The discovery of a another new planet around Gliese 581, just a score of light-years away from terra firma, shot my mood through the roof. The hyperbole of the astronomer making the announcement (assuming that the journalist did not strategically edit the quote) may be forgiven, since it is tremendously exciting news. The interested public, however, does need a reminder that most life is not on the human scale, and that Kal-El's homeworld probably wasn't in the greatest shape before it exploded.
The casual dismissal of planets unsuitable for sustained human existence, under which category most of the Gliese planets fall, distresses me and strikes me as ridiculously anthropocentric. Already in our system there are worlds covered in ice which may have life in hidden oceans, and if so, it won't be humanoid. Even if such planets lack life until a contaminated probe burrows into their subglacial depths, and even if the worlds of Gliese 581 lack any life, the study of these worlds is valuable in itself. If humanity ever does escape Earth's gravity well, it would be useful to know what sort of resources exist in the great beyond - any interstellar colony would only have what was in the system, after all. Even if humanity remains within the SOlar System and eventually dies out as the nineteenth race on Neptune, study of other worlds would inform us about geology, chemistry, and meteorology. Too bad teleportation is still at the sub-atomic stage!
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