..........are we alone?

From the BOTEITG department of cool stuff:

European scientists on Monday said they had located five 'super-Earths', each of them between four and 30 times bigger than our planet, in a trio of distant solar systems. Three of the five 'super-Earths' -- so-called because they are several times the mass of our own planet -- orbit a star known as HD 40307 some 42 light years away, the scientists reported. They have 4.2, 6.7, and 9.4 times the mass of the Earth, and orbit their sun in periods of 4.3, 9.6, and 20.4 days, respectively. A 20 day year....sounds cool. Winter would only last five or six days. Perfect! No word on the whole "other life forms out there" yet. Now, go watch Star Trek, E.T., Star Wars, and Contact; or, maybe The Twilight Zone.