Astronomic discoveries don’t always get the kind of media attention they deserve in the United States. So the discovery of a habitable planet just outside our solar system didn’t get a lot of buzz. According to an article on Wired’s website, scientist believe the planet has a temperature range between 32 and 104F and a sun, much like ours. Their sun is 20.5 light years away from us. It would take 15,000 years for us to get there if we were traveling at a million miles per hour.

It doesn’t surprise me that there are other planets like ours. What amazes me is that scientists can measure, with a fairly high level of confidence, the temperature of a planet that’s 20 light years away. They can measure the distances between planets and know the chemical compounds found there yet when it comes to advertising and marketing we still don’t have accurate ways to measure television viewership. Web metrics, considered the most measurable, are still suspect and measuring word of mouth or buzz is a lot closer to astrology than it is to astronomy. Surely it’s not for lack of talent or investment, as I’m sure more money goes into global market research than astronomy.

Human behavior is not an easy thing to measure and we’re light years away from understanding it. Maybe when we’re able to get to that other planet, their people will have figured us out.

Jeff