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There really may be a planet Vulcan.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected two asteroid belts around Epsilon Eridani, the planetary system closest to ours and home to Star Trek's fictitious First Officer Spock, the space agency reported yesterday.

A planet near the inner asteroid belt was identified eight years ago. The newly spotted planet is in the vicinity of the outer belt.

Epsilon Eridani is around 10 light-years, or 62 trillion miles (98 trillion kilometers), away from Earth's solar system and, at a mere 850 million years old, is considered a younger, similar version of our own 4.5- billion-year-old system. Star Trek creators made it the home of Vulcan, and it's possible that there are as-yet-unseen Earth-like planets between the star system and its inner ring, astronomer Massimo Marengo of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told McClatchy Newspapers.

"We certainly haven't seen it yet, but if its solar system is anything like ours, then there should be planets like ours," Marengo told USA Today.

Earthlings didn't wait for science to discover the real Vulcan before honoring Spock's sidekicks with their own asteroids. Star Trek stars George Takei, who played helmsman Hikaru Sulu, Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, and series creator Gene Roddenberry all have celestial rocks named for them.

"Of course there is disagreement among Star Trek fans about whether the planet of Mr. Spock could be at Epsilon Eridani," Marengo joked in USA Today, "because it is such a young star and Vulcans are supposed to be an advanced civilization." Nevertheless, if his home planet pans out, the iconic pointy-eared Mr. Spock character will surely live long and prosper.

(Artist rendering of Epsilon Eridani/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

7 Comments

1. 1. silvrhairdevil 03:40 PM 10/28/08

   Of course they will find a life-supporting planet there.
   
   Life imitates Art.

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2. 2. agenthucky in reply to silvrhairdevil 06:09 PM 10/28/08

   and we make Art to imitate Life.
   
   So then man has the indirect ability to create Life
   
   man creates art, which life imitates, which man imitates....
   The outcome is in the eye of the observer.

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3. 3. SciCat 07:24 PM 10/28/08

   It's "Hikaru" Sulu, not "Hiakru"!
   
   And, yes, I'm a nerd ;-).

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4. 4. silvrhairdevil in reply to agenthucky 07:55 PM 10/28/08

   Absolutely!!
   
   Let us not forget that, lacking an observer, there would be no Art, no Man, no Life.

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5. 5. PrairieDweller 09:22 AM 11/6/08

   If there is a planet with intelligent life there I say we invade it and kill them all. I bet they are thinking the same thing about us, that's why we need to act first.
   EARTH FIRST!

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6. 6. PrairieDweller in reply to PrairieDweller 09:23 AM 11/6/08

   PRIMATES RULE!

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7. 7. Shai-Hulud 11:50 PM 11/9/08

   They haven't named an asteroid after Spock? What's with that?
   :P

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