Telescope Limiting Magnitude = Visual Limiting Magnitude - 5*logd + 5*logD

, where d is the aperture of the human eye and D is the aperture of the telescope. So to give some examples, let’s consider a normal sky where the visual limit is around Mag 5.5 and you have a little 3-inch refractor telescope. We’ll use 3mm as the aperture of the human eye.

Telescope Limiting Magnitude = 5.5 - 5*log(0.003) + 5*log(0.07) = 12.3

So with a small refractor you can see down to a limit of about Mag 12. Pluto however is at Mag 13.8 so this would not suffice. Here is the maths for my own situation. Last night the sky was so dark I could make out Mag 7.0 stars, this is my visual limit and it is about right for very good observing conditions. The telescope I am using has a 9cm aperture.

Telescope Limiting Magnitude = 7.0 - 5*log(0.003) + 5*log(0.09) = 14.8

This puts Pluto into the realms of the feasible, which was great news since Pluto from my location is well above the horizon and unobscured by light pollution. Also, this week I have set myself the goal of observing all the planets, and Pluto - just for fun.

Pluto can currently be found in Sagittarius at the painfully dim magnitude of 13.8. Along with its sister body Charon and two satellites Nix and Hydra, it is a very cold, dark and far away place. Even the best images ever taken of Pluto reveal little more than a patchy ball of rock. I was unable to take a picture myself, far too dim, but Googling reveals a handful of amateurs have succeeded.

The image above is taken from Mauna Kea and the one below comes from an amateur named Bill Dirk.

If you want to try and see Pluto, I can now recommend a few things to help you along. Firstly, check that you have dark enough skies. This isn’t trivial, I have rarely had as good conditions as last night. Unless you have a very big telescope (more than 15cm) you’ll find Pluto is beyond your reach in anything other than exceptional skies.

Secondly, know where to look. Using the Meade with a good calibration means that getting into the general vicinity of Pluto is fairly easy. you need to know your stuff if you’re using a regular, manually guided telescope. Whatever happens, you need tracking, other wise the objects you find will vanish before you can see them at all.

Thirdly, get a good map of the planet’s location and memorize the patterns of stars around it. Once you’re looking at a star-field in the eyepiece, it will look the same as every other star field, unless you know what you’re after. Most planetarium software will give you this, the trick is figuring out the field of view you will be looking at through the eyepiece. I recommend using the 12DString FOV Calculator.

Finally, have patience. This will take time and several attempts. Even if you do find it, if you’re like me you’ll feel the need to verify everything twice anyway. But I think it was worth it!

Having finally seen Pluto I am now compelled to complete my planetary observation collection. All of the planets are visible during the night at some point from my current spot. I will not be here much longer so I need to get out and see them all. I have never yet seen Neptune or Uranus and I have only seen Mercury twice.

I’ll report back later in the week.

You can also buy a similar design on a t-shirt from the Orbiting Frog Shop. Available in sizes for women, men and kids in many colours. Prices start at $18 (£9) for kids and $20 (£10) for adults, international delivery available. There is the design you see above and also a black and white, vertical option.

With thanks to Jason, here is an awesome page about atmospheric effects on Mars, including this great dust devils animation. Mars has a rich atmosphere and this is the first planet for which we are really starting to understand the climate.

I can see why everyone loves Mars these days. Planets are just cool. Poor old Pluto…

Martian Skies - The Big Picture - Boston.com

August 1st 2008 will see a solar eclipse visible across much of Asia, Europe, the Middle East and some portions of North America. Maximum totality is seen in Siberia, but you can also see the Moon totally obscure the Sun in many parts of China (and the North Pole if you’re about). The eclipse is often being called the 2008 Olympic Eclipse because it comes just days before the commencement of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

In other parts of the Old World, a partial eclipse will be seen. The regions covered by partial eclipse are seen in the above diagram outlined in light blue, with totality in dark blue. If you want to know the details of what can be seen in your area, then I’d use the very handy Google Map provided by NASA.

This map allows you to double-click anywhere and find the start, maximum and end times for the eclipse that is visible in your locality. For example, in Cardiff the eclipse begins at 0930 (BST) and ends an hour and a half later.  You are also told the eclipse magnitude, which is basically a measure of how much of the Sun’s face, the Moon will cover. In Cardiff this will be around 21%.

