MB Civic

Adam Frank at NPR .. “Welcome To The Age Of Planets”

Can you feel it? Did you mark its approach? Can you sense our passage across its threshold? Something has changed for us. Something new and remarkable has happened. We have entered the age of planets and, even if you can’t see it now, nothing will ever be the same

Michael Ledmonick at Time Mag .. “New Earth Found?” ..

Joining Kepler 22b, is a list of 1,094 brand-new planet candidates found so far by the satellite, raising the grand total of probable exoplanets to a staggering 2,326 .. While Kepler hasn’t found a true Mirror Earth yet, the sheer number of likely worlds out there makes that only a matter of time

Tom Chivers at The Telegraph, “Why do these planets get such dull names?”

What happened to Pandora, or Arakis, or Hoth or Tatooine? Star Wars gives us Coruscant and Endor: reality burdens us with HD 85512 and Gliese 581d

and Carl Franzen at Talking Points Memo .. Kepler-22b To Get Its Close Up Summer 2012 ..

what is the composition of the planet’s surface? Is it rocky, primarily liquid, or gaseous .. scientists will have a better idea come summer 2012, when the Kepler field is once again visible to ground-based observatories .. “If we get a mass, we can combine it with the measured diameter of Kepler-22b to get a density from which we can guess at the planet’s composition” wrote Nick Gautier, a Kepler Project Scientist

just in time for the new Spielberg summer blockbuster!! – mab