____________________
Astronomers discover new planets, 3 are habitable
The above is a headline published June 25, 2013 by FoxNews.com
Of course the Gliese 667C star which the planets orbit is 22 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius. 22 light-years is equal to a bit over 129 trillion miles. I repeat... just a little bit more than 129,000,000,000,000 miles. That's a long, long way from here.
It is reported by the scientists involved that the Gliese 667C solar system is strikingly similar to ours and the three planets identified as habitable are confirmed to be super-Earths: planets that have more mass than Earth but less mass than larger planets like Uranus and Neptune.
And that, I believe, is the result of many magnitudes of scientific guess work. After all, as Albert Einstein once said, "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
Fox News
Also, at gizmag
_____
TRIVIA
In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one has reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand, or even attempted to do so.
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
On this day, June 27 in 1844. Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Mormon religion, was murdered along with his brother Hyrum when an anti-Mormon mob broke into a jail where they were being held in Carthage, Illinois.
Two years later, Smith's successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois along the western wagon trails in search of religious and political freedom. In July 1847, the 148 initial Mormon pioneers reached Utah's Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Upon viewing the valley, Young declared, "This is the place," and the pioneers began preparations for the tens of thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow them to settle there.
Details
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
pleonasm [plee-uh-naz-uhm]
noun
the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy
Pleonasm is the use of more words or word-parts than is necessary for clear expression: examples are black darkness, or burning fire. Such redundancy is, by traditional rhetorical criteria, a manifestation of tautology.
_____
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born June 27, 1975)
Tobey Maguire is an American actor and film producer who began his career in the late 1980s. He is known for his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy (2002–2007), as well as for his roles in Pleasantville (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), Brothers (2009), and The Great Gatsby (2013).
(born June 27, 1991)
Madylin Sweeten is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for playing the role of Ally Barone on the CBS television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond from 1996–2005. Her younger twin brothers Sullivan and Sawyer played her twin brothers Geoffrey and Michael Barone on the sitcom.
(born June 27, 1930)
Ross Perot is an American businessman best known for being an Independent Party Presidential Candidate in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988. Perot Systems was bought by Dell for $3.9 billion in 2009.
(born June 27, 1951)
Julia Duffy (born Julia Margaret Hinds) is an American actress from Minneapolis, Minnesota, specializing in character roles, best known as the spoiled rich girl and Dick Loudon's (played by Bob Newhart) inn maid, Stephanie Vanderkellen, on the 1980s sitcom, Newhart.
__________
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
--Mark Twain
NASA TV
