The Real World(s)

I've been following exoplanetology news for something like a decade now, and I will admit it sometimes can seem a little dry. On NASA's PlanetQuest the news can occasionally seem discouragingly dull, talking about the size of a planet, or maybe spectral data we're occasionally able to get from one. Not a lot. And so many of the planets we've discovered are too big or too hot to be habitable (at least to us).

When a scientist voices speculation, it's easy to take it as fact, because a scientist said it. But it's still speculation. Granted, that's better than nothing. And when you put those guesses together into a three-minute video, you get something that actually can get you pumped up about astronomy:



Now, before you go sharing this with anybody, bear in mind that not all the facts presented here are correct; this channel doesn't look like it's very credible, even if they do appear to be citing sources. Kepler-35, for example, is only a binary system, not a trinary. I'm also not sure how much evidence there is that it rains rocks on that other planet, or that that pulsar planet is really made of diamond.

On the other hand, in at least one case they didn't mention the best details. HD 189733b is a blue planet where it rains molten glass. I have NEVER seen anything like that in science fiction, or even referenced.

Pictured: Artist's rendering of HD 189733b - evidence that God has more creativity than any Star Trek writer. (Image source: NASA - http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/news/107)

Alien planets don't have to be habitable to be awesome.