery was not really a surprise. Since the early 1970s, scientists had predicted that hot springs should be found at the active spreading centers along the mid-oceanic ridges, where magma, at temperatures over 1,000 °C, presumably was being erupted to form new oceanic crust. More exciting, because it was totally unexpected, was the discovery of abundant and unusual sea life giant tube worms, huge clams, and mussels that thrived around the hot springs. Since 1977, other hot springs and associated sea life have been found at a number of sites along the mid-oceanic ridges, many on the East Pacific Rise. The waters around these deep-ocean hot springs, which can be as hot as 380 °C, are home to a unique ecosystem.



Many species of deep ocean fish have special adaptations to living in extremely high pressure, low light conditions. Viper fish are some of the most wicked looking fish dredged up from the depths. Some of them are black as night all over with light organs in strategic places on their bodies, including one on a long dorsal fin that serves as a lure for the fish it preys upon. Some viperfish don't have any pigment at all, they're "see through". They also have enlarged eyes, presumably for gathering as much light as possible where there is little or no light at all. The light organs create lights by using a chemical process called bioluminescence. Other deep ocean fish, such as the the gulper eel.



The world's record holder for deepest fish goes to the brotulid family, about which scientists know almost nothing. These fish are benthopelagic, living at depths of 7000 meters or more. The world's deepest fish was found in the Puerto Rican Trench at a depth of 8,372 meters. Their eyes appear to be virtually nonexistent. Maybe it's because there is never enough light for the fish to see, so why bother with the eyes? After all, eyes in most organisms are designed for gathering light in the creature's visual field and transmitting it to the brain giving it useful information about its environment. In a world where no sunlight ever penetrates there's probably little use for eyes. The brotulids probably have other, highly developed senses to compensate for their lack of vision, which help them to find their way around in the dark depths.



These creatures live on or just underneath the surface of the very bottom of the ocean, on the abyssal plain. Called "sea pigs", they are a type of sea cucumber, which is a member of the same phylum as starfish and sea urchins. They look and act kind of like slugs do up here on land. They feed on the mud of the sea floor, benefiting from the organic materials that settle to the ocean bottom. Sea cucumbers, starfish and sea urchins can be found in all depths of the ocean. For reasons scientists don't yet understand, members of the phylum Echinodermata are extremely successful down in the ocean depths. They are the most plentiful species of sea creature down there.

The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory is the dominant scientific theory about the origin of the universe. According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions. In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaitre was the first to propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the red shift in distant nebulas by astronomers to a model of the universe based on relativity. Years later, Edwin Hubble found experimental evidence to help justify Lemaitre's theory. He found that distant galaxies in every direction are going away from us with speeds proportional to their distance. The big bang was initially suggested because it explains why distant galaxies are traveling away from us at great speeds. The theory also predicts the existence of cosmic background radiation (the glow left over from the explosion itself). The Big Bang Theory received its strongest confirmation when this radiation was discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who later won the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proven; consequentially, leaving a number of tough, unanswered questiions
Theism vs. Atheism: In general, theists attribute the origin of the universe to some sort of transcendent, intelligent Designer. Atheists envision a natural, undirected process by which universes spring into existence spontaneously. Prior to the 20th century most atheists believed the universe was eternal. This changed however as discoveries throughout the 20th Century rendered that view untenable. Einstein’s theory of gravity (which has been thoroughly validated by extensive experimental confirmation) and Hubble’s astronomical observations preclude an eternal universe. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe began at some point in the finite past. Now we understand that there are only two legitimate options for the origin of the universe: (1) Someone made the universe (Intelligent Design), or (2) The universe made itself (Random Chance). The third option, the universe has always been here, is no longer a feasible alternative -- it contradicts empirical science. No other scientifically plausible theories for the origin of the universe have ever been proposed. The implications of various 20th century discoveries have put atheists in an awkward position. Logic now requires that they identify an uncontrolled mechanism by which the universe could have initiated, designed, created and developed itself without an Intelligent Director. Otherwise, intellectual honesty requires the necessity of a Creator God.

Science and Religion disagree a lot over the fact on how the universe was created.

