WATCH OUT! LATEST NEWS OF THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

7 STUNING PHOTOS OF OUR GALAXY 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT OUR GALAXY

The enormous

Splendid

milky way galaxy

MWG 2

Until recently, astrono-

mers believed that from

where we sit — some 28,000

light-years out — we were

spinning around the center

of the Milky Way at about

half a million miles per hour.

New observations sug-

gest that we’re traveling

much faster — about

600,000 m.p.h. — and that

the Milky Way is actually

broader and has 50 per-

cent more mass than was

previously thought. Astrono-

mers also have recently

found evidence of a sec-

ond major arm of stars spi-

raling outward from the

Milky Way’s central disk.

This is one of the wonder-

ful things about astronomy.

Our understanding of the

galaxy around us under-

goes a significant shift, and

the only real change is the

new terrain that opens up

inside our heads. We don’t

experience a physical lurch,

because we’re traveling

exactly as fast around the

center of the Milky Way as

we always were. The lurch

we experience is our minds

catching up to our actual

physical speed. We are so

exquisitely attuned to our

celestial motions that we

seem, to ourselves, to be

standing still, no matter how

our understanding of the

universe changes.

These new observations

also remind us of a basic

problem in understanding

the galaxy that we live in.

We cannot get a view from

outside it. We are essentially

blinded to the structure and

motions of the Milky Way by

the fact that we live within

it. We can see how the

neighbors live over in An-

dromeda — the galaxy with

which we’ll one day collide

— because we can see the

whole galaxy in the dis-

tance, even with the naked

eye on a dark, clear night.

There is no looking back

at the Milky Way from some

point beyond, certainly not

in the foreseeable future.

We can only guess at our-

selves by observation, ex-

trapolation and analogy.

#TF

Editorial board Fe Frances A. Fajardo

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Kyla Aleck P. Maddela

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Beign Patrick Canonizado

REPOTER/WRITER

10 FACTS ABOUT THE

MILKY WAY GALAXY

The Milky Way Galaxy is an immense and very interest-

ing place. Not only does it measure some 100,000–120,000

light-years in diameter, it is home to planet Earth, the birth-

place of humanity. Our Solar System resides roughly 27,000

light-years away from the Galactic Center, on the inner

edge of one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas

and dust particles called the Orion Arm.

But within these facts about the Milky Way lie some addi-

tional tidbits of information, all of which are sure to impress

and inspire.

(continued on page 4)

On Monday, famed

physicist Stephen Hawk-

ing and Russian tycoon

Yuri Milner held a news

conference in London to

announce their new pro-

ject: injecting $100 million

and a whole lot of brain

power into the search for

intelligent extraterrestrial

life, an endeavor they're

calling Breakthrough Lis-

ten.

"We believe that life

arose spontaneously on

Earth," Hawking said at

Monday's

news conference, "So in

an infinite universe, there

must be other occur-

rences of life."Geoffrey

Marcy, a University of

California, Berkeley, as-

tronomer who found

most of our first exoplan-

ets, also spoke at the

event as part of the

group's brain trust.

"The universe is appar-

ently bulging at the

seams with the ingredi-

ents of biology," Marcy

explained. Indeed,

Marcy and other scien-

tists have found a surpris-

ing number of Earth-like

exoplanets in recent

years — rocky planets the

right distance from their

suns to support water —

suggesting that life as we

know it is at least possible,

if not probable, all over

the universe.

That being said, the

group of esteemed scien-

tists gathered on Monday

didn't make any bold

claims about immedi-

ately hunting down intelli-

gent life-forms — or ever

finding them at all, for

that matter. But the likeli-

hood of success is about

to shoot up exponentially,

because right now we're

barely trying.

(Continued on Page 5)

NASA's Three-Billion-

Mile Journey to Pluto

Reaches Historic

Encounter

NASA’s New Horizons space-

craft is at Pluto.

