Stars are balls of gas (very hot), their size many times greater than the size of our Earth. Depending on the temperature, they can be: blue, yellow or red. They are so far away from us that as a result we see them as simply luminous points. Gathering in huge groups consisting of tens of millions of stars, they form enormous galaxies.

This type includes space systems that are too small to be able to form the spiral shape that fairly large star systems such as Andromeda or the Milky Way have. As a rule, it contains only about ten million stars, and if we compare it with a system such as the Milky Way, which belongs to the spiral type, then it is much more massive in size and internal cluster of celestial bodies.

Milky Way and galaxy cluster

Our star system is usually called simply the Galaxy or is often called the “Milky Way Galaxy.” It is considered to be a spiral-type cosmic system, however, some astronomers speculate that it may simply be crossed by another spiral galaxy.

3D model of the Milky Way

Just as stars gather into clusters, galaxies gather into groups, and powerful groups of clusters are called superclusters. Our Milky Way is part of a cluster called the Local Group. This cluster contains about three dozen galaxies of various sizes and types, and our Milky Way is considered one of the largest. At the moment, it is impossible to practically answer the question of how many stars there are in our galaxy, but astronomers estimate the number of stars at 200-400 billion, depending on the method of counting.

Is it possible to count?

Even in ancient times, astronomers studied our universe and tried to count the number of stars, which then seemed only motionless points in the sky. Many years have passed, but the desire to count them has not faded to this day. At this stage, the Milky Way contains more than two hundred billion stars, which, like people, are born and die, and from their remains completely new stars are born again, and the duration of their existence can be measured in millions and billions of years. It's hard to imagine, and even harder to study each of them.

One page in the book...

How long might it take to find out how many stars there are in our galaxy? Nobody knows the answer yet. We can only say for sure that, if such an opportunity had arisen, it would have been possible to study each star in detail and put all the information in books. Describing each of two hundred or four hundred billion stars and devoting only one page to it, most likely, volumes of books would not fit into the largest library in the world.

The answer to this question depends on the type of galaxy. The smallest galaxy is called dwarf. They are too small to form the spiral shape we see in galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda. A dwarf galaxy may have up to 10 million stars. Dwarf galaxies are constantly being consumed by larger formations.

Our galaxy - the Milky Way - belongs to the species spiral galaxies. They are more massive than relatively small "dwarf" galaxies and contain hundreds of billions of stars. For example, our Milky Way contains 200 billion stars - 200'000'000'000 stars. The neighboring Andromeda galaxy is more massive than the Milky Way and already has 1 trillion stars; 5 times more stars than the Milky Way.

The largest galaxies in the Universe may be known to you as elliptical. This is exactly how they are designated. These giants lose their spiral shape through multiple relationships between large galaxies. They are located at the very “core” of a cluster of large galaxies. The largest of these galaxies ever discovered is in the Abell 2009 cluster and contains 100 trillion stars. To make it clearer, these are 100’000’000’000’000 stars.

Just think, there are 100 billion galaxies in the Universe we can see. When you add up all the data, you get 10 24 stars in the entire Universe, 1 followed by 24 zeros. In short, 1'000'000'000'000'000'000'000'000 stars.

The Milky Way Galaxy contains the solar system, Earth and all the stars that are visible to the naked eye. Together with the Triangulum Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and dwarf galaxies and satellites, it forms the Local Group of galaxies, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster.

According to ancient legend, when Zeus decided to make his son Hercules immortal, he placed him on the breast of his wife Hera to drink milk. But the wife woke up and, seeing that she was feeding her stepchild, pushed him away. A stream of milk splashed out and turned into the Milky Way. In the Soviet astronomical school it was simply called the “Milky Way system” or “our Galaxy.” Outside Western culture, there are many names for this galaxy. The word “milky” is replaced by other epithets. The galaxy consists of about 200 billion stars. Most of them are located in the shape of a disk. Most of the Milky Way's mass is contained in a halo of dark matter.

