"Earth 2" has been found ... maybe?

But don't pack your bags quite yet.

Astronomers have finally found a planet outside of our solar system that might be somewhat similar to Earth. As far as we can tell from 120 trillion miles away.

It's only about 20 light years away. And in galactic terms, that's close. But even if you traveled at the speed of light (which is supposed to be the physical speed limit of our universe), it'd take 20 years to get there. (Of course once you take into account the time dilation effect that occurs while traveling near the speed of light, you might barely age during the journey. But everyone back at home would be 40 years older if you decide to make a round trip to the new planet.)

Also, you're probably going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe since I'd suspect the dim red sun would mess up your fashion scheme.

By the way, Mars also qualifies as habitable according to the scientists' high standards (and I don't know of anyone seriously considering a move to Mars), so the climate of this new extra-solar planet may a bit too cool or a bit too warm.

Or the atmosphere (assuming there even is an atmosphere) may smell like dirty socks.

Pluto's Neighborhood Gets More Interesting

I must be off my game since I just found out that scientists have discovered two more natural satellites of Pluto. Apparently, they were sighted many months ago, but I missed that news.

In case you're wondering, they've been named Nix and Hydra.

Don't get me wrong—Earth's Moon is totally awesome. But doesn't it seem strange that the tiny icy rock called Pluto now has three moons, and the best planet in the universe only has one?

Google now expected to take control of the Universe

Google isn't just a cute little search engine anymore. Besides being added to the English language as a verb, Google also has a popular e-mail service (the host of my current main e-mail address) and several mapping services (e.g. Google Local and Google Earth). Also, Google has gobbled up Writerly. I'm not sure what Writerly is, but if Google bought it, it must be pretty cool.

But it's Google's mapping service that seems to be going universal. On a ZDNet post, Garett Rogers mentioned that Google now has a service similar to Google Local (a/k/a Google Maps) called "Google Mars". So if you ever wanted to take a trip to Utopia Planitia (yes, I admit to be a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation), Google Mars tells you exactly where you need to land your spaceship. For people that want to stay a little closer to Terra, they can choose to visit Earth's own natural satellite at Google Moon. The Moon and Mars seem to be the only extra-terrestrial options right now as I couldn't find an official list and my other attempts (such as "http://universe.google.com/" and "http://europa.google.com/") returned "Server not found", but I bet more are coming. I'm not sure how fun Mercury would be, but I'm looking forward to checking out Venus.

By the way (and back on Earth), Google bought Blogger a while back, too. (That's service that I use to blog with.)