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Comments on some of the odd stuff which comes into my life. I honestly don't see why people find this interesting, but clearly they do.

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Earth-like planet discovered (05:14)

New extra-solar planets are being found on a regular basis, to the extent that they no longer make headlines, or in many cases print in the popular press. But discovery of a planet of Earth-like size and temperature, especially only 20 light years away, has interesting possibilities for both communication and better investigation by current and future tool. For instance, observation by multiple telescopes can now be merged to give pictures better than any available from a single telescope. Combine that with Earth's orbit, about 16 light minutes in diameter, and stereo pictures become possible. Okay, 91 millionths of a degree of separation isn't going to help a lot, but it is far better than we could get with the more distant planets found so far.

It's also interesting that with a 40 year round trip for radio communication, some form of interactive information exchange is possible, although knock-knock jokes are probably not practical unless the folks at the other end are very long-lived and patient.

[/2007/06/08] permanent link