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The Universe

The universe is a kind of very spacious attic that contains almost everything that we can see, hear and touch. There are only a few special exemptions from the universe, awarded to things that like to operate outside the normal boundaries of space and time. These include the Loch Ness monster, the Abominable Snowman, and socks.

Obligatory Mind-Boggling Opening Remarks

The universe is far too large to comprehend, at least not without a deft analogy.

Imagine that your big toe is the size of the planet Earth. Now imagine that the rest of you is scaled-up proportionately, otherwise you would look a bit silly.

You decide to order a trowel to tidy up your back garden, but unfortunately the mail order company makes trowels that are 10,000 times too big for you. They have also misjudged the demand for their trowels, and now their warehouse contains an unsold trowel for every human that has ever lived.

But that's not all. Outside the warehouse there is a statue of the Unknown Gardener, one of the many millions who died in the gamma quadrant's Gardening Wars. The statue stands one million times taller than the warehouse.

But the statue is merely a pawn on an interstellar chessboard made up of 3.2 billion squares. And the chessboard is just one of many intricately carved chessboards lying at the back of a dusty market stall so huge that even a Tesco Extra looks puny in comparison. Thousands of these market stalls gather along the route to the nearby tourist trap, which itself is just one item on the itinerary for an endless line of intergalactic holiday coaches.

Still with us? Now consider this: the universe is large enough to contain a gazillion squillion zillion of these intergalactic coach tours. And not one of the hotels they stop at will look like it did in the brochure.

The Birth of the Universe

The universe celebrates its birthday on 21 October each year with a spectacular reception at the Crab Nebula Hilton. Unfortunately, the head chef is never quite sure how many candles should be put on the cake.

Our only knowledge of the age of the universe comes from the bits of light, called photons, that have been around since the beginning, and they are not always forthcoming.

Dave the Photon: How old is the universe? That's a tricky question. Maybe 8 billion, 11 billion years?

Moonbeam the Photon: Whoa! You're freaking me out, man! You've made my beanbag older than the universe. I swear I've been tripping for 13.7 billion years. It was all a bit hazy back then though.

Dave the Photon: It's like everyone says: if you can remember the first 10^-33 seconds of existence, you weren't there.

Moonbeam the Photon: Right on, brother.

The origin of the universe is also uncertain. The balance of evidence we have today suggests that it was either found in a cabbage patch or delivered by stork.

Fortified by cabbages and/or stork meat, the universe began a period of rapid inflation, which ended when the single unifying force of nature split into the four fundamental forces: stickiness, slippiness, laziness, and electrojiggerypokery. This was followed by a period of general confusion which continues to this day.

The Sky at Night

The universe prefers not to appear during the day, as it would have to listen to the Earth whinge on and on about how badly it's being treated by humanity. Only at night, with the planet looking the other way, is it safe for the universe to put on the sparkles and paint the sky twinkly.

The most conspicuous features of the night sky are cloud cover and the dull reflected glow of street lights. But if you are lucky enough to live on top of a mountain in Hawaii, you may also see some stars.

Stars look like tiny dots of light, but don't be fooled. They really are tiny dots of light. This is one of the few victories for common sense in science. The Tiny Dots of Light Theory was first proposed by a man down the pub in 1904, and now has over a century of shrugging acceptance behind it.

The theory will be further tested with the launch next year of NASA's Dotprobe B, which is expected to crash into the canvas backdrop of stars fifteen years later.

There are many other interesting objects in the night sky that we won't bother to mention because they all look like tiny dots of light. The only exceptions are black holes and mind-control satellites, which are both completely invisible.

So why do we bother to spend so much time classifying, organising and analysing the night sky? The answer, of course, is to help astrologers, who need accurate charts to predict the future.

For convenience astrologers group the stars into constellations. The map below shows some of the constellations that can be seen at northern latitudes:

Are We Alone?

We all know what aliens look like. That is, just like humans, but with an unconvincing prosthetic applied to some part of the head. This is known as convergent evolution.

But what we really want to know is how many aliens are out there waiting for us to invent the warp drive. This problem is addressed by the fascinating Drake equation:

Number of alien civilisations in the universe = ?

Some people believe that aliens have already visited Earth. We will simply present the evidence and let you make your own mind up.

• Vague glimpses of flashing lights
• Blurry pictures of blobs
• Crop circles
• Abducted rednecks
• Abducted Elvis
• The Bermuda Triangle
• The Bermuda Shorts
• Doctor Who
• The X-Files
• I'm An Alien ... Get Me Out Of Here!
• David Bowie said so