(H2O: the final frontier)
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Look! Up in the sky! There’s a whole new planet! But look hard, because it’s fifty light years from here.
And what’s really gotten the science community buzzing is that the new planet has water … a substance already available at every 7-Eleven store on this planet … which makes the new place the most inconvenient convenience store in the Universe.
For decades now, science has been searching for extraterrestrial water – as we all know, because the scientist-types keep reminding us, especially whenever they need more grant money. Mostly, the scientists have been focusing on Mars. (I don’t know why – maybe scientists are still embarrassed over that whole 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio panic.)
But for whatever reason, people with lots and lots of money, like NASA, SETI, and Matt Damon, have been relentlessly scraping all the topsoil off of Mars, looking for some water. Even if they did find any, I don’t know what they’d intend to do with it; all scientists agree that there’s practically no chance they’ll discover a bottle of Martian Scotch.
This promising new planet, however, appears to have water, and there may even be some evidence of cocktail napkins. The science-community-types detected the new planet using a very large telescope in Chile, a device with the official name The Very Large Telescope, which scientists say with a straight face.
And The Very Large Telescope discovered a new planet that may have intelligent life, or at least 7-Elevens.
The scientists who were in the room at the time named the new planet 51 Pegasi B, because scientists as a rule read very little romantic literature, and because ‘Fred’ was already taken. They claim that the reason they’re able to prove there’s water on 51-P-B is because they stared at the planet for four straight hours, which strongly indicates there was Scotch in the room, too.
This recently-discovered planet is what smart people who stare at stuff call a “hot Jupiter,” meaning it’s enormous – like Jupiter, or Ted Kennedy – but it orbits much closer to its sun than our Jupiter, which would make for extremely hot surface temperatures. So 51 Pegasi B is a lot like Miami, but easier to get to.
The scientists say they were able to detect the presence of water by analyzing 51’s atmosphere as it moved farther away from Earth…and who can blame it? If a bunch of people standing around wearing white lab coats and drinking whiskey stared at me for four hours, I’d move farther away, too.
Actually, the science world is equally excited simply to have been able to analyze anything that’s so far away. Remember, ol’ Peg B is fifty light years from here. (A light year is equal to the distance light would travel in one year, and light is really fast, in case you didn’t finish grade school, or you’re a member of Congress.) Science-types use the term “light year” to describe massive distances, and the correspondingly massive amount of time it would take to travel such distances. So travelling fifty light years would be an insane challenge, like trying to drive through Atlanta during rush hour.
Or maybe not. Nobody really knows what light does in a year, or what light might do, because nobody’s ridden along. Nobody’s managed to travel at time warp speed except Captain Kirk’s crew, and the cast of Rocky Horror. (Well, maybe those people from Dune, too, but I wouldn’t take their word for it – they were smoking worm dust.)
Maybe light’s speed isn’t a constant. Maybe light’s behavior over time is unpredictable and undependable (see members of Congress). Maybe after about three or four light months, light decides to take a light day off…treat itself to a long light weekend.
So…how will our new neighbor 51 Pegasi B and all this far-away water affect you and me? Well, here’s a direct quote from a science-type website:
“What does the discovery mean for us here on Earth? Well, for the moment not too much.”
But shares of 7-Eleven stock should skyrocket.