Friday 24 July 2015

Kepler 452b

Scientists have discovered a planet they are calling 'Earth's older, bigger first cousin' and 'The closest
thing that we have to another place that somebody might call home'.
As the planet, Kepler 452b, is 1400 light years from Earth it does present a few problems with following up if anyone is living there or if we can someday leave here and pitch up there.
The first problem is as it is 1400 light years away, what we are seeing today was as it was 1400 years ago and in the intervening years it could have been swallowed by a gigantic black hole or been smashed to bits by a collision with some larger planets bigger relative.
Then there is the distance we would have to travel as 1400 light years works out to around 8,230,075,757,747,774 miles which travelling at the speed of Voyager 1, 38,610mph, would take 24 million years to get there.
I have already suggested that we send the current British Government there on a discovery expedition immediately but as we are having to look so far away for suitable planets to go to to survive as a species, maybe we should love this planet a bit more because we are making such a monumental mess of this one and it it looks an unfeasibly long distance for our future generations to escape this polluted one.

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