10 Remarkable Exoplanets

From a planetary perspective, there's no place like home -- as far as we know, at least. Earth has everything we need to thrive: a breathable atmosphere, a plentiful water supply and a temperate climate. But that hasn't stopped us from looking for other intriguing interstellar planets, some of which we might even colonize in the distant future. Finding these planets, known as exoplanets since they're located outside of our solar system, is difficult work.

In January 2012, we knew of more than 700 confirmed exoplanets, quite a small number considering the billions of stars in our galaxy alone. Part of the difficulty is that we can only observe exoplanets indirectly, inferring their existence by the way they affect the stars they orbit. Still, astronomers are becoming more adept at finding exoplanets all the time.
We'll journey farther and farther away from our solar system to learn about some of the most amazing exoplanet finds.

10 Crazy Evil Spacecraft

File these fictional spacecraft under Earth's "DO NOT WANT" list, because these 10 ships are nothing short of planet-bulldozing, flesh-gorging, humanity-enslaving harbingers of extraterrestrial doom.

Doom, I say!

I know what you're thinking. You're glancing over at that Death Star picture and you're wondering, "What could possibly be worse than having your home world exploded by a planet-sized space vessel?"

As it turns out, quite a bit. Each of these malevolent starships threatens the people of Earth with a fate worse than death. The captains at the helm range from soulless machines and frosty bureaucrats to hedonistic monsters and demons from the depths of hell.

So brace yourself for some horrors -- and thank your lucky stars they're all mere figments of the cosmic imagination.