Check out the site for info on your own area and if you plan to watch the eclipse, don’t forget to either project the Sun’s image onto a piece of paper, or order a set of eclipse viewing glasses.

The white stuff on Mars sublimated, meaning it can’t be salt and pretty much must be ice. Congrats to the Mars Phoenix team (and whoever picked their landing site). Surely this goes down as one of the best animated GIFs for many years.

These images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 18, 2008). 

These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days. In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation. 

Mars Phoenix Press Release.

From Wired, a nice, little, true story about some twelfth century monks and the crater they may have seen being formed.

June 18, 1178: English Monks Observe ‘Lunar’ Explosion

Universe Today is reporting what I have seen other sites reporting on over the past few days: a lack of sunspots. It seems there is “a small worry” that something untoward may be afoot with the current lack of magnetic activity on the Sun two years after Solar minimum.

Where are the Sunspots? Are we in for a Quiet Solar Cycle? | Universe Today

Urgh.

A Case of the Plutoids | Astronomy Blog

This HiRISE image shows a 10km crater on the northern polar plains of Mars, called Heimdal. This isn’t the point though. The bright spot highlighted is the Phoenix lander descending to the surface. This incredible picture was captured on May 25th by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The orbiter was 760 kilometers away from Phoenix when picture was taken.

This has to be one of the most incredible images taken in 2008. It says so much about what is going on in space exploration at the moment. If Phoenix finds what it is looking for, namely evidence of water ice and habitability, then this image will become truly iconic.

This image also came in just minutes after the event took place and spread virally throughout the internet within hours. The world is interested in what is happening on Mars. As a race, we seem to be captivated by our neighbouring planet. It seems to have taken control of our ambitions. Manned missions and more probes will cement this obsession in the coming decade(s).

To be able to image one craft from another proves that we have created reliable, durable methods for exploring other worlds. The longevity of NASA’s martian rovers and the new, larger version of this mission heading to Mars next year (Mars Science Laboratory) have created a tangible, real perspective on the planet. It no longer seems so alien. Of course it is when people set foot there that we will feel as if we are truly capable of great things again.

It may well be that what we are discovering on Mars is something we are in short supply of at the moment here on Earth: optimism for the future.

If, as my brother-in-law would say, you want to skip to the end: here are the pictures! First up is the first image sent back of the surface. It is black and white because that way they could send the image quickly and more easily in order to test out the lander. Phoenix has 14 colour filters and will be able to send full colour pictures later on.

Above we have a false colour image (UV and infrared filters) showing the hexagonal features of the ground in this arctic region. Below is a tall panorama showing the vast plains that are indicative of the geographical region on Mars, where Phoenix has landed.

There’s no point in me regurgitating a load of facts here; The Planetary Society has a great lowdown on the Phoenix lander and recent news regarding the mission.

I just wanted to mention that there is a great Twitter feed for the Phoenix mission which will keep you up to date if you’re that way inclined.

This is called retrograde motion and it confounded astronomer for centuries. Their confusion was due to their incorrect modelling of the solar system. If you have the Earth in the centre of everything, then the planets simply won’t move as they should all the time. There is an excellent, fuller description of retrograde motion, and its history, on the Science U website.

Yesterday’s APOD was of Mars undergoing retrograde motion. It is a lovely image, and one I shall be using to illustrate the concept next time I do a talk. Thanks to Tunc Tezel from Turkey for taking it and sharing with us all.

Comet Holmes was a very dim, and expected comet. Until October last year. During the period October 23rd to 24th 2007, it suddenly brightened. If you want to know more about why it suddenly became visible, I’d recommend reading Astroprof’s post on Integrated Magnitudes.

The comet was visible to the naked eye after that date, and on about the 26th of October it began to look more like a classic comet, with a tail and nucleus. Comets have a nucleus, a tail and a coma, or halo. The nucleus is the hard, chewy centre. This is rocky bit and really ‘is’ the comet, if you like. The tail and coma are produced when the object passes closer to the Sun and particles of ice and dust begin to sublimate. A cloud of material (the coma) appears to boil off the nucleus and becomes the glowing, cloudy ball that makes comets familiar to most people.

