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Hard to get too excited, given what is happening right now, about some possible plankton 150 light years away.

If we sent a mission there right now (hey Elon, we've got a job for you that only you can do in your unique wisdom!), pretty sure the human race would be extinct before it were to arrive -- even if we had an Epstein drive.
 
Hard to get too excited, given what is happening right now, about some possible plankton 150 light years away.

If we sent a mission there right now (hey Elon, we've got a job for you that only you can do in your unique wisdom!), pretty sure the human race would be extinct before it were to arrive -- even if we had an Epstein drive.
This is not about what I'd call "excitement," at this point, and I hope you're being facetious about the rest there. However, if this is confirmed it does a number of things for both science and our regard for our place in the universe that would be incomparable. No thoughtful person could ever again even glance at a night sky full of stars and think of what is out there in the same way. Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan, the lead scientist on this project put it in the following terms: "When we would look at the sky, we would see not just physical objects, stars and planets, we would see a living sky. The societal ramifications of that are immense. It will be a huge transformational change in the way we look at ourselves in the cosmic scene."

Now, admittedly, a huge number of Americans would not care much, and a lot of ignorant people world-wide would not care much. But what he says I think powerfully applies to thoughtful people who are interested in how we fit into our universe, and what it is really like.
 
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