Towers of effulgent jack-o-lanterns line the picturesque streets of Keene, New Hampshire, with more pumpkins aglow than there are inhabitants of the small town.
On our last day we took a scenic route through the old city. The lights, buildings, and river were truly spectacular. What great way to wrap up our trip.
All night, every time you breathe out, carbon atoms take off into the night air. Each carbon atom weighs a tiny fraction of a gram. But every breath expels roughly ten billion trillion atoms, so you wake up a pound lighter.
All night, every time you breathe out, carbon atoms take off into the night air. Each carbon atom weighs a tiny fraction of a gram. But every breath expels roughly ten billion trillion atoms, so you wake up a pound lighter.
However, really distant, and therefore older, galaxies recede from us so rapidly that much of their light is transformed - by an effect known as the Doppler shift - into microwave radiation.
Another way to gather information would be to transport a vessel to and from the planet. The technology exists to do this, but at 20 light years from the Earth, it would take 200 years for astronomers to receive the result.
The next step in finding out the chances of life on the planet would be to measure its light spectrum, a process that would reveal molecular oxygen if it exists. The glare from Gliese 581 makes this impossible, however.
In the movie Skyline, strange lights descend on Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to a flame. An extra-terrestrial force threatens to swallow the entire human population off the face of the earth.
Astronomer David Field of the University of Aarhus says, "The fainter the galaxy, the more distant it is. And given that light travels at a finite speed, faint galaxies are also the oldest."