After a decade-long journey

through our solar system, New

Horizons made its closest ap-

proach to Pluto Tuesday, about

7,750 miles above the surface —

roughly the same distance from

New York to Mumbai, India —

making it the first-ever space

mission to explore a world so far

from Earth.

“I’m delighted at this latest ac-

complishment by NASA, an-

other first that demonstrates

once again how the United

States leads the world in

space,” said John Holdren, assis-

tant to the President for Science

and Technology and director of

the White House Office of Sci-

ence and Technology Policy.

“New Horizons is the latest in a

long line of scientific accom-

plishments at NASA, including

multiple missions orbiting and

exploring the surface of Mars in

advance of human visits still to

come; the remarkable Kepler

mission to identify Earth-like

planets around stars other than

our own; and the DSCOVR satel-

lite that soon will be beaming

back images of the whole Earth

in near real-time from a van-

tage point a million miles away.

As New Horizons completes its

flyby of Pluto and continues

deeper into the Kuiper Belt,

NASA's multifaceted journey of

discovery continues."

“The exploration of Pluto and its

moons by New Horizons repre-

sents the capstone event to 50

years of planetary exploration

by NASA and the United States,"

said NASA Administrator Charles

Bolden. “Once again we have

achieved a historic first. The

United States is the first nation to

reach Pluto, and with this mis-

sion has completed the initial

survey of our solar system, a re-

markable accomplishment that

no other nation can match.”

(continued on page 5)

Stephen Hawking

Announces $100

Million Hunt for

Alien Life

MWG 3

MWG 4 10 FACTS ABOUT THE MILKY

WAY GALAXY (from page 2)

1. It’s warped.

For starters, the Milky Way is a disk

about 120,000 light years across with a

central bulge that has a diameter of

12,000 light years (see the Guide to

Space article for more information).

The disk is far from perfectly flat

though. In fact, it is warped in shape,

a fact which astronomers attribute to

the our galaxy’s two neighbors -the

Large and Small Magellanic clouds.

2. It has a halo, but you can’t directly

see it.

Scientists believe that 90% of our

galaxy’s mass consists of dark matter,

which gives it a mysterious halo. That

means that all of the “luminous mat-

ter” – i.e. that which we can see with

the naked eye or a telescopes –

makes up less than 10% of the mass of

the Milky Way. Its halo is not the con-

ventional glowing sort we tend to

think of when picturing angels or ob-

serving comets.

3. It has over 200 billion stars

As galaxies go, the Milky Way is a mid-

dleweight. The largest galaxy we

know of, which is designated IC 1101,

has over 100 trillion stars, and other

large galaxies can have as many as a

trillion. Dwarf galaxies such as the

aforementioned Large Magellanic

Cloud have about 10 billion stars. The

Milky Way has between 100-400 billion

stars; but when you look up into the

night sky, the most you can see from

any one point on the globe is about

2,500. This number is not fixed, how-

ever, because the Milky Way is con-

stantly losing stars through

supernovae, and produc-

ing new ones all the time

(about seven per year).

4. It’s really dusty and

gassy.

Though it may not look

like it to the casual ob-

server, the Milky Way is full

of dust and gas. This mat-

ter makes up a whopping

10-15% of the luminous/

visible matter in our galaxy, with the

remainder being the stars. Our galaxy

is roughly 100,000 light years across,

and we can only see about 6,000 light

years into the disk in the visible spec-

trum.

5. It was made from other galaxies.

The Milky Way wasn’t always as it is

today – a beautiful, warped spiral. It

became its current size and shape by

eating up other galaxies, and is still

doing so today. In fact, the Canis Ma-

jor Dwarf Galaxy is the closest galaxy

to the Milky Way because its stars are

currently being added to the Milky

Way’s disk.

6. Every picture you’ve seen of the

Milky Way from above is either an-

other galaxy or an artist’s interpreta-

tion.

