Re: *NEWS FLASH!* and traval plans

>	 Having talked to an astronomer at Caltech, the methodology to
detect
>these planets is to exmine the minute variation in the stars rotation. 
The
>perterbations are caused by a large object orbiting the star, since all
>objects attract each other.  Therefore we have no direct evidence of
these
>planets existing (i.e not directly observed).	So there is still some
>discussion about the accuracy of these reports.

If you want actual photographs of said planets you're going to be
waiting
around for a while. Unless it's huge, a planet is too small and too
faint
to be optically picked up and resolved. Even the vaunted Hubble, as dim
as
it can peer, has a difficult time with even faint companions around
other
stars (you'll note I did not use the word 'planet' ;-). For those
web-capable
readers among us I would point you to:

    http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/95/48.html

and 

    http://scivax.stsci.edu/~kochte/low-mass.html

(shameless plug for my page ;-)

Now just because a proposed planet cannot be directly observed doesn't
mean
it isn't there. Doesn't mean that what is being seen isn't a planet. By
analogy look at black holes. We have never once looked *directly* at a
black
hole. With the Hubble or anything else. Nor will we. But we know they
are
there. We can see their influence on their environment. We know they're
there (unless someone can come up with another explanation as to the
effects
we're seeing), even though we haven't directly observed one.

All this extra-solar planets/companions stuff starts to beg the question
of
what do you call a planet, and what do you call a [brown] dwarf star.
One
man's super-Jupiter is another man's brown dwarf companion. While I may
not
necessarily believe all the discovered planets are really planets, I do
believe
that most are probably some sort of companion (eg, brown dwarf
companion).

>	 Given that all of these planetary detections are based on
inferences
>and that they are all of non-terran planets.  Who's ready to go on a
one way
>mission to these systems on the off chance that there are terran
planets
>waiting there?

Oh, hell, if it'll get me off this rock, I'll go! (do I get to take one
of
my Mass 1 A-batteries along?  ;-)

Mk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
During the run-and-fight-and-run-again battle through this forest of
horror,
she is finally cornered. Her weapons have been left deep in the bodies
of the
slain or broken against the granite-hard scales of these snakes that are
not
snakes. Her stand to the death must be fought here. Though her only
weapons
are her hands and her deep and wide knowledge of the slayers, she does
not
fear them. They will die. Of this she is sure.