A Magellanic Star Factory

Most stars in the universe were evidently formed in stellar nurseries like the Tarantula Nebula, shown in the spectacular image below. I've been wanting to shoehorn this item into our pages for a couple of weeks now but always wound up having it preempted by other news. Nonetheless, this look at the complex known as 30 Doradus is well worth pondering as we move into a new year of interstellar studies. It's based on data collected through four filters using the Wide Field Imager on the European Southern Observatory's 2.2-m instrument at La Silla (Chile). Image (click to enlarge): One square degree image of the Tarantula Nebula and its surroundings. The spidery nebula is seen in the upper-centre of the image. Slightly to the lower-right, a web of filaments harbours the famous supernova SN 1987A. Many other reddish nebulae are visible in the image, as well as a cluster of young stars on the left, known as NGC 2100. Credit: Observations carried out by João Alves (Calar Alto, Spain),...

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A SETI Book for the New Year

We've had some lively discussions about SETI in the past year and 2007 should be equally provocative, especially as we keep tackling topics like the Fermi question and METI, the attempt to signal extraterrestrial civilizations from Earth. Most people don't realize that messages other than the famous 1974 signal from Arecibo have already been sent. But to cite just one example, the so-called ‘Cosmic Call 1? message targeting four Sun-like stars was transmitted from the Evpatoria Planetary Radar site in the Crimea in 1999, as discussed earlier in these pages. There have been others. Trying to place passive SETI listening activities and their 'active' METI component into perspective demands we be aware of the issues and able to place them into a civilization-wide context. On that score, I'll be interested to see Michael Michaud's book Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials (Springer, 2006). The book, says David Brin in an Amazon...

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Charter

In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For many years this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas. In the logo above, the leftmost star is Alpha Centauri, a triple system closer than any other star, and a primary target for early interstellar probes. To its right is Beta Centauri (not a part of the Alpha Centauri system), with Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Crucis, stars in the Southern Cross, visible at the far right (image courtesy of Marco Lorenzi).

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