A Plutonic Relationship
It isn't you -- it's me. But I hope we can still be friends. I minored in astronomy in college, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The subject's appeal to me was fueled by the tantilizing prospect of other intelligent (or intelligent) life in the universe. SETI was a hot topic a generation or so before SETI@Home made us all universe scanners and way before Aricebo graduate Jodie Foster made Contact -- or did she? -- with a race that also liked TV too much. The prospect that we are not alone and the seeming inevitability, a mere half-dozen years after "Star Trek" got cancelled, of long-distance human space travel was enough for me to read astronomy books even on school breaks. Long after my academic days ended we did in fact find evidence of life, or at least evidence of evidence life , right here in our own solar system. That was cool, but fosilized remains of microbes and places water might have been doesn't pack much dramatic punch. There is, on th