On NASA's Discovery

Though NASA didn't find little green men, today's announcement was still very exciting. Three new possible Earths are floating out there just 40 light years away. Nice...

This discovery reminds me of when I was a kid. The administrator of NASA was on TV talking about the technology in the Hubble Space Telescope. I don't remember his exact words, but he said something like, "It is my hope that within the next 40 years there is a picture of another Earth hanging in every classroom in the world."

Though our current resolution for exoplanets is only about 1 pixel, technology is getting better all the time. Who knows that the Webb Space Telescope and its successors will find in the coming decades.

A couple of years ago I wrote a story with this thought in mind. What if we could take clear pictures of planets light years away? What if that picture told us that we were not alone in the universe? And finally, how would regular people react? These questions inspired a story.

So on this historic day, as we're all thinking about who (or what) is out there, please enjoy "New Neighbors."