Prelude to the Final Frontier

I am going to say sorry in advance for the extreme geekiness of the forthcoming post. I read in the news this morning that scientists found an earth-like planet (Gliese 581 e) somewhere in the Libran constellation. It is the right size, although it is too near the sun-like star and most likely to be too hot to support life. But what caught my fascination is its neighboring planet, Gliese 581 d, which is larger but is in the habitable zone. Its distance from the star it orbits is just far enough for liquid to be water. Scientists even said that it is plausible that this planet has a big and deep ocean, and stating that it is the first serious candidate for a true-to-life water-world.

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Now, the movie Waterworld sucked with a capital Y. But imagine! Just let those fantastic brain cells do the Imagineering for you!

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If Earth finally reaches its last perilous leg, off-planet habitation may become a reality. Of course, we won’t see it in our life time. But maybe in the future, our kid’s kids will be placed in spacecrafts to make a travel a hundred thousand years long and they will live inside that spaceship and they will die in that spaceship until finally our kid’s kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ (you get the idea) will finally reach the final destination. And they’d scuba all day long and wear shiny suits to protect skin from water. And maybe if they wander around, they’ll find land inhabited by strange creatures. It’ll be the Modern Paleozic era, if you can see the beauty in that.

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To check out the article, click here:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet