When stars run out of fusion fuel, they begin to collapse, blowing out their outer shells in a massive explosion. This creates planetary nebulas. At the center remains the star's core, which accounts for most of its mass. This core is about the size of Earth, but its mass is much greater. At the same time, the gravity at its surface is 350,000 times greater than that of Earth. Of course, a neutron star is as dense as […]
Rather than building a spacecraft to travel through interstellar space, it might be more practical to transport the sun itself. This way, we could transport everything we own, including our planet. Some researchers claim that if a very advanced civilization (you can access my article on civilization levels by clicking here) were performing such a process, we might have observed it, or could observe it. How could we transport a star before this?
Pictured here is Hercules A (originally 3C 348), an elliptical galaxy. What sets it apart is the radio waves it emits. This galaxy emits radio waves 1 million times more than our sun, making it the most prominent object in the Hercules constellation (when observed with radio waves, of course). The white area in the center of the image is the galaxy itself, and […]
Russian scientists say that colonizing asteroids for space exploration and research is more likely than mining them. With closed ecosystems, they could become spaceports. Reaching asteroids is easy because they can come so close to Earth. It might even be easier than reaching the Moon. There are 10,000 asteroids orbiting close to Earth, and the asteroid belt (located between Jupiter and Mars) […]
The galaxy NGC 4921 lies 320 million light-years away. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This spiral galaxy is classified as anemic. Because the galaxy's nebulae have diminished, resulting in very little star formation, it can also be considered a dead galaxy. Click here for a larger image.
NGC 7027 is the youngest and brightest known planetary nebula in our galaxy. Surprisingly, it's quite small. The nebula spans no more than 1.5 AU (astronomical units; the distance between Earth and the Sun, 149 million km). Most planetary nebulas are, on average, about one light-year across.
