Why On Earth Should You Feel You Are Alone

You may have some cousins out there, no, I don't mean in China, India, Indonesia, Russia or Japan.

But you will not have the chance to meet your long distance cousins in this lifetime, as the latest Earth-like planet discovered is 600 light-years away. And just One light-year is equal to: exactly 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.5 Petametre) or about 5,878,625,373,183.608 miles (about 6 trillion miles).

The Kepler (Mission to search for habitable planets) mission's science team announced its latest finding at a press conference on Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, The team announced the confirmation of Kepler-22b, its first planet found in the "The Goldilocks Zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface.

The Goldilocks Zone

No, they didn't find Goldilocks or any Bears. The "Goldilocks Zone" is based on the story "Goldilocks and The Three Bears", in which a little girl chooses from sets of three items, ignoring the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settling on the one in the middle, which is "just right". Likewise, a planet following this Goldilocks Principle is one that is neither too close nor too far from a star to rule out liquid water on its surface.

As the scientists continue their hunt & missions, we have to continue living, ....down-to-earth.

All About Kepler:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html

The press conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en5OObU0ryU