Daily Mail Planet: Gliese 581 Is The New Earth
“THE NEW EARTH,” announces the Mail on its front page.
“Does the discovery of a planet just like ours means there IS life out there?”
Mail Readers are offered a picture of a lump of round rock coated in cotton-wool swirls of cloud and gas.
Inside the paper, the Mail’s telescope is on full beam. And it likes what it sees.
“It’s got the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most stunning evidence that life – just like us – might be out there,” it trumpets.
Mail readers are forgiven for expecting the accompanying pictures of Gliese 581 to feature a gentle sloping village green, an open Post Office and a figure in blue giving a smaller figure dressed in shorts, shirts and school tie a clip round the ear.
The Mail’s science editor, Michael Hanlon, notes, “Small waves lap a sandy shore and on the beach something stirs.”
If this Gliese 581 is like Earth, might it be that this stirring something is a human just like us, or, to be more precise, just like a Mail reader?
Dressed in laundered shirt (sleeves rolled up – the Gliese sun is ten times the size of our sun and it’s shirt-sleeve order), pressed shorts with crease down the front, sandals and white socks, this kindred spirit dines al fresco on his perspiring cheddar cheese and piccalilli sandwich.
Perhaps the telescope at La Silla in the Chilean Andes which detected Gliese 581 can be recalibrated to pick up sounds. What odds the figure is humming the bars to Land of Hope And Glory while a song thrush perched on the boughs of a nearby pear tree chirps: “Early One morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the crater below”?
Interestingly enough, the Mail says Gliese is 20 light years away and locals would be listening to the Earth sounds from back then. And yes, that means a hearty dose of Margaret Thatcher swinging her handbag against Neil Kinnock. It is also the year of Kilroy’s TV debut.
But what if Gliese is no Daily Mail Planet? What if the figure on the beach is, say, a Polish immigrant who has got to Gliese 581 first, or a Jade Goody-Osama bin Laden chimera?
What then? Is there then hope for mankind?
Posted: 25th, April 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (19) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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June 1st, 2007 at 10:26 pm
A new planet…….. What could be apon us? Alien lifeforms? Spiritual lifeforms? Ugly Lifeforms? Rocky Lifeforms? Who knows. All I want to know, is, Will it be possible,within the next 100 years, to at least grab an actual IMAGE of the damn planet, or if people are just going to LISTEN to it. hmmm, whats more convincing, listening to somthing, or seeing it with our own eyes? I know, right now, that they do indeed have ways, to see this damn planet, get it over with, why beat around the bush? costs, and money, should not mean anything, if we have indeed found new means of life, this planet is deteriorating, why not use, if not already used, this new planet, to our advantage? THEY HAVE MADE FLOATING IMAGES, FOR RECREATIONAL USE, we have invented time machines, that send objects the size of our pinkys, ahead in time (look it up), now come on, whats a few billion miles?? a few billion dollars,i guess. Damn governments, screw off and allow us to find somthing that will profit all of us, it seems as soon as we find new means of life, those with authority, fear the loss of govern.
think about it
May 11th, 2007 at 7:02 am
You Americans never give up! You want everything to look like you. I hope they look like roaches and can piss on you from there. Already you are talking about wars,hating others, hollidays, parties up there. and soon it will be about drugs. Merlin, you ain’t from some far away planet, you can’t spell well enough. Go back to school. And the rest of you should get serious, get a rain hat and coat–hope they don’t piss on you.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Wow, did not understand anything you said Merlin lol, well let me tell you that I am happy we have found a planet similar to our, I knew somewhere in our galaxy we had a twin, maybe my twin soul is in that planet and I need to travel down there to meet him.
