Well, not really. It’s twice as big as earth.
Close enough, I guess.
Ahem:
HATFIELD, England — Scientists have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is close to Earth in size— far different from the behemoths previously detected, researchers said Tuesday.
Well. Different in size.
Scientists attending a conference in England said that the planet was less than twice the size of Earth. Nearly 350 so-called exoplanets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one has been too close or too far from its sun, making all too hot or too cold to support life.
Now, this is what really annoys me about scientists. Their frickin’ punctiliousness makes in damned near impossible for them to think creatively about anything. They all just assume that the only kind of life the universe is capable of harboring has to be in the same furking temperature range as our own little ball of mud, because . . . well, just because.
Massive planets are more likely to be uninhabitable gas giants like Jupiter.
Nonsense. Massive planets, non-gaseous ones, that is, are just as likely to be inhabitable as any other size of planet. If it gets solid enough for a biped to stand on it, eventually the Life Carriers will put’em on it. What is unusual about them however, is their stronger gravity; which might make their inhabitants wee little people;
Gadzooks! It sure is hot up here.
you know, like any number of close encounters with visitors have already observed. Conversely, worlds decidedly smaller than ours would tend to spawn giants. Like, tall aliens.
Planets much smaller than earth are very difficult to detect.
Uh, right now.
The new planet is the smallest exoplanet yet discovered, but it is probably too hot for human life because it sits very close to the sun-like star it orbits, researcher Michel Mayor said.
Really? Researcher Mayor said the little planet “sits”? And she said, “. . .sun-like star”??
Bwahaha. Nothing “sits” in the universe. It’s ALL moving at remarkable velocities.
And all stars are not like suns; they are suns. Even I know that.
Again. As if “human life” is the only kind of sentient creature life in the vastness of space. Hasn’t Researcher Mayor ever watched a gnarly sci-fi flick?
The planet has been affectionately named “COROT-Exo-7b,” after the European space telescope “CoRoT”— (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits). Exo-7b completes an orbit around its star every 20 hours. That makes the “years” fly by at an insane rate, and that’s as much a determiner for the evolution of life as proximity to the star.
The NASA Kepler mission (see a video here) was our own little project to discover exoplanets; the European Space Agency (ESA) and other international partners including Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Brazil launced the CoRoT telescope on December 27th, 2006, with a Russian Soyuz 2.1b carrier rocket.
Anyway.
Always remember to
