"There isn't a great deal that goes on...when they have a mind to." I liked this quote because it tells me about astronomers' determination to discover new things about our world. It reminds me not only of their determination, but of human determination and will in general. We humans are very unique beings. Yes, we may be the only ones that are self-destructive (relatively) and destroy our own environment, etc., but we also have very good things, and our determination is one of them. Many say that the ingredients for evolution are mistakes, of course, and knowledge. I don't know if others have added this before, but I'd say determination, and the wish to go past the limits that others have set are also ideal ingredients, because when you set your mind to accomplish something and try hard to do so, no matter how long it takes, you end up completing your goal.
"Tombaugh could see at once that the new planet was...any big news story in that easily excited age." It was very interesting to discover the origins of planet Pluto, and how people kept debating whether one or the other's ideas were preposterous and mere fiction. It's curious how nobody yet knows how big Pluto is, or what it's made of, etc., when the beginning of the chapter just said that astronomers can find anything they're determined to find. Are they not determined to find out more information about Pluto?
"The difficulty is that many of them...are about four billion miles away." What does this mean? What's wrong with Plutinos being too dark, and their albedo, or reflection? I couldn't understand this.
How would a manned mission to Mars tear the crew's DNA to tatters? I mean, I understand it would be by the high-energy solar particles, but how would these particles affect the body, mainly the DNA's structure, so this would happen? I'd really like to know these details.
I'm glad that there's a good probability of other thinking beings existing in the universe. I wonder if we'll ever get to make contact with them, or something.
For chapter two, I read the sentence of how supernova work. "The core of a neutron star...would be a huge amount of energy left over--enough to make the biggest bang in the universe." Could the universe end or be majorly altered because of this? Why can a supernova occur "only once every two or three centuries"? What would happen if the process sped up or delayed?
I like Evans' quote, "There is actually...one of those rare areas where the absence of evidence is evidence." I think it's very powerful, and it applies to many things. 'The absence of evidence is evidence.' It's like the saying "no news is good news."
You seem to have a lot of questions about the things that you've read. If you do, why not do some further research? After all, humans are determined creatures, right? We could use that determination to find out a plethora of things and use it for other purposes. You, for instance, could use newfound knowledge about space to write about all sorts of stories that take place in it. (I, for one, know that I'm going to either have to figure out how the Shava Starship is able to travel through space so quickly or make it so it's not as fast and a lot of time passes during trips between worlds...) Well, either way, if you're curious, then look into things - if not, don't bother I guess ^^; But still, you might find inspiration in the things you never expected to- like, for instance, reason to place characters on worlds that aren't Earth, and are very far away - and maybe haven't even HEARD about Earth! So you never know what looking into something that makes you curious can produce. After all, a lesson in Chemistry gave me inspiration for a certain aspect of my comic...
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