In the 1980s, scientists proposed that the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy. The hypothesis was confirmed in 2005 using the Spitzer telescope. It turned out that the central bar of the galaxy is larger than previously thought. The diameter of the galactic disk is approximately 100 thousand light years. Compared to the halo, it rotates much faster. At different distances from the center its speed is not the same. Studies of the disk's rotation have helped estimate its mass, which is 150 billion more than the mass of the Sun. Near the plane of the disk, young star clusters and stars are collected, which form a flat component. Scientists suggest that many galaxies have black holes at their cores.

A large number of stars are collected in the central regions of the Milky Way Galaxy. The distance between them is much smaller than in the vicinity of the Sun. The length of the galactic bridge, according to scientists, is 27 thousand light years. It passes through the center of the Milky Way at an angle of 44 degrees ± 10 degrees to the line between the center of the galaxy and the Sun. Its components are predominantly red stars. The jumper is surrounded by a ring called the 5 kiloparsec ring. It contains a large amount of molecular hydrogen. It is also an active star-forming region in the Galaxy. If observed from the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way bar would be its brightest part.

Since the Milky Way Galaxy is considered to be spiral, it has spiral arms that are located in the plane of the disk. There is a spherical corona around the disk. The solar system is located 8.5 thousand parsecs from the center of the galaxy. According to recent observations, we can say that our Galaxy has 2 arms and a couple more arms in the inner part. They transform into a four-armed structure, which is observed in the neutral hydrogen line.

The galaxy's halo has a spherical shape that extends beyond the Milky Way by 5–10 thousand light years. Its temperature is approximately 5 * 10 5 K. The halo consists of old, low-mass, dim stars. They can be found both in the form of globular clusters and individually. The bulk of the galaxy's mass is dark matter, forming a dark matter halo. Its mass is approximately 600–3000 billion solar masses. Star clusters and halo stars move around the galactic center in elongated orbits. The halo rotates very slowly.

History of the discovery of the Milky Way Galaxy

Many celestial bodies are combined into various rotating systems. Thus, the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the satellites of the major planets form their own systems. The Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. Scientists had a completely logical question: is the Sun part of an even larger system?

William Herschel was the first to try to answer this question. He calculated the number of stars in different parts of the sky and found out that there is a large circle in the sky - the galactic equator, dividing the sky into two parts. Here the number of stars turned out to be greatest. The closer this or that part of the sky is located to this circle, the more stars there are on it. Ultimately, it was discovered that the Milky Way is located at the equator of the galaxy. Herschel came to the conclusion that all the stars form one star system.

Initially, it was believed that everything in the Universe is part of our galaxy. But Kant also argued that some nebulae could be separate galaxies, like the Milky Way. It was only when Edwin Hubble measured the distance to some spiral nebulae and showed that they could not be part of the Galaxy that Kant's hypothesis was proven.

Future of the Galaxy

In the future, collisions of our Galaxy with others, including Andromeda, are possible. But there are no specific predictions yet. It is believed that in 4 billion years the Milky Way will engulf the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, and in 5 billion years it will be engulfed by the Andromeda Nebula.

Planets of the Milky Way

Despite the fact that stars are constantly born and die, their number is clearly calculated. Scientists believe that at least one planet revolves around every star. This means that there are from 100 to 200 billion planets in the Universe. The scientists who worked on this claim studied red dwarf stars. They are smaller than the Sun and make up 75% of all the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Particular attention was paid to the star Kepler-32, which “hosted” 5 planets.

Planets are much more difficult to detect than stars because they do not emit light. We can confidently say about the existence of a planet only when it obscures the light of a star.

There are also planets that are similar to our Earth, but there are not so many of them. There are many types of planets, such as pulsar planets, gas giants, brown dwarfs... If the planet is made of rocks, it will not look much like Earth.

Recent studies claim that there are from 11 to 40 billion Earth-like planets in the galaxy. Scientists examined 42 stars similar to the Sun and discovered 603 exoplanets, 10 of which met the search criteria. It has been proven that all planets similar to Earth can maintain the necessary temperature for the existence of liquid water, which, in turn, will help the emergence of life.

Near the outer edge of the Milky Way, stars have been discovered that move in a special way. They drift at the edge. Scientists suggest that this is all that remains of the galaxies that were swallowed up by the Milky Way. Their encounter happened many years ago.

