What the night sky will look like in five million years

ESA’s Gaia mission's scientists created this simulated animation of how the Milky Way will evolve over the next 5 million years.

Via Kottke.org:

"Stars in the Galactic Plane move quite slow and faster ones appear over the entire frame. This is a perspective effect: most of the stars we see in the plane are much farther from us, and thus seem to be moving slower than the nearby stars, which are visible across the entire sky."

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The New Earth: Let the carbonizing begin

It has the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most compelling evidence (so far) that life might be out there (that is if you don't believe in our Grey visitors). A huge red sun rises in the sky. . .ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and there may be things crawling, walking, and wiggling around.

This may be the scene on what is possibly the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System. The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. It is the first exoplanet (a planet orbiting a star other than our own Sun) that is anything like our Earth.

Read more in the complete Daily Mail story here.
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