The tail is produced by interaction with the Sun. Particles from the coma and nucleus are blasted back from the comet by the Sun and so the tail always points away from the Sun.

Comet Holmes’ coma grew enormously in size and this became interesting later on in October. Late in the month, the coma had grown to be about half the width of the Moon on the sky. However it was lying about twice as far from the Earth as the Sun is (2 AU), so the true size was around 1 million km. That’s two-thirds the diameter of the Sun.

Here’s an animation from the Comet Holmes Wikipedia entry, showing the location of the comet and the size of the coma on different dates.

In November 2007 the coma became even larger and was in fact bigger than the Sun. However because of this, the coma has become so diffuse that it was hardly visible to the naked eye at all. Although much of the internet was talking about Comet Holmes being bigger than the Sun, most general news and media didn’t care because they couldn’t see it well enough to show the public a good picture.

The final part of Marycie’s question was asking where in the solar system the comet was located. Well I mentioned earlier that it was 2AU away from us. For the time it was visible, Comet Holmes sat just beyond the orbit of Mars. You see its location in this video I’ve made using the excellent Starry Night software.

This video covers the period October 2007 to April 2008. You’ll note that the Earth moves half an orbit during the video. Apologies for the low quality of YouTube.

There is an excellent composite photo of Comet Holmes over the course of the 2007-2008 outburst on the Wikipedia page covering the topic. This image is shown below.

read more | digg story

Hello and welcome to the 40th Carnival of Space! I thought I’d add a bit of javascript into my page for a change - it’s the HTML equivalent of a mid-life crisis for the Carnival which is now at its 40th gathering. Congrats to the Carnival and all those involved.

Now let’s get on with the material. There are some great oddities this week, including an anecdote regarding Willie Nelson. Batman is involved, too. This is my first time hosting the carnival, so I hope you all like it.

In case your browser won’t accept javascript, here are this weeks posts presented in the usual format.

Astroprof has two stories on Mercury: one on the Caloris Basin and one on weird terrain.

Cumbrian sky has a post about coming home.

APOD is featuring a great montage of Comet Holmes.

Chris Lintott talks about getting your bearings in a post from Hawaii.

Collectspace is featuring a lovely tale of what I’d call a spatial confluence of events.

Wanna know how to make a black hole? Starts with a bang is going to try and tell you. Or you can read about Batman.

Next Big Future has a post on SpaceX and the progess they are making toward Falcon 9.Link

Astropixie writes about some major NASA events that happened during this week over the years.

Visual Astronomy is thinking about Asteroid 2007 TU24. Have we learned anything?

Sorting Out Science is sorting out the history of Explorer 1.

Another Explorer posting from A Babe in the Universe.

A Mars Odyessy discusses a pretty advanced version of a gripper.

From Music of the Spheres, a post about a 4 percent chance…

Hobby Space has two posts both about Bieglow’s recent activities

Got 100 years to spare? Centauri Dreams has something you can do with your time.

Political Action for Space wants your help (if you’re American).

Orbiting Frog (me) has some lovely wallpapers to share with you all.

New Frontiers has some more on SpaceX and space fashion.

Read More about the Carnival and how to get involved at Universe Today.

…think to yourself: this is Mars. I’m staring through the eyes of a rover that was only supposed to survive three months, maybe six, possibly a little longer; yet it’s been four Earth years since Spirit landed, and it’s still ticking. That’s probably the number one lesson you can teach your friends from this silly little story: the image came down from Mars only two months ago. Both rovers are still up there, and they’re still working, still studying the surface of Mars for us after all this time.

Enjoy.

Images from The Sun.

It doesn’t get more impressive that this. People get into this field so they can be part of these kinds of photographs. What you see is the never-before-photographed side of the planet Mercury.

On the upper right is the giant Caloris basin, including its western portions never before seen by spacecraft. Formed by the impact of a large asteroid or comet, Caloris is one of the largest, and perhaps one of the youngest, basins in the Solar System.

When Mariner 10 visited the planet 30 years ago, part of it (slightly more than one half) was hidden from view and never pictured. Thus, since then all maps of Mercury, like the one below, have contained a mysterious, blurry hemisphere on one side. But no more!

