Late night surfing, and I came across an article on Discovery about how a group of Japanese scientists believe there's a planet about two-thirds the size of Earth floating around out on the far edge of the solar system . As I'm reading this, there's another article that says Mercury has a tail made up of sodium atoms that is about a million miles long . There's a pretty astonishing picture out there. This comes on the heels of all the discoveries being made about Titan (shown in false color at left) , which might have more oil than the Earth. Pluto is no longer a planet , Mars has two active robots crawling across it, and Dr. Who is a hit again. Okay, that last one may be in a slightly different category, but there's a connection. Excitement about one can spill over into the other. I get much more excited about what may lie out there in the universe if I can imagine some of the most far-fetched possibilities. In Britain, at least, 1/6th of the population tunes in
Striking down the mundane and dastardly while retaining a certain obscure turn of phrase, denoting something elusive yet concrete.