Galaxy satellites

As we have already said, the Milky Way Galaxy is spiral. It is a spiral of imperfect shape. For many years, scientists could not find an explanation for the galaxy's bulge. Now everyone has come to the conclusion that this is due to satellite galaxies and dark matter. They are very small and cannot influence the Milky Way. But when dark matter moves through the Magellanic Clouds, waves are created. They influence gravitational attractions. Under this action, hydrogen evaporates from the galactic center. Clouds orbit the Milky Way.

Although the Milky Way is called unique in many respects, it is not very rare. If we take into account the fact that there are approximately 170 billion galaxies in the field of view, we can argue about the existence of galaxies similar to ours. In 2012, astronomers found an exact copy of the Milky Way. It even has two moons that correspond to the Magellanic Clouds. By the way, it is assumed that in a couple of billion years they will dissolve. Finding such a galaxy was an incredible success. It was named NGC 1073. It is so similar to the Milky Way that astronomers are studying it to learn more about our galaxy.

Galactic year

An Earth year is the time it takes for the planet to make a full revolution around the Sun. In the same way, the solar system revolves around a black hole, which is located at the center of the galaxy. Its full revolution is 250 million years. When the Solar System is described, it is rarely mentioned that it moves through space, like everything else in the world. Its speed is 792,000 km per hour relative to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. If we compare, we, moving at a similar speed, could go around the whole world in 3 minutes. A galactic year is the time it takes for the Sun to complete one revolution around the Milky Way. At last count, the sun lived for 18 galactic years.

quoted1 > > Where is the Earth located in the Milky Way?

Place of the Earth and the Solar System in the Milky Way Galaxy: where the Sun and planet are located, parameters, distance from the center and plane, structure with photo.

For many centuries, scientists believed that the Earth was the center of the entire Universe. It’s not hard to think why this happened, because the Earth is in and we couldn’t look beyond it. Only a century of research and observation helped to understand that all celestial bodies in the system revolve around the main star.

The system itself also rotates around the galactic center. Although then people did not understand this either. We had to spend a certain period of time to guess about the existence of many galaxies and determine their place in ours. What place does Earth occupy in the Milky Way galaxy?

Location of the Earth in the Milky Way

Earth is located in the Milky Way galaxy. We live in a huge and spacious place, spanning 100,000-120,000 light years in diameter and approximately 1000 light years in width. The territory is home to 400 billion stars.

The galaxy received such a scale thanks to its unusual diet - it absorbed and continues to be fed by other small galaxies. For example, on the dinner table right now is the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, whose stars join our disk. But if we compare with others, ours is average. Even the next one is twice as large.

Structure

The planet lives in a spiral-type galaxy with a bar. For many years it was thought that there were 4 arms, but recent studies confirm only two: Scutum-Centauri and Carina-Sagittarius. They emerged from dense waves orbiting the galaxy. That is, these are grouped stars and gas clouds.

What about a photo of the Milky Way galaxy? All of them are artistic interpretations or real photographs, but very similar to our galaxies. Of course, we didn’t come to this right away, since no one could say exactly what it looks like (we are inside it, after all).

Modern instruments allow us to count up to 400 billion stars, each of which can have a planet. 10-15% of the mass goes to “luminous matter”, and the rest is stars. Despite the huge array, only 6000 light years in the visible spectrum are open to us for observation. But here infrared devices come into play, opening up new territories.

Around the galaxy there is a huge halo of dark matter, covering as much as 90% of the total mass. No one yet knows what it is, but its presence confirms the impact on other objects. It is believed that it keeps the Milky Way from disintegrating as it rotates.

Location of the Solar System in the Milky Way

The Earth is 25,000 light years away from the galactic center and the same amount from the edge. If you imagine the galaxy as a giant musical record, then we are located halfway between the central part and the edge. More specifically, we occupy a place in the Orion arm between the two main arms. It extends 3,500 light-years in diameter and stretches out to 10,000 light-years.

The galaxy can be seen dividing the heavens into two hemispheres. This suggests that we are located close to the galactic plane. The Milky Way has a low surface brightness due to the abundance of dust and gas obscuring the disk. This makes it difficult not only to see the central part, but also to look at the other side.

