space

A reminder that outer space is very cool and weird

This is in Phil Plait’s newsletter today, and it’s too beautiful and weird not to share. You can view it on the original site with full text here: Spying a spiral through a cosmic lens

This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring. 

Check out Phil Plait’s newsletter here: Bad Astronomy

The universe is big

I was reading Phil Plait’s newsletter today (I highly recommend it if you’re a science/space nerd) and he happened to mention the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s about 100,000 light years across.

And I know the universe is big. We all know that. But think about this: Our own galaxy, which is just one of anywhere from 100 to 200 billion estimated galaxies, would take 100,000 years to cross end to end, and only if you were travelling at the speed of light, which we can’t do.

That is very big.

It makes you wonder how weird the universe can get, because it is so vast we will never see most of it.

This concludes my cosmic deep thought for the day.

The LEDA 1313424 galaxy

Mars!

I read Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy newsletter and you should, too! Because science is fun and outer space is neat.

Today’s edition (linked above) includes a shot of Mars taken from the Mars Express explorer, which launched in 2003 and is still working and sending back shots like this one.

I like it so much I’ve made it my desktop wallpaper and am finding excuses to close windows, so I can see it. I love the clarity and the two standout details–the cute little moon of Phobos and the gigantic Olympus Mons volcano, which is about twice as high as Mt. Everest and around 600 km wide.

As I said, space is neat.

Here’s a 2K version. The newsletter has links to versions that go all the way up to 6K.

Click to embiggen, because you will want to embiggen this.

One system, seven rocky exoplanets and the possibility of life beyond Earth

Yesterday NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-size planets in orbit around a small star some 40 light years away. All seven planets could potentially have water and three of these are in the habitable zone.

This is very neat.

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

The planets are very close to each other and to the sun (all are closer than Mercury is to our sun), which in this case is not an issue because the sun is an ultracool dwarf. This is the closest group of planets we’ve found that could potentially support life.

The idea of life existing beyond Earth gives me hope. I’d like to think that others out there have done better than we have here.

And that they’ll be nice to us.

This poster illustrating the relative size and positions of the planets and sun is also neat: