THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220078
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Roy A. Bahls
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
DAVE MANESS, director of astronomy at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, estimates that 200 to 300 billion stars are in our Milky Way Galaxy and there are billions of other galaxies.
To put that into perspective Maness said, ``there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on every beach on our entire planet.''
Although scientists haven't actually seen any planets revolving around other stars, most expect that they are there. Many stars have a measurable wobble, like our own sun, which shows they are being acted upon by other forces.
``I feel,'' Maness said, ``that we will find more and more stars with planets around them.''
When speaking about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere, Maness said that he likes to be skeptical, but ``I think, just by chance there is.''
``I would be happy,'' he said, ``to find out that we aren't the only creatures in the universe. We could learn something to help us.''
He also pointed out the vast distances between stars and possible solar systems as a reason to doubt that we are being visited by extraterrestrials, but he likes to keep an open mind.
``I would have to shake hands with one to believe it.'' by CNB