Just as things are starting to get seriously crowded here on planet Earth, NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered the first super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. The host star lies about 600 light-years away from us toward the constellations of Lyra and Cygnus. The star, a G5 star, has a mass and a radius only slightly smaller than that of our Sun, a G2 star.Some are caught up in the scientific wonder of this discovery, but there are already many articles discussing whether this poor, innocent planet will be humankind's next home. They' re very catchily calling this apparently balmy world Kepler-22b, though I'm sure enterprising real estate agents will come up with something more appealing when they start to flog off subdivisions in a year or two. They'll probably advertise plots as 'supersized lots on a super-world for the super-people of the future', and heavily promote the image of moving to another planet as a trendy alternative lifestyle choice that guarantees peace, quiet, happiness, contentment and suitable neighbours. And then there's that word 'balmy' that they keep using. Any time you use the word 'balmy' you're bound to get hordes of tourists and all the glitzy paraphanalia of tourism. If you hurry, maybe you can beat the crowds.
My guess is that they'll probably end up calling Kepler-22b 'Paradise' or 'Pandora' or some such thing.
Watch out universe, here we come!
2 comments:
I was driving past a travel agent at Rosanna today and noticed they had a sign in the window saying they have sold two space trips.
Maybe someone's got twenty thousand years or so to spare and has set off for Keppler-22b.
Cool! I wonder how much the tickets cost.
That said, Rosanna is, of course, famous for its contributions to the colonisation of outer space.
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