The system takes 250 million years to complete its entire orbital path—a “cosmic year.” During their last passage, dinosaurs roamed the Earth. And what will happen next? Will people go extinct or will they be replaced by a new species?

In general, we live in a huge and amazing place. New knowledge makes one get used to the fact that the Universe is much larger than all assumptions. Now you know where Earth is in the Milky Way.

We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way. Our planet Earth is just a grain of sand in the Milky Way galaxy. In the course of filling the site, every now and then moments arise that it would seem that I should have written about a long time ago, but were either forgotten, or did not have time, or switched to something else. Today we will try to fill one of these niches. Today our topic is the Milky Way galaxy.

Once upon a time, people thought that the center of the World was the Earth. Over time, this opinion was recognized as erroneous and the Sun began to be considered the center of everything. But then it turned out that the star that gives life to all life on the blue planet is by no means the center of outer space, but only a tiny grain of sand in a boundless ocean of stars.

Space, galaxy, Milky way

The cosmos visible to the human eye includes myriads of stars. They all unite into a huge star system, which has a very beautiful and intriguing name - the Milky Way galaxy. From Earth, this celestial splendor is observed in the form of a wide whitish stripe, glowing dimly on the celestial sphere.

It stretches across the entire northern hemisphere and crosses the constellations Gemini, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Chanterelle, Cygnus, Taurus, Eagle, Sagittarius, Cepheus. It encircles the southern hemisphere and passes through the constellations Monoceros, Southern Cross, Southern Triangle, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Vela, Compass.

If you arm yourself with a telescope and look through it at the night sky, the picture will be different. The wide whitish stripe will turn into countless luminous stars. Their faint, distant, alluring light will tell without words about the greatness and endless expanses of the Cosmos, will make you hold your breath and realize the insignificance and worthlessness of momentary human problems.

The Milky Way is called Galaxy or a giant star system. According to estimates, there is currently an increasing tendency towards a figure of 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. All these stars move in closed orbits. They are connected to each other by gravitational forces, and most of them have planets. Stars together with planets form star systems. Such systems can be with one star (Solar system), double (Sirius - two stars), triple (Alpha Centauri). There are four, five stars, and even seven.

Milky Way in disk shape

Structure of the Milky Way

All this countless variety of star systems that make up the Milky Way are not scattered haphazardly throughout outer space, but are united into a colossal formation, shaped like a disk with a thickening in the middle. The diameter of the disk is 100,000 light years (one light year corresponds to the distance that light travels in a year, which is approximately 10¹³ km) or 30,659 parsecs (one parsec is 3.2616 light years). The thickness of the disk is several thousand light years, and its mass exceeds the mass of the Sun by 3 × 10¹² times.

The mass of the Milky Way consists of the mass of stars, interstellar gas, dust clouds and a halo, which has the shape of a huge sphere consisting of rarefied hot gas, stars and dark matter. Dark matter appears to be a collection of hypothetical cosmic objects, the masses of which make up 95% of the entire Universe. These mysterious objects are invisible and do not react in any way to modern technical means of detection.

The presence of dark matter can be guessed only by its gravitational effect on visible clusters of suns. There are not so many of them available for observation. The human eye, even enhanced by the most powerful telescope, can only contemplate two billion stars. The rest of outer space is hidden by huge impenetrable clouds consisting of interstellar dust and gas.

Thickening ( bulge) in the central part of the Milky Way's disk is called the Galactic center or core. Billions of old stars move in it in very elongated orbits. Their mass is very large and is estimated at 10 billion solar masses. The core dimensions are not that impressive. It is 8000 parsecs across.

Galaxy Core- This is a brightly shining ball. If earthlings could observe it in the sky, then their eyes would see a gigantic luminous ellipsoid, which in size would be a hundred times larger than the Moon. Unfortunately, this most beautiful and magnificent spectacle is inaccessible to people due to powerful gas and dust clouds that obscure the galactic center from planet Earth.

At a distance of 3000 parsecs from the center of the Galaxy there is a gas ring with a width of 1500 parsecs and a mass of 100 million solar masses. It is here that the central region of new star formation is believed to be located. Gas arms about 4 thousand parsecs long spread out from it. At the very center of the core there is black hole, with a mass of more than three million Suns.

