Published on 04/25/2007

Now I don't feel so lonely this morning. It turns out that you and I may have planetary friends only 20 light-years away. Today's New York Times and Dallas Morning News are reporting that European astronomers have discovered a planet they say may be inhabitable. Our neighbor has been given the exciting name Gliese 581c, as it orbits the red dwarf star Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra.

Commentary

It is half again larger than our planet, and orbits as close to its star as Mercury is to ours. But since its star is much dimmer than our sun, astronomers estimate that temperatures on the planet would range from 32 to 124 degrees Fahrenheit. That fact makes Gliese 581c the first planet we've found with conditions which make life plausible.

But just barely. Imagine life for our galactic neighbors. Since their planet circles its star every 14 days, they would have 10 or 11 days of school each "year." My sons would vote for that. But they have to pay income tax every two weeks, and would spend half their remaining income on birthday candles (I would be nearly 1274 "years" old today).

Not to mention that their planet is probably locked with one face perpetually facing its sun and the other in the dark. And that we don't know if it has any water at all. Half of our Gliesenese neighbors must get weary of mowing and irrigating the lawn, while the other half don't know what a "lawn" is. While it would take a present-day spacecraft thousands of years to reach Gliese 581c, maybe they've already visited us. I have a neighbor I've been wondering about for years.

How does it make you feel to consider the idea that we may not be alone in the universe? Astronomers say that the discovery of Gliese 581c is notable primarily because it indicates how common potentially inhabitable planets must be, perhaps 100 million or so. Do you feel comforted by the possibility of planetary neighbors? Worried about a war of the worlds? The thought makes me feel a little deflated. Here I thought that I and my fellow humans were unique in all the universe, and now I'm told that we may not be.

But astronomers don't know everything. After God created Gliese 581c and everything else that exists, he then decided, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). He made us even knowing that his Son would one day have to die to pay for the sins we would commit (Revelation 13:8). You are special, not because you are alone or perfect but because you are wanted and loved by your Father. That's good enough for me today. How about you?