drag to look around
Why I'm doing this
I'm Preet. I love looking at the night sky, and I watch a lot of sci-fi. At some point I started wondering: could someone like me actually find something new up there?
A star that changes and nobody noticed. A planet. Maybe one day even a sign of life. Probably not life, if I'm honest. But who knows, and that's exactly what makes it exciting.
Movies vs. the real thing
in the movies
- A starship
- A beep on a screen
- Someone whispers “we're not alone”
in real life
- A laptop
- A graph that dips by one percent
- Weeks of checking I'm not fooling myself
So before I looked at anything, I wrote down strict rules. If I ever say I found something, I want it to be true. Read the rules
How old is the light?
Light takes time to get here. On this line, every step of the same length is ten times farther away.
You, tonight
Looking up.
1.3 light-seconds
The Moon
About a second ago.
8.3 light-minutes
The Sun
Eight minutes ago. Long enough to make a cup of tea.
4 light-hours
Neptune
The farthest planet we have. Four hours.
4.2 light-years
Proxima Centauri
The closest star after the Sun. Its light left in 2022.
300 to 3,000 light-years
The stars I'm checking
Most of this light left before anyone on Earth had a telescope.
26,000 light-years
The middle of our galaxy
This light left when people were painting on cave walls.
What I can and can't find
- Stars that change brightness in ways nobody has written down yet
- Two stars orbiting each other
- A star that pulses
- With some luck, a planet
- Life. Not directly.
Things I wonder about
- How many of the stars I can see tonight have planets nobody knows about?
- If someone out there were watching our Sun, would they spot Earth the same way?
- Can a regular person with free data add one true thing to what we know?