Another exciting new triumph of astronomy discovery in a long while: scientists found a planet 20.5 lightyears away which may be suitable for earth beings. There may even be water there. I am skeptical. We are not even sure what's on Mars. Manned mission to our neighbor Mars is still far away if not impossible. So don't even imagine landing on that planet until science fictional items such as beaming by Scotty is real.
Planets are hard to detect. After all, they don't give off light like stars. Even our own planets in the solar system is hard to detect. Astronomers spent countless sleepless nights to track the stars. Even Mars is unthinkably faraway in human terms. Much of what we know about planets and stars come from analyzing the light we detected, and that is hardcore science that is probably more than a typical science fiction fan can handle.
Look folks, we are talking lightyears. If anything we detected from the planet it is 20.5 years old. Even if it blows up we won't know about it until 20.5 years later. Even at earth we have timezone differences, it is hard to understand the concept of time isn't it?
No one's life time is long enough to reach there even if you have infinite fuel. But wait, time may slow down if you reach close to speed of light. But in reality, what can come to even close of speed of light? Time is actually a difficult concept.
Scientists can even tell you how big is the mass of the new discovered planet compared to our Earth. How do we even measure the mass of our own planet? let alone a planet lightyears away? It is by calculating gravity. It is fairly amazing that we know so much about our universe given we are puny little beings. There is still a lot to be learned about our universe.
Space is the final frontier.
2 comments:
I was brainwashed by the egg shaped planeterium in Hong Kong and the Gundam series. I thought going to space is cool, living in the moon is a possibility in the future.
Communication satellites are fantastic things. Airplanes are amazing things, but going to Mars? pointless. I really don't care if there is water on Mars.
Other planets are just too damn far away. There are too many people who live in poverty on earth, use that money to buy them some food and dig some wells please.
Fix the earth!
Space is cool, way cool because it tells you there are worlds beyond our little blue planet. We are SO small, even in our own solar system.
Yes, life on earth is higher priority. But yikes all the rocket scientists would be out of work if we stop exploring the final frontier.
Politicians use space programs to demonstrate power. The first Russian satellite Spuntik caused a huge American freak out in the 60s so Kennedy vowed to put a man on the room. Tight schedules have caused a space shuttle to blow up.
I wish the rocket scientists switch interest to fix the earth instead.
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