
SAN FRANCISCO
By Chris Bertram
A new Earth-like planet has been found in the right zone to support life. When has that announcement ever been made? There has rarely if ever been an announcement that any of the planets found so far, the so-called exoplanets, have been suitable for life as we know it. The one announced recently is part of a Tri-Star system and is about twice the size of Earth. It sounds familiar: A Tri-Star system that has a planet about the size of Earth. The nearest star system is a Tri-Star system: The Alpha Centauri system. It is in all likelihood a good candidate for an Earth sized planet exactly as our own, made of the same stuff, and is exactly the same age. In fact the nearest star system may share materials with our own such as amino acid sequences.
Amino acids float around in space as the interstellar medium. There are clouds of amino acids in space all detectable by telescopes. One of the basic premises for life on other worlds is the fact that amino acid sequences are so universal. The only hitch about them is that they are the proper handedness that is like our own. There could be left handed or right handed sequences in the Universe where only one type can exist in any one area at one time. Since the handedness of these molecules is based upon the likelihood of some polarizing event eons ago: in all probability the handedness of the molecules of the nearest star would be exactly like our own. Recent articles indicate that beams from certain types of stars polarize molecules in space, and that our local neighborhood supports the same twist in molecules.
Why was the search for life on Mars, a planet in our system, so involved and why didn’t they just test straight-up for life right away? Despite the fact that Mars is our neighbor, it looks like Mars is a captured moon from one of the gas giants, or some artifact that remained after a collision with another solar system entirely. In fact there may be the case that our solar system is a binary system and that one of our twin stars is now rotating out there among the other stars in a huge orbit: bringing the case with it that Mars is a run-away object from an as yet undiscovered twin star to our own.

In any case the latest news is that at least 20 light years away there is a ternary star system with an Earth like planet that is about double the size of the Earth. The new planet is named GJ667Cc while the one that is closest is named Alpha Centauri. Looking straight down on the pinwheel of the galaxy we see that our planet has made ¼ of a rotation around the center of the galaxy in the habitable zone of the galaxy along with planet GJ667Cc, and the Alpha Centauri system since the formation. All three of our systems when seen as part of the galaxy are like neighbors – all formed the same way. In all likely hood in each of the systems there are things that are very similar in nature to one another.
Alpha Centauri is so close to our home star that there could be a situation that one of the Tri-Stars in the Alpha Centauri system is really our binary twin star – that’s how close we are to Alpha Centauri. I think that since we are so-close to our neighboring stars that we should get to know our neighbors a little better – after all, it’s probably in all likelihood that they are getting to know us better already. It also might be the case that in the 3 million year history of hominid evolution, one of the societies of technological hominids already made it to Alpha Centauri and planet GJ667Cc.
LEMONICK , MICHAEL. ”New Planet Found: Could a Super-Earth plus Triple Stars Equal Life?”
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New Planet Found: Could a Super-Earth plus Triple Stars Equal Life?