Eureka! I just can't help but get intrigued by the news title of this discovery in exoplanetology: 2 Planets Seem to Fit Our Pattern. The discovery of these two planets that are similar to Saturn and Jupiter would seem to imply that they belong to Solar System similar to ours. Other interesting similarities are listed below:
—The ratio between the masses of the two worlds is about 3:1, similar to the Jupiter/Saturn ratio.
—The smaller planet is about twice as far from its star as the larger one, just as Saturn is roughly twice as far away from the sun as Jupiter.
—The two worlds orbit their star in 5 and 14 years, similar to the 2:5 orbit ratio of Jupiter and Saturn.
Another article mentions that the newly-found Solar System could be a "true analog".
As a pattern-hunter, news like these are music to my ears, specially that this discovery comes after I recently blogged that the Laws of the Universe are inherently life-friendly.
It only gets us closer and closer to an impending verification of this idea that if the configuration of our Solar System is not unique, then a rocky Earth-like exoplanet must be in the habitable zone of a similar Solar System. And once this particular habitable exoplanet is detected soon, we all know what's next - There Could Be Life!
We are at the fringes of a very exciting point in history, a turning point in human thought perhaps as great as the Copernican revolution when humanity realized that the earth is not the center of the world. This time however, it will even be a bigger realization: Humanity is not the center of the Universe.
When the actual discovery of life in other parts of the universe finally comes, humanity will be shaken to the core. The best is yet to come.
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