Galactic disk its structure is heterogeneous. It has separate high-density zones, which are spiral arms. The continuous process of formation of new stars continues in them, and the arms themselves stretch along the core and seem to bend around it in a semicircle. Currently there are five of them. These are the Cygnus arm, the Perseus arm, the Centauri arm and the Sagittarius arm. In the fifth sleeve - Orion's arm- The solar system is located.

Please note - this is a spiral structure. Increasingly, people notice this structure literally everywhere. Many will be surprised, but flight path of our Earth Also there is a spiral!

It is separated from the galactic core by 28,000 light years. Around the center of the Galaxy, the Sun and its planets rush at a speed of 220 km/s, and complete a revolution in 220 million years. True, there is another figure - 250 million years.

The solar system is located just below the galactic equator, and in its orbit it does not move smoothly and calmly, but as if bouncing. Once every 33 million years, it crosses the galactic equator and rises above it to a distance of 230 light years. Then it descends back to repeat its takeoff after another interval of 33 million years.

The galactic disk rotates, but it does not rotate as a single body. The core rotates faster, the spiral arms in the plane of the disk rotate slower. Naturally, a logical question arises: why do the spiral arms not twist around the center of the Galaxy, but always remain the same shape and configuration for 12 billion years (the age of the Milky Way is estimated at this figure).

There is a certain theory that quite plausibly explains this phenomenon. She views spiral arms not as material objects, but as waves of matter density arising against the galactic background. This is caused by star formation and the birth of high luminosity stars. In other words, the rotation of the spiral arms has nothing to do with the movement of stars in their galactic orbits.

The latter, only, pass through the arms either ahead of them in speed if they are closer to the Galactic center, or behind them if they are located in the peripheral regions of the Milky Way. The outlines of these spiral waves are given by the brightest stars, which have a very short life and manage to live it without leaving the sleeve.

As can be seen from all of the above, the Milky Way is a very complex cosmic formation, but it is not limited to the surface of the disk. There is a huge spherical cloud around ( halo). It consists of rarefied hot gases, individual stars, globular star clusters, dwarf galaxies and dark matter. On the outskirts of the Milky Way there are dense clouds of gas. Their extent is several thousand light years, their temperature reaches 10,000 degrees, and their mass is equal to at least ten million Suns.

Neighbors of the Milky Way Galaxy

In the vast Cosmos, the Milky Way is far from alone. At a distance of 772 thousand parsecs from it there is an even more huge star system. It's called Andromeda Galaxy(possibly more romantic - Andromeda Nebula). It has been known since ancient times as “a small heavenly cloud, easily visible in the dark night.” Even at the beginning of the 17th century, religiously minded astronomers believed that “in this place the crystal firmament is thinner than usual, and through it the light of the kingdom of heaven pours out.”

The Andromeda nebula is the only galaxy that can be seen in the sky with the naked eye. It appears as a small oval luminous spot. The light in it is distributed unevenly: the central part is brighter. If you strengthen your eye with a telescope, the speck will turn into a giant star system, the diameter of which is 150 thousand light years. This is one and a half times the diameter of the Milky Way.

Dangerous neighbor

But it is not just its size that distinguishes Andromeda from the galaxy in which the solar system exists. Back in 1991, the planetary camera of the space telescope. Hubble recorded the presence of two nuclei. Moreover, one of them is smaller in size and revolves around another, larger and brighter one, gradually collapsing under the influence of the tidal forces of the latter. This slow death throes of one of the cores suggests that it is the remnant of some other galaxy that Andromeda absorbed.

For many, it will be an unpleasant surprise to learn that the Andromeda Nebula is moving towards the Milky Way, and, therefore, towards the Solar System. The approach speed is about 140 km/s. Accordingly, the meeting of two stellar giants will take place somewhere in 2.5-3 billion years. This will not be a meeting on the Elbe, but it will not be a global catastrophe on a cosmic scale either..

Two Galaxies will simply merge into one. But which one will dominate - here the scales tip in favor of Andromeda. It has more mass, and it already has experience in absorbing other galactic systems.

