Far, far, far, far, far away

Being immersed in video editing this week and therefore only half paying attention to the national news, I would expect to miss a few things. But have we really made such astounding leaps in space travel in the last few days?

Nevertheless, the discovery in the Gliese 581 system, where a Neptune-size planet was discovered two years ago and another planet of eight Earth masses is now suspected, catapults that system to the top of the list for future generations of space missions.

[. . .]

Dr. Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who studies the structure and formation of planets, said: "It's 20 light-years. We can go there."

Yeah, right, "we can go there." Pack your bags. Since a light year is only about 6 trillion miles, and the planet is only 20 of them away, we probably ought to start deciding what to do with it. It's not too soon to start working on making it a smoke-free planet; you can't be too careful. Ed says he isn't going if they don't have breaded tenderloins