The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! The time for a close encounter of the third kind is getting nearer and nearer. For years mankind has speculated about another species similar to man, living on another planet somewhere in the universe. As each year passes that dream is closer to becoming a real possibility.
Most people are not getting as excited as I am, but I just found out that there are now over 300 new planets that have been discovered in the past twelve years. They are not planets in our solar system but they are planets in other systems in the galaxy called exoplanets.
For most of my life I was taught there were only nine planets. Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter have been know since classical times as they are visible to the naked eye. The invention of the telescope uncovered Uranus and Neptune and for about eighty years we welcomed Pluto into the club. Pluto has since had its membership revoked but we have been discovering new planets outside of our solar system at a rate of twenty or thirty a year.
About 330 exoplanets have been discovered thus far. Most of these new planets however have been very different in their composition than Earth. This January the COROT space telescope found a unique planet 390 light years away from Earth with many similarities to Earth. It has been appropriately christened COROT-Exo-7b.
In March 2009, NASA will launch the Kepler telescope designed to focus on searching for planets in habitable zones of space where the temperatures on the planet might support liquid water and where it might be possible to sustain life. The search for another life form is getting very focused, very quickly!
For the past two or three thousand years we have been stuck with only eight known planets, but in the past twelve years we are now aware of over 300. How long can it be before someone hits the jackpot and discovers a planet similar to our Earth with the possibility of sustaining a life form?
It won’t be long before someone starts selling tickets for the First Alien Encounter Barbecue and Dance!
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