with planets in the habitable zone -- Kepler 62.
It occurs to me that even having to ask the question of whether there are other planets in the universe that can support life reveals a tremendously self-absorbed world view. Offhand, I can't think of any reason to suppose that there aren't. It's sort of exciting to have it confirmed, but really, what did anyone expect? I know, I'm dealing with meta-text here -- the assumptions underlying the story. I also realize that not everyone thinks that way, but too many do, particularly in this country. If you go to the comments at the article, someone else also brought that up.
Question of the day: What happened to Kepler-62a?
Via Anel Viz at Nick's Place.
(Footnote: Sorry about the size of the image. Blogger seems to have decided on a one-size-fits-all policy for jpegs, and I can't figure out a way to resize it. Even if I change the size on the file, it still crams it into that itty bitty format.)
The Kepler Space Telescope has been in orbit looking for planets around other stars since 2009, and it's started to find some startlingly interesting solar systems out there.
Today, the Kepler team announced the discovery of star system Kepler 62, a group of five planets circling a red star, two of which may be capable of supporting life. That doubles the number of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone that Kepler has confirmed in the cosmos. And they're the smallest, and therefore closest to Earth size, that astronomers have detected. The system is 1,200 light years away.
It occurs to me that even having to ask the question of whether there are other planets in the universe that can support life reveals a tremendously self-absorbed world view. Offhand, I can't think of any reason to suppose that there aren't. It's sort of exciting to have it confirmed, but really, what did anyone expect? I know, I'm dealing with meta-text here -- the assumptions underlying the story. I also realize that not everyone thinks that way, but too many do, particularly in this country. If you go to the comments at the article, someone else also brought that up.
Question of the day: What happened to Kepler-62a?
Via Anel Viz at Nick's Place.
(Footnote: Sorry about the size of the image. Blogger seems to have decided on a one-size-fits-all policy for jpegs, and I can't figure out a way to resize it. Even if I change the size on the file, it still crams it into that itty bitty format.)
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