Pemenang Kehidupan

Suatu hari, dua orang sahabat menghampiri sebuah lapak untuk membeli buku dan majalah. Penjualnya ternyata melayani dengan buruk. Mukanya pun cemberut. Orang pertama jelas jengkel menerima layanan seperti itu. Yang mengherankan, orang kedua tetap enjoy, bahkan bersikap sopan kepada penjual itu. Lantas orang pertama itu bertanya kepada sahabatnya, “Hei. Kenapa kamu bersikap sopan kepada penjual yang menyebalkan itu?”

Sahabatnya menjawab, “Lho, kenapa aku harus mengizinkan dia menentukan caraku dalam bertindak? Kitalah sang penentu atas kehidupan kita, bukan orang lain.”

“Tapi dia melayani kita dengan buruk sekali,” bantah orang pertama. Ia masih merasa jengkel.

“Ya, itu masalah dia. Dia mau bad mood, tidak sopan, melayani dengan buruk, dan lainnya, toh itu enggak ada kaitannya dengan kita. Kalau kita sampai terpengaruh, berarti kita membiarkan dia mengatur dan mempengaruhi hidup kita. Padahal kitalah yang bertanggung jawab atas diri sendiri.”

Sahabat, Tindakan kita kerap dipengaruhi oleh tindakan orang lain kepada kita. Kalau mereka melakukan hal yang buruk, kita akan membalasnya dengan hal yang lebih buruk lagi. Kalau mereka tidak sopan, kita akan lebih tidak sopan lagi. Kalau orang lain pelit terhadap kita, kita yang semula pemurah tiba-tiba jadi sedemikian pelit kalau harus berurusan dengan orang itu.

“Pemenang kehidupan” adalah orang yang tetap sejuk di tempat yang panas, yang tetap manis di tempat yang sangat pahit, yang tetap merasa kecil meskipun telah menjadi besar, serta tetap tenang di tengah badai yang paling hebat.

10 Fakta Unik

1.Ikan hiu kehilangan gigi lebih dari 6000 buah setiap tahun, dan gigi barunya tumbuh dalam waktu 24 jam

2.Semut dapat mengangkat beban 50 kali tubuhnya

3.Lidah jerapah panjangnya sekitar 50 cm

4.Mulut menghasilkan 1 liter ludah setiap hari

5.Kita bernafas kira-kira 23.000 kali setiap hari

6.Seseorang masih akan sadar selama 8 detik setelah dipenggal

7.Tiap tahun bulan menjauh 3.82 cm dari bumi

8.Gajah satu-satunya hewan yang tidak bisa meloncat

9.Satu dari 9000 orang menderita albino

10.Kupu-kupu melihat dengan 12000 mata

Top 10 Biggest Things In The Universe

1. The Cosmic Web

Most astronomers agree that the biggest thing in the universe is the cosmic web. It’s an endless scaffolding of galaxy clusters surrounded by dark matter and resembles a three dimensional spiderweb. Clusters of galaxies and dark matter make up “hubs” and filaments of galaxies connect these hubs producing a web like appearance. (see side picture)

How big is the web? If the Milky Way galaxy was a poppy seed, then the cosmic web of the observable universe would be the size of the Rose Bowl stadium

2. The Huge-LQG

Discovered in January of 2013, the Huge-LGQ (Huge Large Quasar Group) is said to be the largest structure in the universe.The Huge-LQG is a collection of 73 confirmed quasars (a quasar is a very energetic galaxy). Astronomers discovered that the group of gravitationally bound quasars is so large that it would takeover 4 billion years to traverse from end to end – while traveling at light speed.

It’s so big, that its very existence puts it at odds with Einstein’s Cosmological Principle. The cosmological principle says that, when looking at the universe from a large enough scale, it should look the exact same no matter where you are observing from, or where you look. The Huge-LGQ throws a wrench into that assumption. Researchers are understandably fascinated by the discovery and are eager to continue their investigations.

3. Shapley Super Cluster

The Shapley supercluster is a collection of galaxies some 400+ million light years long. Our own Milky Way galaxy is roughly 4,000 times smaller. The supercluster is so big, that our fastest spacecraft would spend trillions of years trying to cross it.

It is the most massive gravitationally bound object that we currently know of. Being gravitationally bound means that as the universe continues to expand, the gravity between the galaxies in this cluster are strong enough overcome that expansion, keeping them together forever.

4. The Boötes Void

Galaxies usually reside in clusters. Even our own Milky Way does. These clusters are lightly gravitationally bound and expanding along with space/time itself in groups.

But what about the areas where they don’t reside? Enter the Boötes Void. This region of ‘nothingness’ is a whopping 250 million light years across. That’s 2,500 milky way galaxies placed side by side. Voids are like holes in our universe, and the Boötes Void is the largest.

5. Lyman Alpha Blobs

These blobs are a very short lived phase of the birth of galaxy clusters. They are amorphous objects filled with gas that haven’t fully coalesced and are not bound or set gravitationally yet. As these blobs age, they will condense and eventually form giant collections of galaxies.

Lyman Alpha blobs resemble amoebas or jellyfish in shape. The largest one that we have spotted is 200 million light years wide and is located in the constellation Aquarius.

6. Radio Lobes

Radio lobes are powered by the accretion disk of supermassive black holes. These supermassive black holes can be found at the center of most galaxies. As material gets consumed by a black hole, some energy and matter is flung away at high speeds which occur at the poles of black holes.

These emissions are in the form of radio energy jets which can be seen with a radio telescope. The largest is located in the galaxy is 3C236 which is located in the constellation Leo Minor. Its jets span 40 million light years across. The jets from end to end are by far larger than any galaxy.

7. Largest Galaxy

A super galaxy is a galaxy that has merged with many others and they sit in the middle of galaxy clusters. The largest that we’ve discovered so far is the IC1101 super galaxy. It is 6 million light years across. Compare that to the Milky Way which is a mere 100 thousand light years across. IC1101 is a staggering 60 times larger than our own.

8. Largest Black Hole

Black holes are not physically large regions of space. But when you include their mass, they are among the top competitors for the largest things in the universe. And quasar OJ287 is the largest black hole we’ve spotted.It’s estimated to be 18 billion times the mass of our sun and is a supermassive black hole located in the center of a galaxy. To put that in perspective, it’s an object larger than our entire solar system. Just how big can a black hole get? According to scientists, there is no theoretical upper limit.

Update: 11/28/2012 – Science never fails to keep impressing us with its newest discoveries. Researchers at the University of Texas, using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, have discovered what they claim to be the largest supermassive black hole yet. The black hole, a whopping *17 billion solar masses*, resides at the center of galaxy NGC 1277. That is so huge, it accounts for 14% of the entire galaxy’s mass. The event horizon is 11x the diameter of Neptune’s orbit around our sun – that’s a radius of over 300 AU.

9. Largest Star

VY Canis Majoris is the largest star (in diameter) that we know of. It’s in a class of star known as Red Hyper Giants. It’s 1,420 times the sun’s radius and would take the world’s fastest race car 2,600 years to circle it once. If you replaced our Sun with VY Canis Majoris, its surface would extend out beyond Saturn. (see picture to the right for comparison to our own sun).

Update: In 2012, NML Cygni was verified as the largest known star. It’s a whopping 1,650 times our sun’s radius. That is so large; it would take a beam of light 6 hours and 40 minutes to circle it once.

10. Largest Planet

Located in the constellation Hercules, planet TRES4 is 70% larger than Jupiter in diameter, but has only 80% of Jupiter’s mass. Because of how close it orbits to its sun, it is thought that the intense heat expand the gasses that make up this planet, resulting in an almost ‘marshmallow-like’ density. It holds the title of the largest planet we’ve discovered so far.

Update: Science is never finished. Since this list was compiled, observations of an exoplanet called WASP-17b suggest that it is even bigger than TRES4. Despite its radius being twice that of Jupiter’s, it only has half the mass. This makes it even “fluffier” than TRES4.

11. Largest Asteroid

Ceres is the largest asteroid we’ve discovered so far. It contains 1/3rd the mass of the entire asteroid belt and is almost 600 miles in diameter. It’s about the size of California and is massive enough that its own gravity forces it into a spherical shape. It’s so large that it also has earned the title of ‘Dwarf Planet’. It’s the only object in the asteroid belt big enough to earn the designation.

Asteroid and Comets

Though too small to earn the distinction of planet, asteroids and comets strike huge fear in the human mind. And for good reason: at some point in the future, one of the chunky rocks or icy mud balls will slam into Earth and alter the course of history. Such an impact 65 million years ago is widely believed to have killed off the dinosaurs.

Asteroids and comets are considered remnants from the giant cloud of gas and dust that condensed to create the sun, planets, and moons some 4.5 billion years ago. Today, most asteroids orbit the sun in a tightly packed belt located between Mars and Jupiter. Comets are relegated to either a cloud or belt on the solar system fringe. Gravitational tugs, orbital collisions, and interstellar jostles occasionally perturb an asteroid or comet onto a wayward path.

The distinction between asteroids and comets is fuzzy—comets tend to have more chemical compounds that vaporize when heated, such as water, and more elliptical (egg-shaped) orbits than asteroids do. And when observed through a telescope, comets appear fuzzier.

Asteroid Belt

Asteroids are essentially chunks of rock that measure in size from a few feet to several miles in diameter. (Small asteroids are called meteoroids.) The largest asteroid, Ceres, is about 590 miles (950 kilometers) wide. Like most asteroids, it lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Many astronomers believe the belt is primordial material that never glommed into a planet because of Jupiter's gravitational pull. Other astronomers say the belt is a planet that was broken apart during a collision.

Comets are balls of rock and ice that grow tails as they approach the sun in the course of their highly elliptical orbits. As comets heat up, gas and dust are expelled and trail behind them. The sun illuminates this trail, causing it to glow. The glowing trails are visible in the night sky.

While there are perhaps trillions of comets ringing the outer fringes of the solar system, bright comets appear in Earth's visible night sky about once per decade. Short-period comets such as Halley's were perturbed from the so-called Kuiper belt out beyond the orbit of Neptune and pass through the inner solar system once or twice in a human lifetime. Long-period comets come from the Oort Cloud, which rings the outer reaches of the solar system, and pass near the sun once every hundreds or thousands of years.

Occasional collisions and gravitational tugs send asteroids and comets careering toward the sun on highly elliptical orbits, some close enough to Earth to pose a risk of impact. Astronomers are constantly on the lookout for bodies on such a catastrophic trajectory. Most asteroids, fortunately, are too small to cause any damage. Instead they burn up in the atmosphere and appear to us as a shooting star.