The earth-cousin and the space frontier

Lot of action on the space front:

–Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, recently joined the board of the X Prize Foundation, as this article in the NYT mentions. The piece is about the interest by “thrillionaires” in space endeavors. It’s also well-known that Silicon Valley techies are naturally drawn to space exploration. Paypal’s Elon Musk has been tinkering for a few years now.

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–Berkeley astronomers have discovered “the most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet: a possibly rocky world about 7.5 times as massive as the Earth. This hot “super-Earth,” just 15 light years away, travels in a nearly circular orbit only 2 million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876, and has a radius about twice that of Earth. (Picture is an enlarged view of the new Earth-like planet orbiting Gliese 876).

—More details on Amazon.com Jeff Bezos’ secretive Blue Origin space project. Via Slashdot.