The earth-cousin and the space frontier
Lot of action on the space front:
--Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, recently joined the board of the X Prize Foundation, as this article in the NYT mentions. The piece is about the interest by "thrillionaires" in space endeavors. It's also well-known that Silicon Valley techies are naturally drawn to space exploration. Paypal's Elon Musk has been tinkering for a few years now.
--Berkeley astronomers have discovered "the most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet: a possibly rocky world about 7.5 times as massive as the Earth. This hot "super-Earth," just 15 light years away, travels in a nearly circular orbit only 2 million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876, and has a radius about twice that of Earth. (Picture is an enlarged view of the new Earth-like planet orbiting Gliese 876).
--More details on Amazon.com Jeff Bezos' secretive Blue Origin space project. Via Slashdot.
Go Bears! The Terrestrial Planet Finder has been woefully neglected by the current administration, in favor of agencies which buy more petroleum products.
Robotic exploration will be the appropriate form of study until we manage to build the thermos inside of an asteroid.
Anonymous on June 15, 2005 4:17 AMComment link
