the truth really is out there

after the International Law class today, which was the only class for today, i had nothing better to do.. I actually have quite a funny article coming up, yet it's still in the cooks, so i'll throw you some fascinating info that you might or might not have known..

I was browsing the internet just for some references of my next article, but instead stumbled upon what i think is quite interesting. Apparently the smart people of astronomy found in this galaxy called Alpha Centauri (uuuuuu my mind remembers directly to a Command and Conquer game xixixi) there are two planets orbiting a star they named Gliese 581 that might just be the "twin siblings" of our beloved earth.. Read on a quote from Wikipedia i found;

"Gliese 581 d (pronounced /ˈɡliːzə/) or Gl 581 d is an extrasolar planet approximately 20 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. Because of its mass, nearly 8 times that of Earth, the planet is classified as a super-Earth. In late April 2009 new observations by the original discovery team concluded that the planet is within the habitable zone where liquid water, and therefore, life, could exist.

The planet was discovered by the team of Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland using the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Silla, Chile on 24 April 2007. Udry's team employed the radial velocity technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on the small perturbations it induces in its parent star’s orbit via gravity.^[2]

The team is confident that the planet exists but recognizes that unlikely events could mimic its existence. They believe the issue will be settled by upcoming studies.

Dynamical simulations of the Gliese 581 system assuming that the orbits of the three planets are coplanar show that the system becomes unstable if its component masses are so high as to correspond to an overall inclination angle of 10° or less.^[3] For Gliese 581 d, the upper bound of its mass must be half that of 581 b; that is, 581 d's maximum is 44 Earth masses.^[4] At this mass it must be held together with a central heavy-element core like Saturn and maybe even HD 149026 b."

Now, after reading that, its apparent that there might just be the possibility of inhabitance in this planet. As a movie geek, my mind is jumping from one space movie to another (star wars, star trek, wall-e ^^).. Now I really think that maybe not now, not in my lifetime at least, it's still impossible, but imagine like 100 years, or 1000 years haha from now, people of earth might just immigrate between solar systems and planets, either for tourism, or in the case of wall-e because earth becomes so inhabitable that humans have to move to another planet and ruin the goddamn thing over again ")

But what if that's only the best case scenario? What i think is that if that planet sustains the possibility of living entities to survive, wouldn't there be possibly already existing creatures there? Its only good stuff if we're talking about insects and stuff, what if its like really advanced civilization, creatures with human-like brain but with heads like a cat but teeth like a shark and body like a hamster and can fly as fast as the speed of sound? (hahahahaha) i wonder if they would accept us gladly? I wonder if WE ourselves would be willing to share? If no, wow it'd really be War of the Worlds.. I'm already imagining a galactic republic like the one in Star Wars for soft diplomacy ^^

Maybe for now this is only a fragment of my imagination, but what if someday its true? This takes the notion "survival of the fittest" to a whole different ball game doesnt it? What do you think?