Get your geek on: A whole new world

The ad would read: "Have you ever wanted to start over???"  It could be a galactic rehabilitation center for all the world's screw-ups.  An Earth clone — complete with avatars and robots — has potential for a killer marketing scheme and could be a cure-all for humankind.  

Kepler-22b was officially categorized in the "habitable zone" and deemed an "Earth 2.0" by a team of astronomers in early December. This Earth-like planet was confirmed to be the most similar to Earth out of 54 exoplanets identified by the Kepler research project. The news broke on Dec. 5, 2011, at the First Kepler Science Conference at Moffett Field, California, one of the most riveting and conspicuously-named conferences of all time. Officially discovered in 2009, the team had to thoroughly study the planet before the conference to make sure that it was not made of cheese and did not contain the swampy home of Yoda.  

Although it remains 600 light-years away, imagine the possibilities.  Money could grow on trees, the rivers could flow with chocolate and tuition could be reasonably priced!  Unfortunately, Kepler-22b is speculated to be mostly ocean by one of the scientists on the Kepler research team and the makeup of the core of the planet is still unknown.  It hasn't been confirmed as fully covered by water yet, but who says those vast seas of mysterious liquids couldn't contain a seed of life? James Cameron is already drooling for a sequel to "Avatar" anyways, so let's dream big here.

What is more exciting, though, is the fact that SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is also drooling with anticipation.  SETI is an international coalition that does many complicated experiments and gathers data from space frequencies in order to advance the search for Martian life; or, as it is commonly referred to, a sweet-ass search for aliens.  This discovery has left SETI with more hope — and ground to cover — in the race to find life in outer space, something I find really scary but also awesome.  

Even though reaching Kepler would be quite a spatial stretch, this foreign planet shares a few things with our home planet as well.  Its average temperature is estimated to be around 22 degrees Celsius, or almost 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The time it takes for it to move around its sun is about 290 days, and it's a little over twice the size of earth.

The potential is great, but first we have to get there.  It would take millions of years to reach this planet with our current technology, and with cuts in NASA funding, we are unlikely to reach warp speed anytime soon.  With these galactic hurdles in our way, it will be a while before the race to Kepler-22b can even begin.  Let's just hope that the Soviets haven't been working on their own Millennium Falcon prototype.

cody.wooden@umontana.edu