Space Galaxy & Frontiers

<p>Our small place in space &mdash; this planet Earth &mdash; together with Sun and<br/>other planets of our solar system and their many moons is located about<br/>two-thirds from the center of the disk-shaped galaxy that we know as the<br/>Milky Way. When we look toward its center on a clear night what we see is<br/>the faint luminosity of billions of stars that make up this galaxy.<br/>There are other galaxies too far away that look to our naked eyes just<br/>like any other star. But they too contain billions of stars. From our vantage<br/>point on Earth orbiting a rather insignificant star that we call Sun located<br/>in the Milky Way Galaxy in one of its many solar systems &mdash; we gaze in<br/>wonder.<br/>At last I have come to that stage in life and career that I can put aside<br/>the urge to understand some little details however fundamental they may be<br/>in the edifice of a particular science &mdash; in my case nuclear and astrophysics<br/>&mdash; and look to the grander scale of our place in the universe with its Sun<br/>and planets and their many moons stretching far away. I tell too the story<br/>of life its needs and vicissitudes on Earth and in its seas as well as other<br/>possible habitable zones on other planets and on the larger moons of some<br/>of them.&nbsp;</p>