Close! We have detected the smallest exoplanet in human history…and its been done from ground based observatories. Gliese 581 e has all the right properties that make it an earthlike world candidate, but lets not forget that Venus too has an earth-like mass. Unlike the planets that Kepler will be searching over 3,000 light years away, Gliese 581 e is “only” 20 light years away.
For the full story visit:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517271,00.html
Finally, NASA is learning how to promote the good it does for the rest of us. So often we think of pure science as something that sucks funding away from other social initiatives, failing to follow the thread of how technological advancements make their way into our lives specifically because of things scientists do everyday but we never hear about. 
Checkout this cool interactive feature…it’s really interesting an LOT of fun.
Difficult to describe how hard that trip was to Spokane. Lots of great friends up there and I must make the trip again soon. Lots of great friends down here and I must make such trips locally soon. I kept expecting him to walk through the door or call on the phone. His little 2 year old daughter kept asking when pappa was coming home. That pulled the rug from under me a few times. God is strong with them though.
The coroner is very dissatisfied with the autopsy. Couldn’t find a thing wrong, except for an enlarged heart (Kevin’s heart was big, that’s not news). But the coroner wasn’t really convinced this could have been the root cause. But he did mention that his heart seized and that Kevin never felt a thing.
And then an interesting twist. Kevin was an organ donor, and his bones were so big that they were able to get what they needed to save the lives of 12 people, mostly children, that needed what he had. His corneas helped give back site to someone else. All the pictures of the people he helped are going to be sent to his brother and wife.
I worked on the Flash slideshow for the funeral. I didn’t want his brother or close family to have to do that, and besides its something I could contribute. It was good to see him in different situations, always smiling or laughing. It didn’t make me sad for the most part, just glad I knew him.
So I left Spokane and said goodbye for the last time to one of my closest friends, like a brother. But for his family I will visit them again, and his daughters I will be sure to tell them as often as possible what a great man their father was, and how lucky to have such a great family they are.
Last night my wife and I received a dreadful call. A man that was the best of men, that lived a God-fearing, compassion filled life, that my wife and I loved dearly, that recently married, and started a family with the woman whom he described as the girl of his dreams, died yesterday, April 16th. He’s gone. I can’t believe it. He was only 33. My wife and I listened to his sobbing, shocked wife tell us that he was standing at a restaurant when he simply dropped to the floor. Two paramedics were actually dining at the next table over. What should have been a stroke of fortune was meaningless. They could not revive him.
I’ve got to pull it together. Writing this helps. I have a lot to do before the plane flight north. I’m sick from weeks of bronchitis and other illness, and so is my wife. We’re a sorry pair right now.
If you knew him, you loved him. It was that simple. At 6ft 4, trim, muscular, and bald he looked a lot like Jason Stathom the actor. When he shook your hand it was only for a second, and then he’d reach out to hug you. Don’t get me wrong. The guy was tough as nails, and firm as the Earth we stand on when it came to matters of God and family. But he had a way of making you laugh, a way of calming a person, and a life that was lived without anger or fear toward anyone or anything. He never lectured or assumed any air of authority on anything. When he had an opinion, he offered it kindly and well thought out. That’s just one of the reasons his opinions always meant something to me, why I would find myself thinking about things he said for days after he said it.
This guy had a very difficult life from age 1 to age 33, but that’s not the way he saw it. He changed everything I thought I knew about how to live a meaningful life. I am the better for having known him, in the most meaningful sense of the phrase.
Last night I had a dream that shook me to the core and was painful in the extreme when I woke up just a few hours ago, but somehow it was oddly comforting. My wife, he and I were taking one of our late afternoon weekend walks beside the river just as the snow was melting and spring was rumbling deeply in the forest waters we walked beside. “You can’t blame God bro!” he said with a concerned and sincere look. “We had it good! You guys got your marriage back, I got the family I had always dreamed about, and we had some great fun together! I’ll see you again, I promise.”
As usual, he’s right in every way.
Someone good, a young and energetic man, a bright way of light and a rock to all those who knew him, is gone from the world. But his glowing afterimage, his contagious optimistic enthusiasm, will live on in anyone who remembers him.
According to Kepler Mission Manager Jim Fanson, “Flight controllers have transitioned Kepler out of its low-activity safe mode and have powered on its main instrument, the photometer.” A few days ago the telescope suddenly went into safe mode and this delayed powering up the photometer, which apparently occurs first and then the dust cover comes off. The word “photometer” doesn’t quite capture how impressive that instrument really is…but that’s what I like about engineers. They call it like it is. Click the image to open a new window with a full size version of the picture showing where Kepler will be looking.
