What kid hasn’t looked up on a clear night and felt intuitively that among those billions of stars, seen and unseen, there must be life somewhere else. Astronomers share this intuition, but when most of us were children it was not even known for sure that there were other planets outside our solar system. The means don’t yet exist to find other life in deep space, but the planet situation has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. Scientists have found lots of planets out there. In fact, there is basis to believe a planetary system is not a rare thing at all but the norm. Probably, there are many more planets than stars. I did a cartoon about this very thing not long ago. In the cartoon that ran last month, I commented on news that an earthlike planet had been found only 42 light years away, practically down the street in space terms. Now, scientists say they’ve found a very promising planet in “the Goldilocks zone” that is only 12 light years away. That’s like right next door! I think this is amazing. I don’t know why it doesn’t generate more general interest. I did a cartoon about that, too!
