The Earth is old. Far older than we can imagine. It has a history of life we've only glimpsed here and there from fossil records and other clues. It was here long before we came, and will be here long after we're gone. There's no better reminder of this than seeing how vulnerable life on the planet really is. This week's Science Weekend Warrior is all about appreciating life on Earth.

On the fourth of July, there will be more than just fireworks in the night sky. On July 4 and the following days after that, Saturn, Mars, and our very own Moon will be doing the cha-cha in the West sky, with the constellation of Leo providing the dancefloor. Details and sky maps in the full article.

The cosmos is rife with wonders that have been discovered and that have yet to be discovered. One example is the former is NCG 6188. Don't let its scientific sounding name fool you. A photograph of this emission nebula reveals it to be more beautiful than its name lets on. View the picture in the full article after the jump.

Few would argue that there are lots of beautiful sights to see in outer space. In fact, one such cosmic wonder is known as the Fox Fur Nebula, which was viewed through the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). Check out the nebula in the full article, after the jump, why don't you?

A new rocky type planet found in the Leo constellation was identified as the fourth super-sized version of Earth to be discovered by scientists. Dubbed GH 436c, the planet boasts a relatively longer rotation and orbit around its host star compared to Earth. You can read further details about the new planet in our full article after the jump.

After showing you a solar tsunami as it occurs, we bring you this horse-shaped image from your left. See it? That's the Horsehead Nebula from the Orion constellation. Using only a small telescope, the Star Shadows Remote Observatory from New Mexico, USA was able to photograph its entire surroundings. Head over the full article to see the Horsehead Nebula in its fullest majesty.

Back in 1999, Comet Holmes was too small for the Hubble telescope to measure. One night, the comet suddenly brightened over a million-fold in a single day with a debris cloud measuring 1.4 million kilometers, only slightly larger than our own sun. What caused this sudden eruption of dust and light? Unfortunately, Hubble still doesn't have the answers. Check the full article for more details.

  

Galaxy Messier 81 is a spiral galaxy, much like our very own Milky Way, located 11.6 million light years away. The Hubble Space Telescope of NASA recently took high resolution image captures of M81. And through a series of collaborating space observatories around the globe, they were able to collect new information regarding the mysterious galaxy not very dissimilar from our own.

"The view we have of M81 is similar to what an astronomer in Andromeda would see if they looked at the Milky Way," explained Andreas Zezas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It's also surprising that the Hubble, named after Edwin Hubble who first discerned that the stars in Andromeda marked the galaxy distinct from our own, repeated such a feat 80 years after, with a galaxy five times farther away.

 

If fact, NASA pegs M81 as one of the brightest galaxies that can be viewed from Earth. With a penchant for discerning colors and lights, star gazers could find the Milky Way look-alike high up in the northern sky close to the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It's obliquely angled to the Milky Way, so much of the galaxy is viewable.

Click on Full Article to get a more detailed image of the galaxy and find out more of M81.

Far-out. Strange. Weird. It's what astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts think of their newest find, the planet HAT-P-2b, the second planet found with the HATnet global network of automated telescopes, as Kate Ravilious of National Geographic News reports.

The superdense gas giant, spotted 440 light-years away in the constellation Hercules, astounded astronomers by not only being the largest planet found so far, but by having a plethora of features so unique that those who have been studying it up to now can't stop talking about how weird it is.

In a statement given to National Geographic, Center of Astrophysics Gaspar Bakos had this to say:
"This planet is so unusual that at first we thought it was a false alarm—something that appeared to be a planet but wasn't. But we eliminated every other possibility, so we knew we had a really weird planet."

So what's really weird about HAT-P-2b anyhow? Well, for starters, its gravity is fifteen times stronger than that of our planet's, which would mean walking around with fifteen times your own body weight. Second, temperatures in HAT-P-2b can reach up from 1000° to 2000ºC, which is pretty hot. Third, a year on HAT-P-2b equals less than six days on Earth (Birthday parties every week! Yay!). Fourth, it's slightly bigger than Jupiter, but eight times as dense - and weighs just as much as 2,500 Earths.

But that's not really weird, you say, when you take into consideration that they're other planets, hence they're not really 'ordinary'. It's not just those factoids that have the astronomers over at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center all starry-eyed, though - it's HAT-P-2b's unusual boomerang orbit that's got their attention. To wit - HAT-P-2b closes to within 3.1 million miles (that's 5 million kilometers) of its star before swinging out to around 9.6 million miles (15 million kilometers) away, all in the span of 5.6 days. Now THAT's weird.

Despite all the weirdness, however, the boys in white may have an answer - another planet, hiding in the shadows of space, could be causing HAT-P-2b's elliptical orbit. "It is possible that [HAT-P-2b] is interacting with another planet further out that we haven't seen," Bakos says.

 

If you like star gazing and mythology (like this writer), then you're going to enjoy this one. The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, have been captured in infrared by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Take out your telescopes and binoculars.

If you're not so into the heavenly bodies geekiness, a bit of a primer. In mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Pleione and Atlas, the titan: Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. Now, when Atlas was asked to carry the sky on his shoulders, the hunter Orion started pursuing the Pleiades. King of the gods Zeus stepped in and turned them into doves - when that didn't work, he turned them into a cluster of stars.

That cluster of stars is on the constellation Taurus and they're going to be very visible in the night sky, both for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. A couple of days back, they shone just above Venus (it's like they're having a photoshoot). On April 19, the crescent moon will join them and cut in between the Pleiades and Venus. The heavenly show will also be visible to the naked eye on clear nights.

The picture on the left is the one taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The yellow, green and red in the background of the stars is made up of dust. The star cluster travels through cloud that may explain the dust. The parent star Atlas is also visible in the picture along with other stars in blue.

The Spitzer also gathered some data on "brown dwarfs" or failed stars plus some planetary debris. The telescope gives astronomers a better view of cooler, smaller stars and lets them study the faint stars better. (Of course if the star has lower mass and cooler, it is less visible.) According to John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission, the Pleiades are perfect for the study of the evolution of stars.