The Most Exciting Thing Ever

IN 1995, THE FIRST PLANET was discovered outside our very own solar system, verified, and confirmed. Since then the pace of new planetary discoveries has increased steadily, and now, the smallest planet ever found has been.

This one is about the size of the moon, and has a surface temperature of 700 degrees, no air, no water, so probably no life. And that's cool. Can't expect to find life everytime you look. What is exciting is our ability to see small planets far away, and to be able to determine their temperature, and whether they have air and water. If we can do that, and we obviously can, we can do anything.

Much of it is being done with the Kepler telescope which is in orbit around the earth, and has been since 2009. The telescope isn't actually all that big, and it would/will be possible to put bigger and better telescopes in space.

the more the merrier, the bigger the better. the reason being, there seems to be no limit to the universe, for all practical purposes, with a hundred billion stars in our own galaxy, and billions of other galaxies. It very strongly appears that just about every star has planets!

Every star we look at, we now see planets orbiting it. This is incredibly exciting, more exciting than anything else happening on this planet, exceptt maybe the Sequester.  So, what we need is many more telescopes in space, as big as possible. We could see the whole universe, even if we don't travel around in it much, which, it is to be hoped, we will, sooner rather than later.

Its getting to the point now where anybody with a computer can help find new planets, by working with the planet finder folks. Directing an inquiry to NASA might prove informative in learning exactly how to do this.

Also, of course, anyone with a computer can, from the comfort of his or her own home, contribute to the process of listening for signals from intelligent life anywhere and everywhere except this planet, where such a thing is least likely to be found, anyway. Again, inquire at NASA.

What with all these planets being found daily, can intelligent life be far behind? If this aint the most exciting thing ever, danged if i know what is. Well, other than the Great American Sequester Squabble (GASS). Now that's a gas, just like searching for intelligent life, somewhere, anywhere...