Today, a team of scientists has reported the discovery of the lowest mass planet yet (view a news video of the discovery, or read about it here). The planet, called OGLE-2005-BGL-390Lb, is about 5 times the mass of the Earth, orbiting a star about 25,000 light years away. That’s halfway to the center of the Galaxy! So we won’t be visiting it any time soon.(link)(via)
.............................................................What?
The hype was just so over blown at this announcement. Buzz was abounds hailing that Earth II had been found... A planet with an oxygen atmosphere... A nice little planet we could all rush off to and take a fresh breath on, or find "life"... I really have to say - who cares?
I've said this before and I'll say it again: "Who Cares if we find life thousands of light years away?"
I think for some the motivation is more political than they would like to admit. They figure, find that essential microbe, or find that signal, or find that jewel in the sky that screams "LIFE" and overnight the public will start clamering the goverments of the world to get it together and spend billions for an expedition. Considering the track record NASA has with space exploration, I'd rather we didn't. Knowing how it'll work out, we'll plant a flag in the ground, do a little science, go home and pat ourselves on the back for 30+ years.
And plus, sending a few blow dried suckup cocky pilots isn't what I'd deem "space exploration..." We need colonization not more science experiments.
Don't get me wrong, it'd be pretty neat to find ET. But I think we'll need to do more than just stare through a telescope to find it... And even if we do, we'll still need a way to get there. And for right now, were stuck on this rock until we stop obsessing about bending light and get on with the business of finding a cheap way into space... Not to burst anyone's bubble, but that's the ways I sees it. Astronomers are a cool lot, but this tirade some go on I think is more of pie in the sky hope than anything.
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