The new image was taken using the Mercury Dual Imaging System’s (MDIS) wide field camera, and it shows features down to a size of 6 miles across. It was taken at a distance of 17,000 miles from the planet.

Other images yet to be released from this fly-by, will show the surface in colour and higher resolution.

Read the full press release here.

In his Principia Mathematica, Newton notes that the planets of the Solar System ought not to remain in their orbits indefinitely. He ascribes their apparent stability and endurance to an act of God, and uses that fact as evidence for the existence of God.

Laplace (another great mathematician of Western history), some hundred years later countered Newton’s argument. He showed that the evidence was actually quite the contrary and in fact the Solar System was stable after all. When asked what this meant about the existence of God, he replied, “I don’t need that hypothesis”.

In 1900, Poincare said that in fact Laplace was the one who was wrong! He argued that in any sufficiently complex, non-linear system, boundary conditions will experience such large-scale effects that the system cannot be stable. This is what is now known as Chaos Theory and it put the nail in the coffin for the idea that the Solar System could ever be considered stable.

Finally in the 1990s, computers became powerful enough that they could simulate the main bodies of the Solar System and answer the question more-or-less once and for all. And what did they find? Well Newton was right about one thing.

In fact, the Solar System is not stable. It sits on a fine line between stability and chaos and oscillates either side of that line on a timescale of roughly one Hubble Time. How does that affect you and me? Well it means that any time now, the Solar System could start to fall out of stability and chuck out a planet… or not.

Discussion after the talk lead me to believe that Mercury would be a best candidate for expulsion from the Solar System. Pluto might be more likely, but the simulations only include the planets, so I think we ought to make moves to get the Earth classified as a dwarf planet immediately.

You can download the 1803 publication Newton’s Principia Mathematica for free, from Google Books as a 17.0MB PDF file.

You can find a more mathematical version of this discussion here, if you like that sort of thing.

This will be the first visit to Mercury by any probe since 1975. More than 1,300 images of Mercury will taken during this encounter, so hopefully we can expect some great pictures to be released over the next couple of weeks.

If you want to read more about the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraf, then you can visit either the general NASA mission page or a more detailed page from the instrumentation team.

This mission is a very exciting one. Mercury remains one of the only planets to have not been fully mapped by probes (you may have seen the bald patch on many globes of the planet). There are a lot of people getting very excited today!

So here is a collection of my favourite images of the Comet as it now begins to fade. We’ll begin with Sky & Telescope’s excellent finder chart for locating the comet:

On October 25th the first images of Comet Holmes were taken and the internet was buzzing with news and pictures. One image that seemed to really get around was this one from Cloudbait Observatory in Colorado.

We then started to see the comet expanding and getting even brighter. It was now clearly visible and many noted that it was larger than Jupiter in the sky. This animation from the Observatoire du Cégep de Trois-Rivières shows the first few days as it changed and grew.

In early November the comet began to change, now forming a tail. This striking image from Don Goldman from Nov 3rd shows that it no longer looks spherical and can start to be discerned as a comet.

Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a wonderful image on November 5th of a very long exposure, colour Comet Holmes. It was takenin Spain by Vincent Peris. It appears the comet has a greenish hue and a faint tail that is more pronounce than first thought.

As the nights get darker and the preparation becomes more intense, photographers are able to get even better images of the now much more comet-like comet. VC Astro’s beautiful Nov 14th photo is a really lovely example.

Finally in this collection, Hubble has been turned to view the comet’s nucleus. With its powerful optics, Hubble has taken high resolution images of the central part of the comet.

They have also put together a video which shows you the scale of the comet on the sky and so iI’ll finish with that video and hope you’ve enjoyed this small collection of Comet Holmes snaps. If you want to downloada higher resolution version of this video do so here. The file is approx 11MB.

Aurora occur when high energy particles from the Sun interact with the atmosphere. Here on Earth they are called the Northern or Southern lights or Auroa Borealis/Australis.

