Planet Problem

Hello bloggers, or should I say lack there of, sorry. Here goes nothing, cause that's the likely response I'll receive:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_on_sc/sci_new_planets

Okay so apparently Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images were captured by two teams of astronomers. Hooray Earth finally made some new friends! Anyway, the pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed experts. Yes of course, you know what else they could be? A couple specks of white! All of them are trillions of miles away — three of them orbiting the same star, and the fourth circling a different star.

None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable or remotely like Earth. But they raise the possibility of others that could be. One astronomer says "It's only a matter of time before we get a dot that's blue and Earthlike." Sure, and aliens are green with huge black eyes. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying we have been too egar to find other life forms and stable planets. I'm not sure if I'm ready or willing to believe in other creatures besides us, what if they're not exactly friendly? Haha, just saying.

Anyway, back to the article-one planet discovered by Hubble is one of the smallest exoplanets (meaning outside of our solar system) found yet. It's somewhere between the size of Neptune and three times bigger than Jupiter. And it may have a Saturn-like ring. It circles the star Fomalhaut, and is relatively close by — a mere 148 trillion miles away, practically a next-door neighbor by galactic standards (if only our neighbors were that far away!). The planet's temperature is around 260 degrees, but that's cool by comparison to the others! The planet is only about 200 million years old, a baby compared to the more than 4 billion-year-old planets in our solar system. Although, the picture looks fuzzy (remember it's just a dot) which could also be explained because the star it orbits is 100 million times brighter than its planet. Definitely can't live on that one, or any of them!

The team first spotted the trio of planets circling a star in 2007. The star is about 767 trillion miles away, but visible with binoculars. Yeah sure, a likely story. Hey mom I just spotted a planet 767 TRILLION miles away with these binoculars you bought for me from the dollar store! Keep in mind that in the first paragraph they said the planets were nearly indecipherable except to the almost eagle-eyed experts and now we can see them with binoculars! The star's called HR 8799 (also the latest Star Wars robot's name, haha j/k), and the three planets orbiting it are seven to 10 times larger than Jupiter. Oh goody, if they are planets what are we going to do with 4 giant gaseous blobs floating around in space? Is it really that special like some are saying? Some are saying "We've never been able to snap a picture. Now we have a picture." Well good, go home and put it in the scrapbook!!

I should also mention that in the past 13 years, scientists have discovered more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but they have done so indirectly, by measuring changes in gravity, speed or light around stars. Well if we've found 300+ planets why are we just now concerned, and why haven't we heard about these others, cause I don't know about you, but I had no idea! There are also still disputes about whether these are the first exoplanet photos. Others have made earlier claims, but those pictures haven't been confirmed as planets or universally accepted yet. And I don't accept these either just yet. I think we're going out on a limb here.

That is all. Earth is the only planet I'm concerned with and until someone has real proof, my mind is going to stay that way.