10 Amazing Facts About Life, Planets, Stars, and the Universe:

As we all know, the human race lives on a small blue dot, orbiting a yellow-orange star, in a galaxy that we call the Milky Way. This galaxy is some 100,000 light years across, and our closest neighbor (Andromeda) is about 2.5 million light-years away. And while we have been all over the surface of the Earth, we have never visited our sun, have yet to trek across the vast distances of our galaxy, and we still have quite a ways to go before we make it to Andromeda. In fact, we haven"t even finished exploring our own small planet. Ultimately, there is a lot that we don"t know about the cosmos, but what we do know is pretty awesome.

Check out 10 amazing facts at:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/10-amazing-facts-about-life-planets-stars-and-the-universe/

Image via NASA

What is a True Blue Planet Like? Apparently, Pain and Horribleness...

Anyone with a true fondness for space and astronomy will eventually stumble across Carl Sagan"s discussion of the Pale Blue Dot. This is a fond name that Sagan had for Earth which, given all of its water, looks a little blue. However, there is a true blue dot drifting out in the cosmos, and it"s not the Earth. It is HD 189733b, a cobalt-blue planet approximately 63 light-years from our solar system.

This planet reflects blue light a lot more than the Earth or the other planets in our solar system. So will we be able to make this planet into Earth 2.0? Not quite. In fact, saying that this planet is inhospitable is a bit like saying that the center of a volcano is inhospitable.

To discover just how deadly this planet is, see:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/what-is-a-true-blue-planet-like-apparently-pain-and-horribleness/

Image:
NASA