Posted on 01/19/2016 1:30:46 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: Does the closest star to our Sun have planets? No one is sure -- but you can now follow frequent updates of a new search that is taking place during the first few months of this year. The closest star, Proxima Centauri, is the nearest member of the Alpha Centauri star system. Light takes only 4.24 years to reach us from Proxima Centauri. This small red star, captured in the center of the featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope, is so faint that it was only discovered in 1915 and is only visible through a telescope. Telescope-created X-shaped diffraction spikes surround Proxima Centauri, while several stars further out in our Milky Way Galaxy are visible in the background. The brightest star in the Alpha Centauri system is quite similar to our Sun, has been known as long as recorded history, and is the third brightest star in the night sky. The Alpha Centauri system is primarily visible from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Starting last week, the European Southern Observatory's Pale Red Dot project began investigating slight changes in Proxima Centauri to see if they result from a planet -- possibly an Earth-sized planet. Although unlikely, were a modern civilization found living on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, its proximity makes it a reasonable possibility that humanity could communicate with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA]
The ship is lost in space due to sabotage by an enemy agent, Dr. Zachary Smith, who is trapped aboard the ship at launch. Hurtling on into deep space, the Jupiter 2 crash lands on an unknown planet.
Although remote, this lost world soon becomes a stopping-off point for practically every space-traveling alien or monster in the galaxy, each episode seeing the arrival of some new visitor.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri_in_fiction#Film_and_television
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That’s supposed to be where Star Trek’s Zefram Cochran is supposed to hail from (before they altered it in “First Contact”).
Earth: hello there!
[eight years later]
Proxima Centauri: Who's this?
[eight years later]
Earth: We are Earthlings!
[eight years later]
Proxima Centauri: Who?
[eight years later]
Earth: Earthlings!!
[eight years later]
etc, etc, etc
Thrilling communications!
I remember watching the premiere, and intermittently some of the episodes (it was one I had to sneak to watch). Poor substitute for Star Trek. :') When the 'reboot' movie didn't result in sequels or a new TV series, I was pretty glad about it.
Yup, and the role was recast, using the real-life goofball James Cromwell, who’d been in a TNG episode, hmm, can’t remember, undermotivated to look it up. There was ‘super-soldier’ who’d broken out of custody and was in the process of raising (in effect) an army of gladiators to overthrow Cromwell’s gov’t.
http://www.google.com/search?q=James+Cromwell+protests&spell=1&ie=UTF-8
40 Eridani A/Epsilon Eridanii, location of the Planet Vulcan.
From the 1970s -- Thomas J Gold: "But I am not really willing to accept your premise, because it may well be that the means of communications they have are of a kind that we do not know how to receive, and that they would not have the means of communicating with sufficiently powerful radio or optical signals. That is something which, technologically, is too difficult for them but they would have some other means we would not recognize." and "What we can conclude from this is that we must think very widely as to what it takes to develop intelligence and not take us so much as a model of what is necessary." [Communication with Extraterrestial Intelligence, p 123; Sagan editor -- CETI was the old acronym]
I thought Lost In Space was a very funny and entertaining series, as ridiculously silly as most of the episodes were. Star Trek, which was not really meant to be funny, as LIS clearly was, was a different type of thing. I like and watch both still to this day.
LiS had that same kind of feel of the various classic horror series (sci-fi being part of the horror genre) like Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Land of the Giants, The Invaders, ST; it wound up being more of a send-up, perhaps due to its budget. Comparisons to the near-contemporary Gilligan’s Island were obvious.
Looks like it’s coming back, btw:
http://deadline.com/2015/11/lost-in-space-tv-series-remake-netflix-1201587644/
Well, it did in the beginning with the B/W episodes of season 1. Got pretty far out later on in seasons 2 and 3. I've read that this had to do with them competing with the then very popular 'cartoon-like' Batman series.
Actually, that one is from the horsehead nebula, I do believe.
I didn’t realize until now that you meant they’re planning on doing a remake of the LiS TV series. The movie looked so completely different than the original TV show I didn’t even consider going to see it, or looking for it on the internet since. This, like nearly every such remake, will more than likely also suck. But I’ll definitely check it out to see. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong. Thanks for the link.
http://deadline.com/2015/11/lost-in-space-tv-series-remake-netflix-1201587644/
“A film reboot of the show hit the screen in 1998 but wasn’t well received by critics, even though it performed moderately well at the box office. One criticism that consistently plagued the film was that it had gotten too serious and stepped too far away from the camp and banter of the original series, so the creators of the new Netflix take have a fine line to walk.
Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the series or indicate when it might premiere.”
http://www.cnet.com/news/lost-in-space-series-reboot-coming-to-netflix/
Cromwell is a good actor, but it was a terrible casting choice. Add to that in First Contact the notion of some poor refugee camp during a post-apocalyptic (WW3) period launching a light-speed repurposed missile was beyond ludicrous. TOS got it right that Cochrane would’ve been an astronaut/scientist working for a NASA-type agency (hence the uniform he wore).
The premiere ep of LiS was top-notch sci-fi with a purely evil Dr. Smith. If they kept it in that vein, it would’ve remained an excellent series. Alas, it descended into kiddy comedy/caricature.
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