Tuesday, November 06, 2007

New Discovery Around 55 Cancri

Even as the news conference proceeds, I'm thinking we're living in the golden age of exoplanet research. I remember wondering once what it must have been like to do astronomy in the Edwin Hubble era, when the size of the universe itself was being so radically redefined and our understanding of the nature of distant objects completely altered. But this is better, with the prospect of moving from single planet discoveries to fully characterized systems ahead of us. Add the potential of space-based terrestrial planet finding missions and spectroscopic data on planetary atmospheres and I can only imagine the rush of new talent that's going to be wanting to contribute to this field.

1 comment:

e said...

re: spectroscopic data of planetary atmospheres, a fine and sober UFO book called “The UFO Phenomena,” by Edward Ashpole, goes into this in detail. The book was published over 10 years ago. Ashpole’s book is a book rarely cited in UFO circles but I consider it to be in the top 10 of my collection in relation to the ET hypothesis. An exceedingly fair and balanced book.