As for the solar system, forecasts vary. The most pessimistic indicates that the Sun with all the planets will simply be thrown into intergalactic space, that is, there will be no place for it in the new formation.

But maybe this is for the better. After all, it is clear from everything that the Andromeda Galaxy is a kind of bloodthirsty monster, devouring its own kind. Having absorbed the Milky Way and destroyed its core, the Nebula will turn into a huge Nebula and continue its path across the expanses of the Universe, eating more and more new galaxies. The end result of this journey will be the collapse of an incredibly swollen, overly gigantic star system.

The Andromeda nebula will disintegrate into countless small stellar formations, exactly repeating the fate of the huge empires of human civilization, which first grew to unprecedented sizes, and then collapsed with a roar, unable to bear the burden of their own greed, self-interest and lust for power.

But you shouldn’t worry about the events of future tragedies. It is better to consider another galaxy, which is called Triangulum Galaxy. It is located in the vastness of the Universe at a distance of 730 thousand parsecs from the Milky Way and is two times smaller in size, and no less than seven times smaller in mass. That is, this is an ordinary mediocre galaxy, of which there are a great many in Space.

All these three star systems, along with several dozen more dwarf galaxies, are part of the so-called Local Group, which is part of Virgo Supercluster– a huge star formation, the dimensions of which are 200 million light years.

The Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy have many similarities. All of them belong to the so-called spiral galaxies. Their disks are flat and consist of young stars, open star clusters and interstellar matter. In the center of each disc there is a thickening (bulge). The main feature, of course, is the presence of bright spiral arms containing many young and hot stars.

The cores of these galaxies are also similar in that they contain clusters of old stars and gas rings in which new stars are born. An invariable attribute of the central part of each nucleus is the presence of a black hole with a very large mass. It has already been mentioned that the mass of the Milky Way black hole corresponds to more than three million solar masses.

Black holes– one of the most impenetrable mysteries of the Universe. Of course, they are observed and studied, but these mysterious formations are in no hurry to reveal their secrets. It is known that black holes have a very high density, and their gravitational field is so powerful that even light cannot escape from them.

But any cosmic body that finds itself in the zone of influence of one of them ( event threshold), will be immediately “swallowed” by this terrible universal monster. What will be the future fate of the “unfortunate” is unknown. In short, it’s easy to get into a black hole, but impossible to get out of.

There are many black holes scattered across the expanses of space, some of them have a mass many times greater than the mass of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. But this does not mean that the monster “native” to the Solar System is more harmless than its larger colleagues. It is also insatiable and bloodthirsty and is a compact (diameter equal to 12.5 light hours) and powerful source of X-ray radiation.

The name of this mysterious object Sagittarius A. Its mass has already been mentioned - more than 3 million solar masses, and the gravitational trap (event threshold) of the baby is measured at 68 astronomical units (1 AU is equal to the average distance of the Earth from the Sun). It is within these limits that the border of his bloodthirstiness and treachery lies in relation to various cosmic bodies, which, for a number of reasons, frivolously cross it.

Someone probably naively thinks that the baby is content with random victims - nothing like that: he has a constant source of food. This is the star S2. It revolves around the black hole in a very compact orbit - a full revolution is only 15.6 years. The maximum distance of S2 from the terrible monster is within 5 light days, and the minimum is only 17 light hours.

Under the influence of the tidal forces of a black hole, part of its substance is torn off from the star doomed to be slaughtered and flies at great speed towards this terrible cosmic monster. As it approaches, the substance turns into a state of hot plasma and, emitting a farewell bright glow, disappears forever into the insatiable invisible abyss.

But that’s not all: the insidiousness of a black hole has no limits. Next to it there is another, less massive and dense black hole. Its task is to adjust stars, planets, interstellar dust and gas clouds to its more powerful brother. All this also turns into plasma, emits bright light and disappears into nothingness.

However, not all scientists, despite such a demonstrative bloody interpretation of events, are of the opinion that black holes exist. Some argue that this is an unknown mass, driven under a cold, dense shell. It has enormous density and is bursting from the inside, squeezing it with incredible force. This kind of education is called gravastar– gravitational star.

They are trying to fit the entire Universe under this model, thus explaining its expansion. Proponents of this concept argue that outer space is a giant bubble, inflated by an unknown force. That is, the entire Cosmos is a huge gravastor, in which smaller models of gravastors coexist, periodically absorbing individual stars and other formations.

The absorbed bodies are, as it were, thrown into other outer spaces, which are essentially invisible, since they do not let out light from under the absolutely black shell. Maybe gravastors are other dimensions or parallel worlds? A specific answer to this question will not be found for a very, very long time.

But it’s not just the presence or absence of black holes that occupies the minds of space researchers. Much more interesting and exciting are thoughts about the existence of intelligent life in other star systems of the Universe.

The Sun, which gives life to earthlings, rotates among many other suns of the Milky Way. Its disk is visible from Earth as a pale shining strip encircling the celestial sphere. These are distant billions and billions of stars, many of which have their own planetary systems. Is there really not one among the countless number of these planets where intelligent beings live - brothers in mind?

The most reasonable assumption is that life similar to Earth could arise on a planet that orbits a star of the same class as the Sun. There is such a star in the sky, and besides, it is located in the star system closest to the earth’s body. This is Alpha Centauri A, located in the constellation Centaurus. From the earth it is visible to the naked eye, and its distance from the Sun is 4.36 light years.

It would be nice, of course, to have reasonable neighbors right next door. But what is desired does not always coincide with reality. Finding signs of an extraterrestrial civilization, even at a distance of some 4-6 light years, is a rather difficult task with current technological advances. Therefore, it is premature to talk about the existence of any intelligence in the constellation Centaurus.

Nowadays, it is only possible to send radio signals into space, hoping that someone unknown will answer the call of human intelligence. The most powerful radio stations in the world have been persistently and non-stop engaged in such activities since the first half of the 20th century. As a result, the level of radio emission from the Earth has increased significantly. The blue planet began to differ sharply in its radiation background from all other planets in the solar system.

Signals from Earth cover outer space with a radius of at least 90 light years. On the scale of the Universe, this is a drop in the ocean, but as you know, this little thing wears away the stone. If somewhere far, far away in Space there is highly developed intelligent life, then, in any case, it must someday turn its attention to both the increased background radiation in the depths of the Milky Way galaxy and the radio signals coming from there. Such an interesting phenomenon will not leave the inquisitive minds of aliens indifferent.

Accordingly, an active search for signals from space has been established. But the dark abyss is silent, which indicates that within the Milky Way there are most likely no intelligent creatures ready to come into contact with the inhabitants of planet Earth, or their technical development is at a very primitive level. The truth suggests another thought, which suggests that a highly developed civilization, or civilizations, exists, but sends some other signals into the expanses of the Galaxy that cannot be picked up by earthly technical means.

Progress on the blue planet is steadily developing and improving. Scientists are developing new, completely different ways to transmit information over long distances. All this can have a positive effect. But we must not forget that the vastness of the Universe is limitless. There are stars, the light from which reaches the Earth after billions of years. In fact, a person sees a picture of the distant past when he observes such a cosmic object through a telescope.

It may happen that the signal received by earthlings from Space will turn out to be the voice of a long-vanished extraterrestrial civilization that lived at a time when neither the Solar System nor the Milky Way existed. The response message from Earth will reach the aliens, who were not even in the project at the time when it was sent.

Well, we must take into account the laws of harsh reality. In any case, the search for intelligence in distant galactic worlds cannot be stopped. If current generations are unlucky, future generations will be lucky. Hope in this case will never die, and perseverance and perseverance will undoubtedly pay off handsomely.

But the exploration of galactic space seems quite realistic and close. Already in the next century, fast and graceful spaceships will fly to the nearest constellations. The astronauts on board will observe through their windows not the planet Earth, but the entire solar system. They will see her in the form of a distant, bright star. But this will not be the cold, soulless shine of one of the countless suns of the Galaxy, but the native radiance of the Sun, around which Mother Earth will revolve as an invisible, soul-warming speck of dust.

Very soon, the dreams of science fiction writers, reflected in their works, will become an ordinary everyday reality, and a walk along the Milky Way will become a rather boring and tedious activity, like, for example, a trip in a subway car from one end of Moscow to the other.