Turns out today was a bumper crop for interesting news...  First off, we have the distinct possibility of a second Earth having been found out in the nethers of space.  Granted, its description may not be the most promising thing in the world...

This new planet - known for the time being as Gliese 581c - is a midget in comparison, being about 12,000 miles across (Earth is a little under 8,000 pole-to-pole).

It has a mass five times that of Earth, probably made of the same sort of rock as makes up our world and with enough gravity to hold a substantial atmosphere.

Astrobiologists - scientists who study the possibility of alien life - refer to a climate known as the Goldilocks Zone, where it is not so cold that water freezes and not so hot that it boils, but where it can lie on the planet's surface as a liquid.

It is not clear what this planet is made of. If it is rock, like the Earth, then its surface may be land, or a combination of land and ocean.

Another possibility is that Gliese 581c was formed mostly from ice far from the star (ice is a very common substance in the Universe), and moved to the close orbit it inhabits today.

In which case its entire surface will have melted to form a giant, planet-wide ocean with no land, save perhaps a few rocky islands or icebergs.

The surface gravity is probably around twice that of the Earth and the atmosphere could be similar to ours.

Although the new planet is in itself very Earth-like, its solar system is about as alien as could be imagined. The star at the centre - Gliese 581 - is small and dim, only about a third the size of our Sun and about 50 times cooler.

The two other planets are huge, Neptune-sized worlds called Gliese 581b and d (there is no "a", to avoid confusion with the star itself).

The Earth-like planet orbits its sun at a distance of only six million miles or so (our Sun is 93 million miles away), travelling so fast that its "year" only lasts 13 of our days.

The parent star would dominate the view from the surface - a huge red ball of fire that must be a spectacular sight.

It is difficult to speculate what - if any - life there is on the planet. If there is life there it would have to cope with the higher gravity and solar radiation from its sun.

Not entirely sure I would want to live there, but assuming Einsteinian physics (and a lack of a warp drive), it could only take us about 25-50 years to see what may or may not be living on it... also assuming one hell of an engine.  Assuming technology we have today... well, I would not count on anything even approximating surface pictures on the planet in my lifetime.  Or that of my great-grandchildren.  Or probably much, much farther.  Still, there is some, small comfort in knowing that there may, very well, be planets out there in the universe that could support us, as well as other forms of life - after all, the universe is a big place (to coin a phrase, you would not believe just how really big it is), and the odds are somewhat stacked in the favor of finding planets, even ones capable of supporting life, of any variety. 

And speaking of odds...  It turns out that some scientists in Serbia have discovered Kryptonite.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), this material is, in fact, not the radioactive leftovers of a long-since destroyed planet that also, coincidentally, happened to be the home planet of a race of superbeings...  Instead, it turns out to be a white, kind-of-chalky substance that is completely non-radioactive, and might actually be useful in batteries.  Of course, the missing element (fluorine) might hold the key to the demise of superheroes...  However, any way you look at it, the odds of a movie coming out describing kryptonite as being "lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine" and then, a few months later, someone actually digging up a substance that is almost identical...?   Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous, but this is stretching it a bit.