Guess what we just discovered?

“Follow the water” goes the mantra of the search for life beyond Earth, and so far it has led planetary scientists to some very unusual places. To Mars, for example, where the weight of the evidence suggests that primordial oceans lapped ancient shorelines billions of years ago, and to Jupiter’s moon Europa, which harbors a subterranean sea. And now, in an article published in today’s edition of Nature magazine, comes news that traces of water have been detected much further away, on a planet orbiting a star 64 light-years from the Sun. It is the first time that water vapor had been detected with a high degree of certainty on a planet outside our solar system.

Again I say that although water is not necessary for life, we do know water lends itself to life with relative ease, as is evidenced right here on our own planet.  To discover it for the first time on another planet outside our own solar system pushes us one giant leap forward in the search for life out there.  And there is life out there, I assure you.