solar systems

our solar system is a pretty cool place. not only does it harbour the only life that we know to exist in the universe.... it has lots of planets, moons and millions of asteroids and comets. this is one reason that the recent discovery of the most earth-like planet found yet (see a great discussion by phil plait, the bad astronomer) is exciting!

regardless of the way we've adopted to define a planet in our own solar system, there are lots of BIG objects in it! check out this cool site to see all known objects in our solar system bigger than 200 miles across!.


and somehow i'd never noticed this before... hee hee... but saturn's moon, mimas, looks amazingly like a certain sci-fi famous... death star... eventhough this image of mimas wasnt captured until many many years after the release of star wars