PIX4573798: Exoplanete of inhabited terrestrial type - Artist's view - Extrasolar intelligence revealed - Artist's view of an extrasolar planet housing an alien civilization whose artificial lights reveal its presence. This image suggests how an extraterrestrial civilization on an earth - like planet might reveal itself via artificial light sources, in this case brightly lit cities that follow the contours of the ocean coasts. Perhaps some day there will be a telescope powerful enough to resolve such evidence for extrasolar intelligence / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573892: Exoplanete GJ 1214 b - Exoplanet GJ 1214 b - Illustration showing the transit of the extrasolar planet GJ 1214 b in front of its star, the red dwarf GJ 1214, in the constellation Ophiuchus. GJ 1214 b is a super Earth, six times the mass of the Earth, which has an atmosphere but is too inhospitable to shelter life as we know it. This artist's impression shows how the super - Earth surrounding the nearby star GJ1214 may look. Discovered by the Mearth project and investigated further by the HARPS spectrograph on ESO's 3.6 - metre telescope at La Silla, GJ1214b is the second super - Earth exoplanet for which astronomers have determined the mass and radius, giving vital clues about its structure. It is also the first super - Earth around which an atmosphere has been found. The exoplanet, orbiting a small star only 40 light - years away from us, thus opens dramatic new perspectives in the quest for habitable worlds. The planet, GJ1214b, has a mass about six times that of Earth and its interior is likely mostly made of water ice. It appears to be rather hot and surrounded by a thick atmosphere, which makes it inhospitable for life as we know it on Earth / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573989: Exoplanete HD 85512b - The rocky super - Earth HD 85512 b - HD 85512 b is an exoplanet orbiting around the star HD 85512, located about 36 years ago - light from Earth in the constellation of Sails. It is one of the smallest exoplanets in habitable areas discovered to date; this super Earth was detected with the help of the HARPS program at the La Silla Observatory in Chile in August 2011. This artist's impression shows the planet orbiting the Sun - like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). This planet is one of sixteen super - Earths discovered by the HARPS instrument on the 3.6 - metre telescope at Eso's La Silla Observatory. This planet, HD 85512b, is about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth and lies at the edge of the habitable zone around the star, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist / Bridgeman Images
PIX4574053: Exoplanet kepler 22b - Illustration - Kepler - 22b is an exoplanet orbiting Kepler - 22, a star of spectral type G5, similar to the Sun, located about 620 years - light (190 pc) from the Solar System in the constellation of Swan. This is the first planet discovered by the Kepler space telescope in the habitable area of a yellow dwarf in December 2011. This artist's design illustrates Kepler - 22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun - like star. It is the first planet that Nasa's Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star's habitable zone - - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth, making it the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun. Scientists do not yet know if the planet has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. It's possible that the world would have clouds in its atmosphere, as depicted here in the artist's interpretation / Bridgeman Images
PIX4572996: Hertzsprung - Russell - The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram - HR diagram (Hertzsprung - Russell) displaying stars according to their surface temperature and luminosite. The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram is named after the Danish astronomer Einar Hertzsprung (1873 - 1967) and the American astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877 - 1957). At the beginning of the 20th century they independently noticed that red stars come in very different sizes, pioneering subsequent studies of stellar parameters (e.g., temperature, size and mass). In its basic version, this diagram plots stellar temperature (or colour) against brightness (or magnitude) and is therefore also referred to as the “” colour - magnitude diagram””. The position of a particular star in the diagram also provides information about its evolutionary stage (and age) / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573012: Hertzsprung - Russell - The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram - Hertzsprung - Russell (HR) diagram displaying stars according to their surface temperature and luminosite. The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram is named after the Danish astronomer Einar Hertzsprung (1873 - 1967) and the American astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877 - 1957). At the beginning of the 20th century they independently noticed that red stars come in very different sizes, pioneering subsequent studies of stellar parameters (e.g., temperature, size and mass). In its basic version, this diagram plots stellar temperature (or colour) against brightness (or magnitude) and is therefore also referred to as the “” colour - magnitude diagram””. The position of a particular star in the diagram also provides information about its evolutionary stage (and age) / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573031: The evolution of stars - Illustration - The evolution of the stars - Illustration - All stars are born in interstellar clouds but depending on their masses, they will follow different destinies. Stars are all born in interstellar clouds but according to their mass, they will follow different destinies / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573136: Planet around the star Fomalhaut - Planet orbiting star Fomalhaut - Artist's view of the extrasolar planet Fomalhaut b, a planet with a mass close to Jupiter, orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 years ago - light from Earth in the constellation of the Southern Fish. Located at a distance of about four times that separating Neptune from the Sun, Fomalhaut b makes a complete orbit around its star in 872 years. This illustration shows the discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its sun, Fomalhaut. This structure is a Saturn - like ring that astronomers say may encircle the planet. Fomalhaut also is surrounded by a ring of material. The edge of this vast disk is shown in the background as the curving cloud - like feature that appears to intersect the 200 - million year - old star. Fomalhaut b lies three billion kilometers inside the disk's inner edge. The planet completes an orbit around Fomalhaut every 872 years / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573193: Planetary system around the star HD 69830 - Planetary System Around HD 69830 - Artist's view of three planets orbiting around the star HD 69830. This planetary system is the first detects around a star similar to the Sun that contains several planets whose mass is less than that of Jupiter. It seems that this system also has an asteroid belt. Using the ultra - precise HARPS spectrograph on Eso's 3.6 - m telescope at La Silla (Chile), a team of European astronomers have discovered that a nearby star is host to three Neptune - mass planets. The innermost planet is most likely rocky, while the outermost is the first known Neptune - mass planet to reside in the habitable zone. This unique system is likely further enriched by an asteroid belt. This view portaits a point of view inside the asteroid belt, which is assumed here to lie between the two outermost planets / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573229: Exoplanetes glacees - Three worlds of ice and snow - Artist's view of extrasolar planets composed of ice. Far beyond our own solar system there are a likely billions of other planets orbiting stars like and unlike our own sun. Our sun, our Earth and moon, our solar system, represent only one of an unimaginable number of possibilities / Bridgeman Images
PIX4573262: Exoplanete Tau Bootis b - Tau Booetes b - Artist's view of the extrasolar planet Tau Bootis b view of a hypothetical satellite. Tau Bootis b is located 50 years of light from Earth in the constellation Bovier. It is a gas exoplanet about four times the mass of Jupiter, located very close to its star. The extrasolar planet Tau Booetes b reigns over the airless, baked and battered terrain of a hypothetical moon. Tau Booetes b orbits very close to Tau Booetes, a type F7V star about 50 light years from the Earth. Tau Booetes b is believed to have about four times the mass of the planet Jupiter and orbits around its sun at the astonishing pace of once every 3.3 days. Tau Booetes b is so close to its host sun that the force of the solar wind may be enough to constantly blow off the planet's outer atmosphere / Bridgeman Images
PIX4576140: Moon: crateres Theophile, Cyril and Catherine - Moon: craters Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina - From top to bottom the crateres Theophile, Cyril and Catherine. On the right, the Nectar Sea. Image obtained on October 1, 2007, 2 days before the last quarter of the Moon. From top to bottom are craters Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina. Right is Mare Nectaris. Image taken on october 1st 2007, two days before the last quarter of the moon / Bridgeman Images