MMeM, S16E13 – What?

Read this story back in January. Remember January? Seems like such a simpler time doesn’t it? All the 2020 jokes about perfect vision and the countless corporate mantras about “in 2020 we will achieve clarity in our market…” yada yada yada.

I digress. There are organizations that do nothing, but look for signs of life in the universe. To be fair, that’s an infinite amount of space (snort) to canvas. However, I ran across this story and the headline alone was enough to make me ask, “What?” or “How?”. Hear me out. IF you are charged with finding inhabitable planets or intelligent life in the universe, might you oh, I don’t know, start in the nearest spot and work your way outward?

Just me? Apparently, as the headline on CNN.com reads “Potential super-Earth found orbiting the nearest star from our sun” …and scene.

I mean what were these people doing? Throwing darts at big charts and picking random sectors of space that we WILL NEVER reach in millenia by any form of communication let alone by physical transport? What would even be the point of that?

Here is an artist’s representation of said planet next to our blue marble. Note, “Artist’s representation” and that’s all we’ll ever have, AND IT’S THE CLOSEST STAR TO US OTHER THAN OUR OWN!

I mean, if I’m looking for something I generally start looking for it from right where I currently stand. Then I make excursions outward from initial location. But, I’m not a “smart man”, I don’t “think logically” or “plan methodically”. I suppose this is all a case of “I just don’t get it”. Either that or is this the interstellar equivalent of “If it had been a snake it’d bitten ya!”

All of this malarkey reminds me of one of my favorite little sites I found years ago from the UK. The WETI Institute. You’ll see their humor is close to mine.