Capable of producing tens of thousands of Suns –At 1350 light years away in the interstellar medium (ISM), Orion A is the nearest mega star factory. Along with its sibling, Orion B, the cloud makes up the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, a vast star-forming region within the constellation of Orion.
“If space is truly infinite,” observes Dan Hooper, head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, in At the Edge of Time, “the implications are staggering. Within an infinite expanse of space, it would be hard to see any reason why there would not be an infinite number of galaxies, stars, and planets, and even an infinite number of intelligent or conscious beings, scattered throughout this limitless volume. That is the thing about infinity: it takes things that are otherwise very unlikely and makes them all inevitable.”
Back in 2012, a team of leading astrophysicists reported on Arxiv that 100,000 rogue, free-floating planets might exists for for every star in the Milky Way, which could put the number of nomad planets in the quadrillions. They suggested that it could be that nomad planets play a dynamic role in spreading life throughout universe: if life can exist without the warmth of a nearby sun, it raises the possibility that, along with sustaining life, nomad planets could be transporting life as well.
“For most of human history, the question of whether or not life exists elsewhere has belonged only within the philosophical realm. It’s only in recent years that we have had the modeling tools and observational technology to address this question,” said Northwestern’s Howard Chen, future investigator in NASA Earth & Space Science & Technology and first author of the research team that is the first to combine 3D climate modeling with atmospheric chemistry to explore the habitability of planets around M dwarf stars, which comprise about 70% of the total galactic population.
Jezero crater, where NASA plans to land a new Mars rover next year, is home to the remains of an ancient river delta. Researchers have now found deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that’s especially good at preserving microfossils and other signs of past life, near the delta.
