Great Image: Mauna Kea

Photos do not get more magical than the one above. The combination of galaxy gazing and ongoing plate tectonics is pretty impressive as we consider other planets and moons in the same circumstances, with some in our own solar system.

Here is the full story from NASA:

What if you could stand at the top of a volcano and peer out across the universe? If the timing is right, you might see an amazing panorama like the one featured here. In this case, the volcano is the Hawaii's Mauna Kea, and the time was a clear night last summer In the foreground of this south-facing panorama lies a rugged landscape dotted with rocks and hardy plants. Slightly above and further out, a white blanket of clouds spreads horizontally to the horizon, seemingly dividing heaven and Earth. City lights illuminate the clouds and sky on the far left, while orange lava in the volcanic caldera of Kilauea lights up the clouds just left of center. The summit of an even more distant Hawaiian volcano, Mauna Loa, is visible in dark silhouette near the central horizon. Green airglow is visible above the clouds, caused by air molecules excited by the Sun during the day. The Moon is the bright orb on the right. A diffuse band of light-colored zodiacal light extends up from the far right. Most distant, the dramatic central band of our Milky Way Galaxy appears to rise vertically from Mauna Loa. The person who witnessed and captured this breathtaking panorama stands before you in the image center. 

Image Credit & Copyright: Shane Black Photography; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt.

Galaxy Quest Turns Up Empty

It seems the search of millions of galaxies has not produced any evidence of intelligent life.  Of course, the presumption was that an "advanced spacefaring civilization" would have colonized an entire galaxy and thereby provide some clues for us to detect.  NBC News reported that researchers at Penn State University reviewed data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite to determine if any of the galaxies shows signs of  such life.  And while they found about 50 galaxies they want to review in greater detail, it appears any spacefaring is probably on a smaller scale.  And who knows how many pre-spacefaring civilizations like our own are sitting on the sidelines at the moment.

Presuming galactic occupation seems like a tall order, yet a March 2013 paper by the Future of Humanity Institute in the UK discussed how our own civilization could expand into the Milky Way and other galaxies.  Here is the abstract in the paper titled "Eternity in Six Hours: Intergalactic Spreading of Intelligent Life and Sharpening the Fermi Paradox":

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the strong likelihood of alien intelligent life emerging (under a wide variety of assumptions) and the absence of any visible evidence for such emergence. In this paper, we extend the Fermi paradox to not only life in this galaxy, but to other galaxies as well. We do this by demonstrating that travelling between galaxies – indeed even launching a colonisation project for the entire reachable universe – is a relatively simple task for a star-spanning civilisation, requiring modest amounts of energy and resources. We start by demonstrating that humanity itself could likely accomplish such a colonisation project in the foreseeable future, should we want to. Given certain technological assumptions, such as improved automation, the task of constructing Dyson spheres, designing replicating probes, and launching them at distant galaxies, become quite feasible. We extensively analyse the dynamics of such a project, including issues of deceleration and collision with particles in space. Using similar methods, there are millions of galaxies that could have reached us by now. This results in a considerable sharpening of the Fermi paradox.

This is amazing conjecture, and it is the last part that stumped the Penn State University researchers; if we can envision such a future for ourselves, where are such civilizations from other parts of the universe or even within our own galaxy?  Plenty to ponder.

...and the End of the Universe

PBS has created a short video to discuss the life expectancy of the Earth and the universe itself.  The 5 and a half minute video is called The Far Future of the Universe and is part of PBS digitalstudios' It's okay to Be Smart series.  In the video, host Joe Hanson provides a number of useful mileposts for the future, including:

• In 100,000 years not a single constellation we know today will be recognizable;
• In 600 million years photosynthesis will end for 99 percent of the Earth's plants;
• In 1 billion years the sun will boil away the Earth's oceans and only bacteria will remain (see image above - the Earth looks like Mars);
• In 4 billion years the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Adromena galaxy;
• In 7.9 billion years our Sun will expand to swallow Mercury and Venus; and
• In 110 trillion years all stars throughout the universe will flicker out.

But wait, there's more.  The Earth still may still exist after all of that.  Go to the video to learn more.  It is a fascinating tale.   

How Do We Protect the Milky Way Galaxy from a Collision?

Just one idea from the comic site Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: