Today, we look up into a telescope to observe the history of astronomy, led by our official members Ammar and Andy. In prehistoric times, the Stonehenges were aligned to the Sun and were used to track the passage of time, while the Mayans figured out the moon cycle that repeats every 18.6 years, creating their own lunar almanac (calendar). The Babylon civilization also got involved in this discovery process, they used maths to evenly split the sky into twelve segments, which is the origin of the 12 zodiacs we know today. Next, came the advancements in the theories of what our universe/solar system looked like (the Renaissance era). In this era, the geocentric model, introduced by Aristotle, a student of the philosopher Plato, was the theory that the Earth was the centre of the universe. This was proven by two major observations: the Sun revolves around the Earth once per day and we feel no movement from Earth as it feels stationary. However, some inconsistencies were brought up: the planets seem to move in a retrograde motion causing the planet's orbit path resembling something like a flower. Later in 1543, the controversial heliocentric model was presented with evidence by Galileo Galilei, where instead of the Earth, the Sun was at the centre of our solar system, though after his claim he was forcefully silenced (as a disclaimer - Galileo wasn't the first to propose such notion but was the first to back it up with evidence). Now, we move into 4th October 1975 marking the start of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the start of numerous technological advancements brought about such as the Sputnik 1. It all began when the United States announced its intention to launch an artificial satellite during the International Geophysical Year (1 July 1957 - 31 December 1958). Four days later, the Soviet Union announced its intention to do the same, and they became the first to do so, which started the race.

There has been so much progress within discovering what is outside Earth. So how far did we explore? The furthest humans have reached is 380,000 km through the Apollo 11 mission to land humans on the moon. On the other hand, the furthest man-made object, the Voyager 1, has been travelling for 44 years, which is currently 155 AU (Astronomical Unit) away from the Sun - for reference 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This also brings up questions like: how big is the universe and how far is the region of space that is visible to us from Earth (the observable universe)? The universe is said to be expanding and is expected to continue expanding forever. In the observable universe, there are at least two trillion galaxies and there are more stars than grains of sand on Earth especially with the numerous stars being born in our ever-expanding universe, it is 93 billion light years away if we are assuming the universe is isotropic. Towards the end, we were asked 'Do you believe there will be other creatures or civilizations like our humanity in the observable universe?' We discussed that there is a possibility, but at the same time, there isn't. Our Earth is in the 'goldilocks zone' with the perfect conditions to allow life to thrive, maybe these conditions might be perfect for us, but something else would have a civilization like ours with their own 'perfect conditions'. However, if there is one out there, would they want to communicate with us or will they be wondering the same as us? Astronomy contains many assumptions as not all theories can be easily proven, so do join us next time as Andy and Ammar will further delve into this question and talk about the boundaries of human travel in space!