UMA TERRA DISTANTE

Destaque habitual para a coluna semanal do físico Robert Park, desta vez sobre o novo planeta extrasolar semelhante à Terra:

"GLEISE 581G: GREAT PLACE TO VISIT, BUT I WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE THERE

The excitement was palpable; "This really is the first Goldilocks planet," gushed R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, co-discoverer along with Stephen Vogt of UC Santa Cruz. "Goldilocks" is a reference to the planet’s orbit, smack in the middle of the habitable zone of the star, Gliese 581. The planet, Gliese 581g is neither too hot nor too cold. The NASA and NSF press releases came complete with an artist’s rendering of a lovely planet with patches of blue suggesting the presence of water. Of course, water would not appear blue in the red glow of Gleise 581, a red dwarf. How could scientifically unsophisticated viewers, the vast majority of the billions around the world who saw the press conference in high definition, be expected to understand that the information content of this image, coming from the top science agencies of the world's leading space power, was less than zero? Alas, the planet is tide-locked, always exposing the same face to its red-dwarf sun; Goldilocks must eat her porridge straddling the Terminator separating the too-cold dark side of GL581g and the too-hot illuminated side. The sad part is there was no need for the hype; everyone felt the tingle. Homo sapiens is a tiny step closer to finding an answer to the most profound question humans can ask: Why?"

Robert Park