Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet (water world found?)

AP via Yahoo! News ^ | April 21, 2009 | JENNIFER QUINN

[americanophile]

...large and deep ocean??? Now that's interesting.

[MHGinTN]

‘It was possible’ to have a large and deep ocean. I don’t think they know for sure yet.

[Yorlik803]

And already Obama said he was sorry about the wrongs the USA might do to it.

[Dallas59]

We need warp drive...

[andy58-in-nh]

And already Obama said he was sorry about the wrongs the USA might do to it.

I really wish that wasn't as funny as it is.

[Sudetenland]

CLASSIC!

P.S. You owe me a new keyboard.

[MHGinTN]

We need a Tardis.

[MAexile]

Excellent! When can we begin exploiting it’s natural resources?

[mountainlion]

Next they will have indisputable proof of life there.

[El Sordo]

20 1/2 light years is like right next door!

[AUH2O Repub]

They could be watching Melrose Place, Will & Grace, Ally McBeal, and Suddenly Susan right now. Those poor aliens.

[nobama08]

Can we send all the liberals there?

[max americana]

He has to bow first, then apologize.

[nobama08]

Or even worse, MSNBC.

[Dallas59]

[GAB-1955]

Could be. The news: This planet is the first one known to be Earth-sized and in the habitable zone for its parent star; water could exist on it. However, it's going to take a couple of orders of magnitude more resolution and calculating power to determine if water vapor exists around it.

[Michael Barnes]

what is that from?

[RandallFlagg]

That's from the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. "All Good Things..."
Riker's Enterprise saving Picard's butt from Klingons.

_{I. Am. Such. A. Geek.}

[Fred Nerks]

An artist's impression of 'Planet e' , forground left, released by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere Tuesday April 21, 2009. Exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor announced Tuesday the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e', in the famous system Gliese 581, in the constellation of Libra and 20.5 light years (192 trillion km or 119 trillion miles) away, is only about twice the mass of Earth...

[eclecticEel]

The ocean part is complete BS. There’s no possible way he could know that to be true - from the dearth of information we have it could just be a particularly massive rock, or equally possible a binary planet (which would be a very cool find in it’s own right). We’re maybe a decade away from having instruments with the level of sensitivity required to start finding earth-like worlds, and until then it’s all just speculation.