Galaxies -vs- Solar System

The words " solar system" refer to the Sun and all of the objects that travel around it. These objects include planets, natural satellites such as the Moon, the asteroid belt, comets, and meteoroids. Our solar system has an elliptical shape and is part of a galaxy known as the Milky Way. The Sun is the center of the solar system. It contains 99.8% of all of the mass in our solar system. Consequently, it exerts a tremendous gravitational pull on planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Astronomers believe the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. However, they differ in their beliefs about how the system formed. Some believe the whole solar system formed from a single flat cloud of gas, while others believe it formed when a huge object passed near the Sun, pulling a stream of gas off of the Sun. Astronomers theorize the planets then formed from this gas stream.

A galaxy is, by definition, any large collection of stars that can be recognized as a distinct physical entity. In terms of the number of stars, a small 'dwarf irregular' galaxy like the Small Magellanic Cloud, has about one billion stars in it, but there are even smaller systems that are recognized as galaxies such as the Leo I and II dwarf galaxies with about 1 million stars in them, and the Draco System with a few hundred thousand stars in it. The largest star cluster, a globular cluster called Messier 15 has about 6 million stars, so we see that for small galaxies, there is a blurring together of what we mean by a galaxy and a large star cluster. In addition to their mass and numbers of stars, a galaxy is a collection of stars and gas which move through the universe independently of the Milky Way. Globular clusters are roundish swarms of stars that orbit the Milky Way, while the Leo and Draco Systems seem to be independent collections of stars.
Many galaxies also continue to form new generations of stars. The Milky Way, and all spiral shaped galaxies like it, produce new stars at a rate of one or two stars per year. These stars are formed in the vast interstellar clouds that account for about 1 to 10 percent of the mass of these galaxies. Globular star clusters, on the other hand, are not currently forming stars because this activity happened billions of years ago and then stopped once all of the gas and dust clouds were used up.

Overall solar systems are a part of a galaxy which makes galaxies much larger than a solar system.

Red Giant, White Dwarf, Our Sun, and Black Holes

After a few billion years the center of a star runs out of nuclei of hydrogen atoms (Protons). What is left is a core made of nuclei of helium atoms (Alphas). The outer layers of the star still contain hydrogen, but they are not hot enough to fuse. Because it has run out of fuel, the star begins to cool, and contract. The outer layers of the star fall inwards under gravity, and as they fall they heat up. A shell surrounding the central core becomes hot enough to fuse protons into alphas. So the star gains a new source of energy. The core of the star is now hotter than it was during its normal life and this heat causes the outer parts of the star to swell. The star becomes a giant. The radiation from the fusing shell has grown weak by the time it reaches the surface of the star. Weak radiation is red, so the star becomes a red giant.

White Dwarfs are the remnants of stars that were massive enough to stay alive using nuclear fusion in their cores, but not massive enough to blow apart in a Type II supernova. When stars like our own sun die they will become white dwarfs. As a star like our sun is running out of fuel in its core it begins to bloat into a red giant. A typical white dwarf is about the size of the Earth. It is also very dense and hot. A spoonful of white dwarf material on Earth would weigh as much as a car.

The Sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel to go on for another five billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow the Earth. After a billion years as a red giant, it will suddenly collapse into a white dwarf. The final end product of a star like ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely.

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing can escape, even light.
To see why this happens, imagine throwing a tennis ball into the air. The harder you throw the tennis ball, the faster it is travelling when it leaves your hand and the higher the ball will go before turning back. If you throw it hard enough it will never return, the gravitational attraction will not be able to pull it back down. The velocity the ball must have to escape is known as the escape velocity and for the earth is about 7 miles a second. As a body is crushed into a smaller and smaller volume, the gravitational attraction increases, and hence the escape velocity gets bigger. Things have to be thrown harder and harder to escape. Eventually a point is reached when even light, which travels at 186 thousand miles a second, is not travelling fast enough to escape. At this point, nothing can get out as nothing can travel faster than light. This is a black hole.

All Stars will start out as a protostar which is like the fetus of all stars and where a baby begins it's life. After a protostar with fusion ignition it will ignite into a main sequence star which for a human is like infancy through adulthood. Through years and years the main sequence star will explode into a red giant or a super giant (Like the sun) which can relate to the middle age years of adulthood. when the star matures out of a red giant it becomes a white dwarf which would be the grandma or grandpa of the human life cycle. And of course like everything it's life will have to end and eventually it will die causing the star to become a black hole, thus ending the stars life, which would be death for a human.

As you can tell there is a long journey for a star. Going through some intersting phases. My favorite phase would have to be the black hole. Just for the simple fact that there are a lot of people and scienctists out there thay don't believe black holes exist.