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Sorry, you can’t yet go to that place in a galaxy far, far away. You still have to pay your taxes, take out the garbage and fret about how your favorite professional sports franchise will underperform.
It’s 2013, and we’re still earthbound. But many astronomers say they’re confident that sometime this year, they’ll find one or more alternative Earths circling some homey star out there in the cosmos — maybe not even all that far from us, as light-years go.
The planets must lie within the so-called “Goldilocks zone” around a star similar to our own — not too hot, not too cold to allow water to exist and thus be able to sustain life. Assorted ground- and space-based telescopes have been turning up planets beyond our solar system for nearly 20 years. About 900 have been confirmed so far, but most are many times larger than Earth.
One group of scientists recently noted a planet five times bigger than ours lies in the habitable zone of a star called Tau Ceti 12 light-years away, or a mere 72 trillion miles.
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has identified 2,300 potential planets. A new analysis by astronomers at Caltech reached a conservative estimate of 100 billion planets in our own Milky Way galaxy. Perhaps one in 10,000 is similar in size and makeup to Earth.
So it seems likely that there are quite a few Earth-like planets out there capable of hosting alien life of some sort, maybe intelligent alien life. We’ll probably never know about that in our lifetimes, because it takes radio and television signals as long as light to travel across space. What our signals carry may or may not inspire any neighbors to get in touch.
— Scripps Howard News Service
Opinion
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Other Views: Anybody out there?
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Communication failures and the lack of a clear mission have given rise to turmoil and discord at Missouri Southern State University. The antidote to this is openness, frankness and the articulation of a well-defined purpose as the school moves forward.
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Your View: Finding audience for Bard
It was interesting to see Globe columnist Mike Pound’s recollection of college studies of the Bard of Avon in association with the upcoming production of “Macbeth.”
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Your View: Shifting opinions
I have a suggestion for a Joplin Globe feature. Reprint all the letters and columns from years past that were in favor of the Patriot Act and how people who showed any concern over it “wanted the terrorists to win.”
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James Whitford, guest columnist: New definition needed
I remember meeting a man on the main road through Fond Parisien, a small community on the eastern side of Haiti.
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Our View: Connecting the town
Well before the 2011 tornado, Joplin had a problem with “connectivity.” That’s right. The flow of traffic — whether it be cars, pedestrians or bicyclists — has been a sore spot with us for years.
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Your View: Bold leadership needed
Dear City Council Members, Let me first thank you for your service to our community.
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Other Views: Debt of honor
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have promised to kill Afghans who worked for the Americans and their families. In Iraq, similar threats were made by radical Islamic insurgents.
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Herb Van Fleet, guest columnist: Big Brother is always watching and listening
Sen. Church made that statement 38 years ago. He chaired a committee that was formed to develop legislation to rein in the CIA, FBI, NSA and other intelligence agencies, which had been operating outside the bounds of the law, including the Constitution.
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Geoff Caldwell, guest columnist: Jury still out on whistle-blower’s actions
Whether you see Edward Snowden as a hero, a traitor or something in between, there is no denying that the admitted “leaker” has opened up an industrial-size can of National Security Agency worms.
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Trish Patton, guest columnist: Downtown group needs stakeholders' support
On Tuesday the Downtown Joplin Alliance (DJA) tabled the Community Improvement District (CID) initiative.
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