ggg
April 29th, 2007 at 5:41 am
I wish to be unknown please respect my privacey as a family man with children you may understand
April 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am
HELLO i AM FROM A GOLDEN PLANET now you may think this is strange or dellusional or madness but I seen a flying saucer about 13 years ago shown me my journey back to earth from another galaxey a golden planet I left then over a orange planet then the moon shown me my mother as younge woman pushing me out delivering me now born 1958 in May this is easy to prove wrong or faulse as planets were in total eclipse in line if their is allien life I must be an allien as many say we are all just dellusional idiots well YOU CAN CONCLUDE life beyond or not faulse hope or just a cop-out many people beleive well Iclaim to have returned from beyond my being here is proof as how would Ihave knowlage of eclipse if Inever seen a flying sauser ? also proof of higher intelegence life is but a question unfolds the days we live our lives whom has the answers is indeed questionable within its self as we are all learning beings of the learning planet for the wise ones make it to the higher worlds a infinate quest for wisdom and knowlage the wisdom to seek of worlds beyond Iam from a planet called Fyegoir a golden planet the wisdom of simple truths in life can unfold greater understandinds of purpose of life on earth maybe to inspire world peace and brother hood amonst all men who knows ?
April 27th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
“In fact his common sense of typing with his feet too” - Yeah! Good one
April 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Who writes this? I can shit better crap than this. And the writer really needs to work on his sarcasm… In fact his common sense of typing with his feet too.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
correction Rana:
force due to gravity is proportional to mass/radius^2, so its actually gonna be 88*(5/1.5^2) = 88*2.22 = 195.56kg
April 26th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Hi zza,
George and Tony on a new planet 20 million miles away? No problem…as “farewell” presents a superglue sandwich rammed into their mouths.Superglue on thier butts,hands,feet, and a large tube of superglue where the sun don’t shine.
That should put them both out of action for the rest of eternity!
Cheers, John
April 26th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
mistake in math! it gonnnabe 88*5=440
April 26th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
wow! what a planet ! people who live there , have a new year party every 13 days later . but i’ll not go there coz i’m already 88 kg & i’ll be 88*1.5=132kg , no way!
April 26th, 2007 at 10:18 am
John Blake Says: “A good place to send George and Tony”
Oh there’s an olive branch. Whaddya want, interplanetary war?
Gotta be a close orbit around a red dwarf.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:08 am
well i need some info plz can you post some info on this planet its for school plzzzz help me
April 25th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
you can get there if this world had the superb technology….like traveling into hyperspace goddang this world has the technology seriously needs to invent something that can get there quickly like in 60 minutes…. lol
April 25th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Correction….it’s about 5x as massive and 1.5 times the size. The Neptune size planet I read about is a different one in the same system.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
lol. I really hope this is a joke, because not only is most of the article ridiculous, the facts are wrong.
Gliese 581 is a Red Dwarf….meaning it’s a good bit smaller than our sun, not bigger. A red dwarf burns a lot cooler, and thereby lasts a lot longer than our sun will. I would imagine you’re wires got crossed with the definition of a Red Giant, which are usually quite a bit larger than the size of our sun. In fact, our sun will become a red giant towards the end of its life, and probably expand out almost to Mars in the process.
Gliese 581 c is Neptune-sized planet, is closer to it’s sun than we are to our’s, and has an orbit of only 13 days. The gravity there should be almost twice of ours.
Now I just stumbled on this site with StumbleUpon, but half of that article doesn’t even make sense, nor does anything other than the “Possible Earth-like planet 20 light years away” resemble anything truthful or factual.
Granted I am to assume this article is meant for entertainment, and I did not look through this site thoroughly other than to see something about this relating to a tabloid, but really…
April 25th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
A good place to send George and Tony when they leave office.20 million light years away……that’s just about far enough for them. Good riddance to rubbish!
April 25th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Err Zack, your science teacher is a bit of a dick. It takes light 20 years to get to Gliese 581 (120,000,000,000,000 miles away) so how the heck will we be holidaying there in a couple of years?
April 25th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
hi i am ijn skool now and i wanted to say that i found out this morning and printed som info about it and took it 2 skool i showed my science teacher and she sed in a couple of years they mighte have holidays on there and coz it’s called *new earth* i had a thought that the might be cat people on there like dr who lol.i carnt wait till ther’s more news about it .