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Alien Atmosphere Hubbled
b-side.org writes "Yahoo! News has a story on yon giant hubble mirrorscope thingy locating an alien, mostly sodium, atmosphere. X10.com popunder ads also included free of charge." Mm....let's mix that atmosphere with water. T cuts in: This turns out to be the major discovery hinted at a few days ago.
Let's not be too hasty in discounting life there; perhaps life could have evolved in the form of giant alien gasbags.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
That makes them far too hot for life as we know it. Not only would any hypothetical human traveler to this planet die but the planet's intense heat would quickly melt any coins in the person's pockets, the scientists said. Yeah, that's what I worry about when I'm somewhere where (1) I can't breathe and (2) has winds that can rip me to shreds in seconds and (3) has no solid surface for 100's of miles beneath me... Gaah! My quarters!
I can't find my car keys. (no a's in email)
What if this sort of telescope technology becomes commonplace, and someone uses it to shoot laserpointers at alien worlds? They would be so annoyed that they would hate us forever. We would be doomed.
I also loved the "photo" that is included along with the Yahoo! news story...it's an "artist's impression" of the distant planet. Oh but it gets better... below the 'photos' section there's a 'audio/video' link to an AP story entitled "Chemicals Found on Faraway Planet ".
In all seriousness, this discovery is really interesting, at least to me. Then again, every time the Hubble is used in something new, I am impressed considering its rocky beginings and the amazing in-orbit mirror replacement that had to be done just to get it working. All that aside, the story that this submission is linked to makes me cringe.
Call it geek ellitism if you must but it just seems like such a dumbed-down treatment of the story in some ways. Most of the content is really cool, but the headlines/bold-points (like "INHOSPITABLE, BUT STILL BREAKTHROUGH") and the extra stuff (as mentioned before) are laughable. Am I wrong or is this a little...well...lite?
I'm really not trying to troll; the point seemed worth mentioning/discussing.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Nice to see that "Hubbled" is a verb now. We need more verbs.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All