WHAT ARE THE CHANCES ?..
High degree of excitement for cosmologists when NASA announce this afternoon that they may have found a replica Earth in a far corner of our galaxy. The Kepler Space probe has been searching for planets like our Earth in the `Goldilocks` zone - neither to hot nor too cold so life might be sustained - and has so far discovered at least 4,000 candidates.
Problem is that the most likely candidate for being a replica of Planet Earth, called Kepler186f in the constellation of Cygnus, is 2939 trillion miles away or 500 light years, which means that the light we see from it now left there 500 years ago. But if it turns out to be exactly like Earth then I wonder what the chances are that, right now, some septuagenarian crank is busy typing away up there on his ageing key board and speculating whether there`s anyone out there.
Wouldn`t surprise me.
Problem is that the most likely candidate for being a replica of Planet Earth, called Kepler186f in the constellation of Cygnus, is 2939 trillion miles away or 500 light years, which means that the light we see from it now left there 500 years ago. But if it turns out to be exactly like Earth then I wonder what the chances are that, right now, some septuagenarian crank is busy typing away up there on his ageing key board and speculating whether there`s anyone out there.
Wouldn`t surprise me.
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