Currently, we can’t take a picture of

the Milky Way from above. This is due

to the fact that we are inside

the galactic disk, about 26,000

light years from the galactic

center. It would be like trying to

take a picture of your own

house from the inside. This

means that any of the beauti-

ful pictures you’ve ever seen of

a spiral galaxy that is suppos-

edly the Milky Way is either a

picture of another spiral gal-

axy, or the rendering of a tal-

ented artist.

7. There is a black hole at the

center.

Most larger galaxies have a

supermassive black hole

(SMBH) at the center, and the Milky

Way is no exception. The center of

our galaxy is called Sagittarius A*, a

massive source of radio waves that is

believed to be a black hole that

measures 22,5 million kilometers (14

million miles) across – about the size of

Mercury’s orbit

8. It’s almost as old as the Universe

itself.

The most recent estimates place the

age of the Universe at about 13.7 bil-

lion years. Our Milky Way has been

around for about 13.6 billion of those

years, give or take another 800 million

9. It’s part of the Virgo Supercluster, a

group of galaxies within 150 million

light years.

As big as it is, the Milky Way is part of

an even larger galactic structures.

Our closest neighbors include the

Large and Small Magellanic Clouds,

and the Andromeda Galaxy – the

closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way.

Along with some 50 other galaxies,

the Milky Way and its immediate sur-

roundings make up a cluster known

as the Local Group.

10. It’s on the move

The Milky Way, along with everything

else in the Universe, is moving through

space. The Earth moves around the

Sun, the Sun around the Milky Way,

and the Milky Way as part of the Lo-

cal Group, which is moving relative to

the Cosmic Microwave Background

(CMB) radiation – the radiation left

over from the Big Bang.#TF (source: http://

www.universetoday.com/22285/facts-

about-the-milky-way/)

NASA's Three-Billion-Mile

Journey to Pluto Reaches

Historic Encounter (from page 3)

Stephen Hawking

Announces $100

Million Hunt for Alien Life (from page 3)

MWG5

Milner, best known for

investing in technology

companies like Face-

book and Alibaba, is

footing the entire bill for

the project. It's the latest

endeavor of

his Breakthrough Prize

Foundation, a Silicon

Valley funded group

that currently gives the

biggest prize — $3 mil-

lion per laureate — of

any scientific award. The

prize is funded by inves-

tors including Face-

book's Mark Zuckerberg

and Google's Sergey

Brin, but Breakthrough

Listen will start with a

$100 million, 10-year

budget from Milner's

own pocket.

According to Milner and

the scientists joining him,

the project will allow

scientists to collect as

much data on SETI in a

day as they now do in a

year. The data will be

made available to the

public, so anyone can

help search for the radio

signals that could be

used to track down alien

civilizations. Meanwhile,

others at Breakthrough

Listen will be working to

improve our own signal-

ing techniques, brain-

storming the best way to

send a message out into

the cosmos.

"I've been thinking

about this since I was a

child, reading Carl Sa-

gan's book 'Intelligent

Life in the Universe,' "

Milner told The Post.

"I don't have high ex-

pectations, but the

search itself will teach us

quite a bit," Milner said.

"We could find some-

thing we're not even

looking for."

"I think it's a low prob-

ability but high impact

event," he said.

"Irrespective of what the

answer is, it's a powerful

answer. At any given

time, we should apply

the best technology and

use the best instruments

available to search for

that answer." #TF

(http://

www.washingtonpost.co

m/news/speaking-of-

science/wp/2015/07/20/

stephen-hawking-

announces-100-million-hunt-for-alien-life/)

Per the plan, the spacecraft

currently is in data-gathering

mode and not in contact

with flight controllers at the

Johns Hopkins University Ap-

plied Physical Laboratory

(APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

Scientists are waiting to find

out whether New Horizons

“phones home,” transmitting

to Earth a series of status up-

dates that indicate the

spacecraft survived the flyby

and is in good health. The

“call” is expected shortly af-

ter 9 p.m. on July 17, 2015

T

New Horizons’ flyby of the

dwarf planet and its five

known moons is providing an

up-close introduction to the

solar system's Kuiper Belt, an

outer region populated by

icy objects ranging in size

from boulders to dwarf plan-

ets. Kuiper Belt objects, such

as Pluto, preserve evidence

about the early formation of

the solar system.

