Every star has its planet; so imagine billions and billions of planets.

The closest star to the earth (not our Sun, of course) looks like it has FIVE planets, an exciting development that opens all sorts of exploration possibilities. Now scientists are saying that virtually every star has planets and that the galaxy must have many potentially habitable earth-sized planets. Not rocky, but maybe watery but it’s too soon to tell. The prediction is that this area of astronomy will be hot for quite some time and will connect with the SETI folks to identify targets to listen to for signs of intelligent life. We STILL need to find a way to get across space faster. At this rate we’ll never get anywhere. Tau Ceti is 12 light years away. A math teaser for you: solve the equation of time. Spoiler alert: it’s zero today. What’s available in the night sky this week ? Jupiter and the Moon. Also, one of the possibilities for the original Christmas star is a triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Image credit: NASA