It may be a little too soon to be thinking about this, considering we just moved into our current home in May, but I think I’ve discovered the next place I want to live. Or, more accurately, NASA has discovered it. As reported in the Huffington Post:
NASA announced Monday the discovery of Kepler-22b, the first planet the Kepler spacecraft has discovered in the habitable zone, an area with a distance from a star where temperatures will permit the existence of liquid water. The discovery of Kepler-22b … brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet that could possibly harbor life.
Keplar-22b has several distinct advantages that make me think it would be an ideal place to live:
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- It could possibly harbor life. Certainly a prerequisite for anyplace I’d want to move to. On the other hand, being in advertising, I know what it means when the copy includes the word “could,” as in “you could lose 50 pounds in a week,” or “you could get a 30% return on your investment.”
- Its surface temperature is about 72 degrees, and I like being able to wear a light sweater at night.
- It takes only 290 days to orbit its sun, which means its “year” is 75 days shorter than ours, so we can live to a higher age. Of course, the downside of this is that there is less room for joyous holidays like National Flip Flop Day (June 17), National Kazoo Day (January 28), and National Walk on Stilts Day (July 27).*
- Electricity on Keplar-22b is at least as reliable as that provided by Connecticut Light & Power.
- No one on the planet has heard of the Kardashians.
- NASA says it’s not yet clear if Kepler-22b is composed of rock, gas or liquid. If it’s gas, I hope it’s nitrous oxide.
- The planet is bulletproof.**
- Now that the United States Postal Service is planning on increasing its delivery times, it won’t take any longer to get my copies of Entertainment Weekly via intergalactic delivery.
- Property values are very low, especially if it turns out that Kepler-22b is composed of liquid.
- Come on–how cool would it be to live someplace called Kepler-22b!
Of course, there will be some disadvantages in moving to Kepler-22b:
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- The political system there is not as sophisticated as ours, having not yet reached the point where lawmakers interact with each other in the manner of opposing teams in a sleep-away camp color war.
- No one has yet decided what to call people who live on Kepler-22b. Keplerians? (Too cultish.) Keppies? (Too Jewish.)
- Kepler-22b could, at any time, come under attack from Kepler–21b. This is a distinct possibility, because Kepler-21b is 2,960 degrees*** and the inhabitants really want to get the hell out of there.
- Keplar-22b is 600 light years away from Earth, so we may not get any bars on our cell phones.
- The estimate from the moving company is several trillion dollars. Plus we’ll be dead before our stuff gets there.
So maybe we’ll stay in Stamford for awhile. It may not be perfect, but at least we’re relatively safe from Kepler-21b death rays.
*Sadly, these are all real holidays. And there’s still time to get your kazoo for the January 28th celebration!
**No, wait. That’s Kevlar.
***But there’s a cold front moving in from the west.
For more on our adventures as first-time homeowners at age 57, and moving to Stamford, visit http://theupsizers.wordpress.com/
