Bit of a joke there. What the paper is about is, we found a new planet, about 18.2 light years away. That means that we’re seeing the planet as it appeared 18.2 years ago, in the summer of 2007.

Summer 2007: the first iPhone had just hit the market, the last Harry Potter book was fresh on the bookshops, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” was all over the radio, and “The Big Bang Theory” was about to premiere on TV. Britain’s Tony Blair had just handed off to Gordon Brown, while in the US a freshman Senator named Barack Obama was quietly preparing his Presidential bid. And the world economy was sliding inexorably towards the Great Recession.

Anyway, the planet. The planet is a “Super-Earth“. That means it’s basically the same sort of planet as Earth: a ball of rock, probably with an iron core, possibly with an atmosphere. But it’s bigger than Earth, hence the “Super”.  Like, if the Earth was a golf ball, this planet would be more like a cricket ball or a baseball. Definitely bigger, but not so much bigger that it’s a different sort of thing.

Okay, so we’ve found lots of planets around other stars. Like, literally thousands of them.  And we’re finding more new planets every day. So what’s interesting about this one?


[this shows something like one quarter of the currently known planets. and yes, that lower right one is not a proper sphere.]

Well… maybe a couple of things. But first, a brief digression!

[click to continue…]