NASA on Thursday announced the discovery of a
planet that could be the first found outside our solar system capable of
sustaining human life. The planet, which is officially named Kepler-452b, is
being described by NASA’s Jon Jenkins as Earth’s “older, bigger cousin” and it
is the smallest planet discovered so far in the so-called “habitable” zone in a
solar system in which a planet is capable of sustaining pools of water on its surface.
That said, we shouldn’t get too excited about
moving to this new planet for a couple of reasons. First, the planet is
significantly larger than Earth, with a diameter that’s 60% larger. This means
that walking on the planet would feel much less comfortable than walking on
Earth since it would have much stronger gravity.
Second, it’s 1,400 light years away from Earth.
This means that even if we figured out how to travel at the speed of light
(which we won’t), it would take almost a millennium and a half just to reach it.
The only problem with this new finding is that I
already knew, by faith, that there are zillions of earthlike planets in the
universe; I dont need a telescope to know that. But God deliberately made it
impossible for "intelligent life" to move from one earthlike planet
to another. If you have any doubt, read the Book of Genesis on how the Earth
was created and you will automatically realise that God could not have been so
small minded as to create only one Earth in the whole universe.
