A Home Away from Home?

Well, it's about time isn't it.
Sorry for the delay. I'm almost done with student teaching. Normally I would have neglected this blog another day or week (or month or...) because I have soooooo much shit to do, but then I saw this.

We finally did it. After a million years of looking at the stars wondering if there was anywhere like Earth out there we actually have the definitive answer, "Yes, there is." It just took us awhile to find it.

See the problem with astronomy is it works really well on a large scale. Humans are pretty unsophisticated when it comes to looking for things. If it's big and it's bright we'll see it and go, "Coooool. Look I found a star 500 times the size of our sun!" Actually there are quite a few of those but that's another post for another time. Looking for something the size of the Earth takes some modifications to how one traditionally does astronomy. But ever since we discovered how exactly to look correctly (see here if you desire further explanation) we have found about 227 extra solar planets. Looks like number 228 was the kicker.

A lot of people who are closed-minded idiots might tell you that finding a planet like Earth is a one in a trillion chance. They say that there are too many factors for Earth to just have "happened by chance." Notice this leads one to look to a higher power for an explanation about why Earth is just right for us. That's not the case at all. Earth isn't one in a trillion. It's one in 228. I like those odds.

Now i've just got to find a way to get there. It's about 20 light years away. So if we figure a light year is about 5,879,000,000,000 miles and the space shuttle can go 17,321 miles per hour it should only take me 774,919 years to fly there.

Hmmm, maybe I won't be taking a vacation anytime soon.