Sadly, some moron from CNET trying to be funny [I think.] seems to be as close to the voice of reason as we're gonna get on this story, kiddies.
The sad self-obsession surrounding NASA's Kepler-22b discovery
Here we are, burning up our planet until it is a wasteland fit only for Denzel Washington.
Yet the minute we discover that there might exist another place out there whose average temperature is 72 degrees, we get all excited that it's "another Earth."
We don't even say "another San Diego," which seems more approximate to that average temperature than, say, New Jersey. No, we're excited because there might be more people like us out there. Or, perhaps, because there might be somewhere to which we can escape when we finally blow up this little place.
In case you have spent the last 24 hours staring into the mirror and wondering about buying yourself plastic surgery for Christmas, NASA today unveiled the discovery of Kepler-22b, a planet that might house water and therefore might house life as we know it.
With a tiny leap of logic, we are therefore forced to imagine that we might have found our twin.I know that the current Facebook fun has encouraged so many people to trawl its pages in the hope of finding someone who looks exactly like them. But why are we so obsessed about finding a planet--and, therefore, people--just like us?
Personally, I am faintly tired of people just like us. I would dearly love to communicate and commune with entities that have 10 limbs, 15 methods of sound and vision, and no such thing as hockey.
I want to meet beings who know that Buddha was a bit of a fantasist and that this earth is fourteen eons backward compared to the hundreds of other civilizations that spend their days making sure they never get too close to this one.
I want to listen to other-worldly beings laugh at us and our pathetic, counter-productive ways. I want to learn how beings out there can make themselves entirely invisible and never even contemplate becoming a Kardashian. I want to hear them guffaw at the notion that we would dare to call a planet 600 light years from us "another Earth."
The notion that Kepler-22b is "another Earth" is surely as valuable as the notion that pink is the new black. Or that Justin Bieber is the new Van Morrison.
How sad that we would wish to look at discovery through out own narrow prism, instead of wondering just what forms of "life" beyond ours might exist in worlds beyond ours.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
The racists at Space.com discover the vacuity that haunts the White [Racist.] House:
Monster Black Holes Are Most Massive Ever Discovered
Hee-hee. "Holes". Get it?
And finally, the latest news about everybody's third-favorite prop from the Star Trek franchise.
Voyager 1 enters new region at solar system's edge
More than three decades after launching, NASA's workhorse spacecraft is inching closer to leaving the solar system behind.
Currently 11 billion miles away from the sun, Voyager 1 has been exploring the fringes of the solar system since 2004. Scientists said Monday the spacecraft has entered a new region in the solar system that they have dubbed the "stagnation zone."
Voyager 1 still has a little way to go before it completely exits the solar system and becomes the first man-made probe to cross into interstellar space, or the vast space between stars.
The spacecraft has enough battery power to last until 2020, but scientists think it will reach interstellar space before that — in a matter of several months to years.
Chief scientist Ed Stone of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the timing is unclear because no spacecraft has ever ventured this far.
"The journey continues," Stone told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
For the past year, Voyager 1 used its instruments to explore the new region. It appeared to be the cosmic doldrums where solar winds streaming out from the sun at 1 million mph have dramatically eased and high-energy particles from outside are seeping in — a sign that Voyager 1 is at the doorstep of interstellar space.
Scientists expect to see several telltale signs when Voyager 1 finally crosses the boundary including a change in the magnetic field direction and the type of wind. Interstellar wind is slower, colder and denser than solar wind.
Even with certain expectations, Stone warned that the milestone won't be cut-and-dried.
"We will be confused when it first happens," Stone said.
Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977 to tour the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. After their main mission ended, both headed toward interstellar space in opposite directions. Voyager 2 is travelling slower than Voyager 1 and is currently 9 billion away miles from the sun.
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