Don’t believe everything you read in your emails and for the fifth time this week: “no its not true, sorry”.

read more | digg story

V838 Monoceroti Expansion (Hubble)

It wasn’t anything interesting until it happened but the star V838 Monoceroti, which had simply sat in obscurity, flared up in 2002 to become 600,000 more luminous than our own Sun. It didn’t take long for the star to fade back into the darkness but the Hubble Space Telescope managed to get quite a few pictures of it during its active phase. (Click for animated version)

In this series of images you can see how the star’s outer layers were first expelled and then cut away by the powerful radiation from the star. The event was made even more interesting by the fact that a ‘light echo‘ was seen. During the expansion the object appeared to expand faster than the speed of light - the effect was however merely an astronomical optical illusion.

The Egg Nebula (Hubble)

Also known as CRL2688, the Egg Nebula shows a pair of mysterious ’searchlights’ bursting out from a dense cocoon of dust surrounding a hidden, Sun-like star. We see the light escaping in the directions where the cocoon is thinner. Objects like CRL2688 are rare because they are in a phase of their evolution that is short-lived. Images like this one are very important to understanding how stars like our Sun will ultimately die.

The Sun in UV (SOHO)

The surface of the Sun is far more active than most people would think. This ultraviolet video taken by NASA’s SOHO spacecraft gives brilliant detail. It allows us to see one full revolution of the Sun on its axis, which normally takes about 25 days. In this video you can make out large flares erupting from the surface and the striking magnetic loops that seem to whirl about them as they go. (Full 512×512 MPEG Here)
Red Square Nebula Nebula (Hale/Keck)

Discovered in 2007, this ruby-like nebula may be the result of two interacting stars. If one star is dying then the material from it may be dragged into a disc around the orbits of both objects. Material can then only escape from the system along the poles of the disc, resulting in two cones leading out of the stars. When viewed from the edge these cones seem like two triangles. Here the system is seen in the infrared. Structures like this are rarely seen in nebula but there is in fact a Red Rectangle Nebula which is less symmetric but still quite interesting to look at.

Abell 39 (NOAO)

Here we see an almost perfect planetary nebula that sits about 7,000 light years away in the constellation Hercules. The dot at the centre is the original star, which - as it died - released the expanding gas shell also seen clearly here. The ghostly appearance of the shell is due to the blue-green filter used to take the image, which picks out the oxygen emitted light at 500.7nm.

Saturn’s Rings (Cassini)

This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006. Cassini was sheltered from the Sun’s glare by positioning itself behind Saturn. Ring structures are revealed here in detail as they brighten substantially at viewing angles where the Sun is almost directly behind the objects. These observations allowed Cassini to detected two new faint rings.

The Horsehead Nebula Swallowed Something (SCUBA)

Observers used the JCMT submillimetre telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take this image of the familiar Horsehead Nebula, who’s outline can be seen here. When observed at 850 microns, we are seeing the cold dust at temperatures close to absolute zero. This dust is deep inside the optical nebula normally seen, which is transparent at this wavelength. It seems from the image that the Horse has swallowed a ‘lozenge’ which is in fact a region of dense dust that may be collapsing under gravity. In fact this could be a star system in the making.

Gomez’s Hamburger (Hubble)

Arturo Gomez found this odd object in 1985 and it became known as Gomez’s Hamburger for obvious reasons. It is actually a proto-planetary nebula, an earlier version of Abell 39 perhaps. The curves of light (the bun) are reflecting light from the star which is being obscured by a thick band of dust (the burger). The whole thing is only only a fraction of a light year across and located 10,000 light years away in Sagittarius.

The Solar Spectrum (NOAO)

If you could catch a rainbow and put it under a microscope you would see that it was not a continuous blend of colours. Along the width of it would be seen, scattered irregularly, dark patches. Atoms and molecules in the Sun’s atmosphere pick out specific frequencies of light and absorb them, diminishing their intensity by comparison. This images shows the spectrum of light from the Sun stretched out to make these absorption lines visible. We use the reverse of the idea (emission lines) when we make coloured lights. For instance, we excite sodium atoms to emit a signature orange light in street lamps. In this image you can see two prominent dark bands in the yellow-orange section which are the absorption due to sodium.

Update to This Entry

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared (Spitzer)

By looking at things in different wavelengths we can see much more than meets the eye. This image is a perfect example. Just as with the Horsehead image above we are seeing cooler material. This time it is dust in the Sombrero galaxy. The red ring is a thick band of dust encircling the whole galaxy. In the optical, this dust ring is what gives the Sombrero its distinctive black, obscuring line.

