Stuff we have missed

[Fallingstar1971]

Man imagine being alive on Earth when this happened

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major_moving_group

I wonder how it would have appeared to any life back then? Its implied that nothing alive at that time would understand the wonder.....but still

To watch the big dipper light up for the first time.......Of course, stellar drift would mean it wouldnt look the same as today, but still, watching that cluster light up......that must of really been something. Stars must have been popping up all over the place, like new jewels being placed in the sky every night. If there were people, I wonder how they took it.

Star

 

[MeteorWayne]

As long as we're imagining incredible sights, how about being in the core of Omega Centauri:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070419.html

It is a large MW globular cluster with an estimated 10 million stars, covering an aarea in our sky about the size of the Full Moon. In the core, the stars are an average of 0.1 LY apart, 45 times closer that we are to our nearest star. That means their sky would be filled with a million stars within that distance if I did my math right.

It also means life would be very unlikely there, not only because of the harsh radiation environment, but planetary orbits would be highly unstable with stars regularly passing by close enough to completely disrupt any planetary systems around individual stars.

Here's a link to an HST image, you can download versions from 785 kb, to a massive 282 MB!

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/ht ... 0809a.html

Here's the small 14 MB jpg:

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/pu ... c0809a.jpg

And the 785 kb, which I hope will show up here..

OK, well the left half anyway darn the way the image posting works here.

Here's the full small 785 kb version:

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/sc ... c0809a.jpg

MW

 

[Captain_Salty]

how bright might the night sky look from a planet near the core, compared to say a full-moon night here on earth? what magnitude would you expect nearby stars to appear and how densely would they be scattered?