Researchers on Tuesday, at a conference in Hatfield, England, revealed that they had discovered a new planet outside of our home solar system that is less than twice the size of Earth. This is interesting because most of the planets that have been discovered so far are significantly larger – the size of Jupiter, for instance. Smaller, less massive planets are more likely to share a quality other than size with Earth: life. This specific new planet most likely can’t support life because it orbits its sun too closely, which most likely would make it too hot for any kind of flora or fauna like what we know here on Earth. But it seems like every time scientists find a new planet, it’s closer to what we assume a life-sustaining planet must be like. Until about the 1500s, most people believed the Earth was fixed at the center of the universe. That view originated with the Greeks and was based on logic and observations. However, as time passed, it became ingrained within the Christian church – after all, if the son of God came to Earth, it made sense that our world should have some privileged position within the universe. Galileo Galilei, one of the foremost astronomers of all time, was tried for heresy during the Inquisition for supporting the theory that Earth orbits the sun. This idea that Earth was the center of the universe became ensconced within another idea – that we, as people, are somehow special or better than other life. And that idea didn’t die with the Earth-centered solar system. Today we still seem to think this. Whenever some situation concerning the well-being of animals comes up, I invariably hear ‘it’s a fish’ or ‘they’re dogs.’ The implication is that since the beings in question can’t talk, they don’t matter. To an extent, we’re pretty special. As far as we know, we’re the only intelligent life in the universe. We have language, mathematics, tools and baseball. And we’re the only ones. As far as we know. The more planets like this we find, and the further our astronomy progresses, the more likely it becomes that we will find a foreign species that has all of the same things we do and is maybe even more advanced than we are. It’s possible that the barriers of communication would be such that the others might not even realize that we’re intelligent and might see our cities and tools the same way we see anthills. Human arrogance and self-importance seem to be at the core of a lot of our problems as a species. Wars are fought for land that, in the grand scheme of things, is largely meaningless. We fight over religions and national identities that, for all we know, might serve no more than a basic psychological importance. Because we thought of these things, we think they’re important. But we’re probably not that unique, so maybe we should all just settle down – or else the Klingons might kill us all.