[Red Badger]

This whimsical cartoon shows the three newly discovered extrasolar planets (right) casting shadows on their host star that can been seen as eclipses, or transits, at Earth (left). Earth can be detected by the same effect, but only in the plane of Earth's orbit (the ecliptic). During the K2 mission, many of the extrasolar planets discovered by the Kepler telescope will have this lucky double cosmic alignment that would allow for mutual discovery—if there is anyone on those planets to discover Earth. The three new planets orbiting EPIC 201367065 are just out of alignment; while they are visible from Earth, our solar system is tilted just out of their view. Credit: K. Teramura, UH IfA.

[Red Badger]

Space ping!......................

[McGruff]

Wonder if they will will be watching the State of the Union speech tonight. If so, someone needs tell them it’s not a comedy.

[cicero2k]

“We’ve learned in the past year that planets the size and temperature of Earth are common in our Milky Way galaxy,”

And the drumbeat of our demotion continues.

Starting with Galileo during the Renaissance, the discovery of DNA in the 1950s, and now this.

[b4its2late]

Neat stuff

[TexasCajun]

This will only confuse those QVC shopping channel hosts who couldn’t decide if our own moon was a star or planet.

[brownsfan]

These planets are found by inference, not direct observation. With all the global warming hysteria, I’ve lost a lot of confidence in the fidelity of our current scientific community.

[Cry if I Wanna]

The outermost planet orbits in the "Goldilocks" zone, a region where surface temperatures could be moderate enough for liquid water and perhaps life, to exist.

While Earth is certainly in a Goldilocks zone, we have many other things in our favor. For one, the massive planet Jupiter is relatively close, and its gravity keeps most asteroid's from hitting Earth. Earth-like planets in Goldilocks zones may have nice temperatures but the constant asteroid collisions could make life unlikely except for the tiniest of creatures.

[rdl6989]

back to the top

[Repeal 16-17]

So should we force Liberals to move to one of those planets or should we move ourselves?

[TigersEye]

Fire up the rockets! No liberals allowed. Stowaway libs will be jettisoned in deep space.

[backwoods-engineer]

150 LY away? We have no HOPE of ever getting there to verify. At least it’s conceivable that we might someday send a probe to Proxima Centauri. It’d take centuries to get there, but at least it’s possible. 150 LY away? No.