Strange Silvery Cloud

“As many as 80% of all people on earth today have never had the chance to witness a clear view of the Milky Way.“

Have you seen the Milky Way? How did it make you feel? Leave me a comment and tell me about it.

“In 1994 a major earthquake struck LA, causing massive power outages across the city. Residents called 911 to express alarm about a “strange silvery cloud” hovering overhead.”

Illusion of Lights, a film from Goldpaint Photography, specialists in landscape astrophotography

“I like to run at night in the summertime because it’s nice and cool. As I’m running, I’m thinking about work and the discoveries that we’re making.  I look up at the stars. And in that split second, just that fraction of a second when I first saw not pinpoints of light, which are stars. I saw planetary systems. I saw solar systems. I saw other planets out there. It’s really hard to articulate that kind of an experience. It’s something very personal.”

~Natalie Batalha (from a 2013 interview with Krista Tippett)

Natalie Batalha hunts for earth-like planets beyond our solar system. A research astronomer at NASA Ames Research Center, she heads the Kepler Mission.   In its first four years, the mission confirmed over 100 new planets — but the search for one just right for life continues. Early interpretations of Kepler data point to as many as 17 billion Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone.