taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
My comments are based on this news article from SkyTonight.com ... regarding the discovery a new "puffy planet" 450ly from earth. Seems HAT-P-1 is puffier than scientists thought planets should be. And of course, like Saturn, this one definitely floats.
Well I suppose we won't be selling tickets for vacation in the Lacerta systems for some time but this new class of planet is unusual ... and I think it would be interesting to see. It is 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, and it's the largest & least dense of the ~200 non-local planets that have now been discovered.
I believe life will begin to get truly interesting for a lot of astronomers, as the bridges begin to form across the gaps. "Puffier" and puffier planets, will certainly give way to a new classification of planets altogether - which, like other astronomical bodies (good article here), radiate invisibly, and only invisibly.
Quacks and wackos like me (as well as a good many astrologers, and Hindu cosmologists & philosophers for thousands of years) ... might even start to make sense, finally. Some of the radiation observed & measured from these extremely puffy planets, I predict, will begin to suggest faint indications of order, pattern, harmony and intelligent structure.
And right about the time we start to accept that we're not alone, after all ... the Intelligences whom & which inhabit these puffiest of all planets - will quite possibly let us in on a couple or so, cosmic hints, maybe something along the lines of:
)
With any luck, and perhaps a not inconsiderable miracle at this point, it won't be a swamp into which this fact sinks.
So, my head in the clouds, I'm still convinced - that a silver lining's up here somewhere. And my feet? Firmly planet, on that rock below. But the rain's a comin'. And as the locals (here in the South) sometimes say, it's a gully-washer!
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
taijasi
Well I suppose we won't be selling tickets for vacation in the Lacerta systems for some time but this new class of planet is unusual ... and I think it would be interesting to see. It is 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, and it's the largest & least dense of the ~200 non-local planets that have now been discovered.
I believe life will begin to get truly interesting for a lot of astronomers, as the bridges begin to form across the gaps. "Puffier" and puffier planets, will certainly give way to a new classification of planets altogether - which, like other astronomical bodies (good article here), radiate invisibly, and only invisibly.
Quacks and wackos like me (as well as a good many astrologers, and Hindu cosmologists & philosophers for thousands of years) ... might even start to make sense, finally. Some of the radiation observed & measured from these extremely puffy planets, I predict, will begin to suggest faint indications of order, pattern, harmony and intelligent structure.
And right about the time we start to accept that we're not alone, after all ... the Intelligences whom & which inhabit these puffiest of all planets - will quite possibly let us in on a couple or so, cosmic hints, maybe something along the lines of:
Your village exists here. These systems, indicated in blue, are similar in that they support life at Earth's stage of evolution and development. The systems in green ... they are much younger. Those in orange, support life which is vastly more advanced than you are, something like Humanity as compared with an ant colony.
Oh, and this beautiful, geometric network of systems in purple ... they are, to the rest of the entire Galaxy, as all the earth is to a large aquarium - or a small zoo, if you prefer.
It will be an interesting day when this much concrete fact has been allowed, by the lofty, towering intellects of men & science, to slowly permeate ... and finally "sink in." (And to borrow a bit, from popular science fiction, Guess what? They ain't green. Oh, and this beautiful, geometric network of systems in purple ... they are, to the rest of the entire Galaxy, as all the earth is to a large aquarium - or a small zoo, if you prefer.
)With any luck, and perhaps a not inconsiderable miracle at this point, it won't be a swamp into which this fact sinks.
So, my head in the clouds, I'm still convinced - that a silver lining's up here somewhere. And my feet? Firmly planet, on that rock below. But the rain's a comin'. And as the locals (here in the South) sometimes say, it's a gully-washer!
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
taijasi