Oddities in the Orion Nebula (Hubble)

Deep within high resolution images of the Orion Nebula taken by Hubble we can see dark blobs. When you take a closer look you can see that these are like little flattened blobs. Some show a dim, red glow at their centres, others are just dark. These are proto solar-systems.

The red glowing is a protostars attempting to burst through and the dark disks are thick dust regions where one day planets may form. 6 billion years ago, this is what our Solar System may have looked from very far away.

The reason I like talking about space is that I like to put across the idea that we are on a round, spinning planet which is orbiting our star, the Sun. I spoke about the solar system and the Milky Way and also a little on black holes. These were Year 9 children which means they were 13/14 years old. I thik on the whole they enjoyed it, and certainly there were a few kids here and there who I could tell were very into it all. So that was nice.

Today I spotted on digg.com/space that there is a great image taken of our little spinning rock, from another neighbouring one. This is just the kind of thing that I really like, because this picture, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2003, shows the Earth and Moon as well as Jupiter and its moons. Both of these planets would be very much visible from Mars. In fact the Earth must appear quite bright in the Martian sky, much as Venus does here. Click for a larger version - which is well worth doing.

So that you can orient yourself, this diagram shows the angle from which the image was taken and below it is a map showing the area of the Earth which was visible at the time of the photo, you can see that the fuzzy blobs visible were in fact the Americas.

From Bad Astronomy and Universe Today’s forums, via the Bad Astronomy blog.

Mars is back, and doing things it shouldn’t! Our warring friend started May in the constellation Aquarius, it then moved into Pisces on the 8th. For a really cool thing (if you’re utterly geeky like me) you should look up between the 24th and 29th when it cuts across the corner of Cetus, the constellation of the Whale. Since Cetus isn’t in the zodiac, this is nice sight and hopefully befuddles all those silly astrologers everywhere (It then goes back into Pisces again.)

The only problem you’ll have is that Mars is very low-down in the south-eastern dawn skiey. You also have only a 15 minute window of observation, from about 4.45am, before the sky is too bright anyway. Give it a go or just lie in bed and ‘know’ that Russell Grant is spitting tacks.

Also, Chris Lintott has a link to some lovely Mars images over on his blog.

Now the new research shows that there three planets, currently designated Gliese 581b, c and d (a is the star). The c planet is the Earth-like object. With a mass five time that of Earth and a diameter about 1.5 times. Using the fun AstroGrav software, which models masses such as solar systems as they interact via gravity, I made a mock up of the Gliese 581 system to help better visualise it using th data given in the paper.

So naturally the similarity in size and orbit, with the temperatures needed for liquid water (and thus life as we know it) has lead to much speculation on the news (bloody BBC Breakfast!) that this is our best best for life so far. Whilst this is true, it involves two large assumptions that are so far unfounded. There is no reason to think there is water on this planet. Not a single molecule of it necessarily exists and we will need to work very hard to detect it given its distance and that it sits in an (as far we know) three planet system.Secondly, we really don’t know anything about this little planet.

Yes, it is exciting that as our method improve we can find smaller and more Earth-like planets. However there is nothing to indicate that this planet looks anything like the Earth.Now don’t get me wrong, I am excited by this discovery. The indication, as I just said, that we might be able to pick out such tiny planets in the galaxy and relatively nearby is very exciting. This world has very strong gravity and a neighbour planet that flies through its sky every few days, possibly causing subtle eclipses and displaying rapidly changing phases like our Moon. Such an exotic world inspires the imagination and i hope that as we discover ever-more Earthy worlds we can see how our way of existing is just one of millions of possibilities in our galaxy alone.

So to conclude I shall change my tone. Yesterday we had news of the most Earth-like planet yet discovered. The cool thing though, is that we haven’t even begun our search for these terrestrial worlds really. The telescopes and techniques that are coming into use in the nest few years will completely bow away this amazing find. In about twenty or so year we might be lucky enough to even see a picture of one of these worlds. Maybe it will have continents and oceans like our own, maybe it will be more exotic than we had ever dreamed.

Maybe someone will be looking back.