A home from home that's too big, a bit too hot and sticky- the old, budget hotel of planets, then.

News just in this afternoon- there is an exoplanet that has been discover which is probably habitable, though not very easily. It would be like living in a sauna, apparently, and while that'd be great for your complexion for a while it would eventually be terrible for any buildings/ semi-permanent settlements. For shame.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't at least look at it, though, in case we need to leave within the fairly small interstellar window of the next 250 years. As many scientists and sci-fi authors have said, the future of the human race is not on one planet, and probably not this one. So, onwards! To the catchily named HD85512B!

The gravity there would be a problem, with it being 1.4 times that of Earth, but with the exoskeletons in development today both for military and medical use that wouldn't be too much of an issue. And it's even been hinted at that, if it was supporting life of its own, they would be brilliantly alien rather than the Star Trek staple of bipedal humanoids. So let's open our arms and welcome these squat strange creatures, eh?

Of course, there's not that much more that can be said about it without visiting, taking some samples, maybe seeing what sort of make-up the ocean and atmosphere are and perhaps why they're that way? From that, it might even be possible to deduce elements necessary for terraforming other exoplanets within the Goldilocks-zone (the principle being it's not too hot/ cold, close/ far from a star, but just right). If only we had an active space program with which we could begin to plan such an excursion. Mr Obama, do we-? Oh, you abolished it because of funding. Cheers for that.

We'll just sit and look at it from afar then while we fill up, burn, spray oil all over and blow up our own planet. Sounds like a plan.