College Admissions Essay: The Science Of Our Universe

I have always been captivated by astronomy. Our universe is vast and contains infinite interesting phenomena, and certainly, this piques my interest. As a child, I frequently traveled to the sparsely populated Texas Hill Country with my telescope and gazed up at the colossal, inky night sky filled with glittering stars, wondering and imagining what was out there, thousands of light years away. Even with limited technology, scientists have discovered fascinating celestial bodies and phenomena that have fueled my passion over the years. Neptune, a planet in our immediate corner of the universe, has diamond rain on its surface. The Kepler mission has discovered a planet that orbits two suns and one that could have lava oceans on its surface. Even

Because our spaceflight capabilities are so primitive, even the top scientists on the planet know little about the universe.There could be life on other planets and it might be nothing like life as we know it; maybe aliens aren't carbon-based. Or maybe there are alien species who look almost exactly like us, or another planet sustaining an Earth-like society. Our scant knowledge of the universe leads to numerous interesting theories, about both life in our universe, and the realm outside it. Scientists generally agree that Mars, with its ice and ancient river beds, and Trappist-1, with its multitude of “Goldilocks” planets, have the possibility of sustaining life. Additionally, scientists studying Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, have theorized that both could contain life in the dark oceans under their surfaces. There are also some more far-fetched theories but fascinating theories. One says that black holes, instead of ripping someone apart at an atomic level, as widely thought, could be portals to parallel universes. While that seems unlikely, scientists don't know enough to prove this theory or others like it