New Horizons principal inves-

tigator Alan Stern of the

Southwest Research Institute

(SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado,

says the mission now is writ-

ing the textbook on Pluto.

"The New Horizons team is

proud to have accom-

plished the first exploration of

the Pluto system,” Stern said.

“This mission has inspired

people across the world with

the excitement of explora-

tion and what humankind

can achieve.”

New Horizons’ almost 10-

year, three-billion-mile jour-

ney to closest approach at

Pluto took about one minute

less than predicted when the

craft was launched in Janu-

ary 2006. The spacecraft

threaded the needle

through a 36-by-57 mile (60

by 90 kilometers).

New Horizons is the latest in a

long line of scientific accom-

plishments at NASA, includ-

ing multiple rovers exploring

the surface of Mars, the Cas-

sini spacecraft that has revo-

lutionized our understanding

of Saturn and the Hubble

Space Telescope, which re-

cently celebrated its 25th

anniversary. All of this scien-

tific research and discovery

is helping to inform the

agency’s plan to send

American astronauts to Mars

in the 2030’s.

“After nearly 15 years of

planning, building, and flying

the New Horizons spacecraft

across the solar system,

we’ve reached our goal,”

said project manager Glen

Fountain at APL “The bounty

of what we’ve collected is

about to unfold.”

APL designed, built and op-

erates the New Horizons

spacecraft and manages

the mission for NASA’s Sci-

ence Mission Directorate.

SwRI leads the mission, sci-

ence team, payload opera-

tions and encounter science

planning. New Horizons is

part of NASA’s New Frontiers

Program, managed by the

agency’s Marshall Space

Flight Center in Huntsville,

Alabama. #TF

(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

News-Center/News-

Article.php?page=20150714-

2)

MWG 6

7 stunning

photos of our

galaxy

This image from a supercomputer simulation shows the density of dark matter in our Milky Way galaxy, with yellow being densest and blue-black showing areas of least density. The bright central region corre-sponds roughly to the Milky Way's luminous matter

Give It a Whirl Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum

Stars in the Milky Way

Where Tomorrow's Stars Will Be Born The center of the Milky Way harbors a supermassive black

hole more than four million times the mass of our sun, about

25,000 light-years from Earth.

Ancient Outburst of Milky

Way's Black Hole Discovered This Chandra image shows our Galaxy’s cen-

ter. The location of the black hole, known as

Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short, is arrowed.

MWG 7

Before the Meteor Rush Credit: Tamas Ladanyi

(www.astrophoto.hu)

This bright Perseid meteor streaking

through skies near Lake Balaton, Hungary

on August 8, 2010, served as advance

guard for the meteor shower that was

scheduled to peak a few days later.

Stunning Milky Way

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, and

STScI

In this spectacular image, observa-

tions using infrared light and X-ray

light see through the obscuring dust

and reveal the intense activity near the

galactic core of the Milky Way.

Milky Way Canary Islands Credit: Terje Sorgjerd (www.tesophotography.com)

A still from a time-lapse video made by photographer

Terje Sorgjerd of the night sky as seen from the Canary

Beyond Forever By Maurice Nance

Marvel the milky way, its multitudes of constellations.

Roll in the heavens with its infinitudes of sensations.

The exhilaration of zero gravity our

movements free

we explore the vast regions of this

cosmic black sea.

Together we surf an evening of carnal pleasures

in these moments discover all the

worlds treasures.

Falling into the freedom, with stardust in our hair,

A feeling so intense, that no education could prepare.

With every stroke of the skies

nightly portrait of perfection,

Inspirational kisses, under

the microscope, intricate inspection.

This power of passion caressing ever second of our being,

In your eyes it is beyond forever that I am seeing.

Written in the stars, the midnight sky writes our history,

Embrace the power of perfection, we are covered in

mystery.