NASA Has Found Several Earthlike Planets But If There’s No Hotties On Them You Can Count Me Out
It’s possible there’s hotties but I am not hopeful
It has come to my attention, via the news and Twitter and similar places, that NASA has found seven earthlike-planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, orbiting a dim star just 40 light-years away. Many of these planets are within a temperate zone, and their surfaces could host water — and even life.
It’s a discovery that’s got the scientific community and general population all riled up and excited, but, I’ve gotta be honest guys.
If there’s no hotties on these planets, you can count me the heck out.
Look, I get it. These exoplanets, which are located in the constellation Aquarius, are an exciting discovery and hold the promise of many even more exciting discoveries to come. And I think it’s right that NASA is primarily focused on answering questions like: “are the surfaces of these planets as rocky as they initially seemed to be? Do they host solid or liquid water? Are they viable for life?”
But no one seems to be asking “Are there hotties?” Which is not priority one, sure, but could be priority two or three or even four.
NASA scientists used both the Spitzer space telescope and several ground-based telescopes to make these discoveries. The data was collected over several months of observation, and like… okay. I’m not trying to start anything. But they published their study in Nature this month, and look how many authors are on there. All those scientists, all those months, all those telescopes, and no one thought to take a second to check for hotties?
Not even one second?
It would be good to get some confirmation — that’s all I’m saying. Not that big an ask.
Elisa Quintana, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said in an interview with Nature: “To have this system of seven is really incredible. You can imagine how many nearby stars might harbour lots and lots of planets.”
I can imagine how many nearby stars might harbour lots of planets. It boggles the mind. It’s so exciting!
You know what’s also exciting, though? …do I even have to say it?
Look I’m not trying to imply that any of these NASA scientists are intentionally being cagey about there being hotties on these planets, or trying to hog all the hotties for themselves. And honestly I can imagine a lot of the scientists are as invested in finding exoplanetary hotties as well. Lord knows I can’t be the only one having so much trouble finding a date these days! Am I right, ladies? Why does it always seem like I have to leave the solar system to find an “out-of-this-world” guy? Hello? Is anyone there?
Simply put: I’m finding it hard to invest any mental bandwidth on these seven planets if they don’t have hotties on them.
No hotties, no Kelly. That’s how it’s gotta be.
And look — I understand in the coming years, NASA will continue to assess the atmospheres, temperatures and surface pressures of these planets, gathering data with sensitive instruments and exciting discoveries, making more and more exciting discoveries in the months and years to come.
And I will remain cautiously optimistic that one of these discoveries may be hotties. But I’m not betting on it.
