In 1992, scientists discovered the first planets orbiting a star other than our Sun. The pulsar PSR B1257+12 was discovered to have its own planetary system, and since then, exoplanet discoveries have exploded!
"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books -a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."
-Albert Einstein
"Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change." -Alfred Lord Tennyson
Welcome back, for another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each Monday, we've been taking a look at one of the 110 Deep-Sky Objects that make up the Messier catalogue, a mix of clusters, nebulae, galaxies and more, all visible from most locations on Earth with even the most basic of astronomical equipment.
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." -Douglas Adams
Well, maybe "peanuts" isn't going to do. When you look out at the night sky, all sorts of objects are yours to discover, from our closest neighbors in the Solar System to the billions of stars in the Milky Way to the faint, extended and fuzzy galaxies stretching millions and billions of light years across the cosmos.
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