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Your Age On Other Worlds Want to melt those years away? Travel to an outer planet! <div class="js-required"><hr> This Page requires a Javascript capable browser <hr></div> Ghostly gamma-ray beams blast from Milky Way's center (Phys.org) -- As galaxies go, our Milky Way is pretty quiet. Active galaxies have cores that glow brightly, powered by supermassive black holes swallowing material, and often spit twin jets in opposite directions. In contrast, the Milky Way's center shows little activity. Planet Hunting, Down to Earth Credit: European Southern Observatory Two teams of researchers are now competing to develop a device that could profoundly change our understanding of the universe…but you’d be forgiven if you mistook it for a vaguely menacing hair-restoration product. Called a “laser frequency comb,” these are special laser systems that rapidly emit pulses of light across a wide range of frequencies or colors. In a plot of the emitted light, each distinct frequency appears as a peak; collectively, all the frequencies resemble a fine-toothed comb. And by examining starlight through the teeth of a laser comb, astronomers could begin finding Earth-like extrasolar planets on the cheap using ground-based observatories rather than expensive space telescopes.
Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe. (Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P.
The Elegant Universe: Pt 1 The Elegant Universe: Part 3 PBS Airdate: November 4, 2003 NARRATOR: Now, on NOVA, take a thrill ride into a world stranger than science fiction, where you play the game by breaking some rules, where a new view of the universe pushes you beyond the limits of your wildest imagination. Glowing Nebula's Clouds Look Like Giant Human Face in New Photo The wispy clouds of a distant nebula bursting with newborn stars take on an eerie face-like shape sculpted by stellar winds in a new photo snapped by a telescope in Chile. The hotbed of star birth, called NGC 3324, is full of hot young stars, whose ultraviolet radiation is making the gas clouds glow. The stellar wind and radiation from the newborn stars has also punched out a cavity in the surrounding gas and dust.
Stellarium Astronomers estimate 100 billion habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, 50 sextillion in the universe Astronomers at the University of Auckland claim that there are actually around 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way — significantly more than the previous estimate of around 17 billion. There are roughly 500 billion galaxies in the universe, meaning there is somewhere in the region of 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5×1022) habitable planets. I’ll leave you to do the math on whether one of those 50 sextillion planets has the right conditions for nurturing alien life or not.