28 new planets discovered

[Corcaigh]

Just reported this week - the University of California at Berkeley found 28 new planets in the last year. There are now 236 known planets outside the Solar System. :cool:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070528_exoplanet_report.html

[mjah]

Berkeley is its own planet, so it's fitting that they're the ones who know where to find the others.

How long until traces of life show up on other worlds?

[Corcaigh]

How long until traces of life show up on other worlds?

Like in the movie Contact, they might be listening to our TV broadcasts from decades ago. On planets orbiting some nearby stars they are enjoying the last Redskins Superbowl victory :doh:.

On the subject of planets out there, I was reading that Brian May, guitarist with Queen, is completing his doctorate in astronomy. He put it on hold in the late 70's when his band started making money .

On one of Queen's early albums, A Night at the Opera, there is a song Brian May wrote called '39' - one of my favorites by the band.

In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers

In the days when lands were few

Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn

The sweetest sight ever seen.

And the night followed day

And the story tellers say

That the score brave souls inside

For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas

Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried.

Don't you hear my call though you're many years away

Don't you hear me calling you

Write your letters in the sand

For the day I take your hand

In the land that our grandchildren knew.

In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue

The volunteers came home that day

And they bring good news of a world so newly born

Though their hearts so heavily weigh

For the earth is old and grey, to a new home we'll away

But my love this cannot be

For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year

Your mother's eyes in your eyes cry to me.

Don't you hear my call though you're many years away

Don't you hear me calling you

All the letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand

For my life

Still ahead

Pity Me.

How cool is that: a rock song about the the effect of near light-speed travel on the passage of time :geek:. The voyage took less than a year for them but their loved ones back home aged a hundred years (or multiples of a hundred).