As scientists and astronomers peer closer at nearby stars with ever more fidelity they are discovering planets; exo planets, worlds outside our own solar system. With technological advances and improved techniques scientists are discovering more and more worlds every day. With confidence scientists now calculated there could be as many as 40 billion Earth like planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
With the recent launch of the first privately owned space craft to service the international space station; it’s time to take a fresh look at The New frontiers of space. The sky above is littered with stars and countless galaxies. The next stage of our journey is with robotics, advanced technologies and sheer daring we are now going where before we only dreamt.
The Moon, our closest celestial companion. Our indispensible dance partner through the cosmos. Lighting our night sky and gently tugging at our shores. Few have walked on her surface, though her allure remains strong, once again we are glancing her way with reThe Newed interest and with a view to return very soon.
They orbit between us and our Star, the inner worlds; hidden within the sun's glare often only visible at sunrise or sunset. Venus the first and brightest star in the evening sky, and Mercury fleeting across the solar disk. They are half of our solar system's terrestrial planets and yet as we look at our companions they are posing more questions than answers.
It has fired our imaginations for millennia, Mars, the God of War and the source of Man's science fictional demise. We know the dry barren planet was once flowing with vast reservoirs of water, the sky thick and filled with clouds and the tantalizing possibility of life. It is the only other place in our solar system than Man might
From the beginnings of our Solar System four and half billion years ago there remains tantalizing clues to its evolution; remnent debris: asteroids and comets. They vary in size from grains of dust to mountain sides, footballs to planetoids. They were the building Now within our grasp these rocks of ice and dust are ready to give up their secrets.
Beyond the asteroid belt lay the ice giants, some can be seen with the naked eye, others only glimpsed once by a passing probe. We are again sending cameras to the edge of the solar system giving us The New insights into the evolution of our worlds.
These are the the Moon's of the gas giants. Each a unique and mysterious world of its own. Some have oceans of water, geysers of Sulphur or atmospheres of plastic. Some are just now being seen at the outer rim of our solar system, all are worthy of much more scrutiny.
It powers the machinery of nature; our weather, encourages and sustains life on land and at sea. When it sets in the West it reveals to us its many billions of sibling stars populating the night sky. We study our Sun closely, and like a Rosetta stone it can reveal the secrets of all the other stars above.
As scientists and astronomers peer closer at nearby stars with ever more fidelity they are discovering planets; exo planets, worlds outside our own solar system. With technological advances and improved techniques scientists are discovering more and more worlds every day. With confidence scientists now calculated there could be as many as 40 billion Earth like planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
The night sky is a time machine. The further we look out into the universe the further back in time we reach. What we see in the night sky is only a small percentage of the contents of the Universe, most is dark matter and dark energy we know it exists; however its nature eludes us for the moment.
