What do you mean, talking about exoplanets doesn't qualify as AtomPunk?

OK so technically you might be right but you know what I say to that?

Bollocks.

I'm sure there's an argument somewhere stating that the Space Race, which as I'm sure you know makes up a rather large portion of the aforementioned AtomPunk, is still going on. Sure, we're not all pushing to get to the Moon and whatnot, and it's probably no longer a race but there's definitely a lotta' scientist-type-folk from a whole lotta' places looking toward the stars whilst simultaneously thinking something along the lines of, "Holy shit there's a lotta' stars and planets and shit up there... Let's go!"

Like I say, something along those lines...

To be fair, it's no secret that we, as a race, are looking toward the sky and wondering... I mean, anyone with an IQ greater than that of a piece of celery knows, without being told, that other stars - just like our Sun, 'cos that's a star - have planets orbiting them just like the nine (yes, I don't care... Pluto is a fucking planet (so are the others such as Ceres, Makemake, Haumea & Eris... Dwarf Planets my arse) so there). Even if we accept, (wrongly, I suspect) that Earth is the only planet in the entirety of the Universe upon which resides intelligent life, there's not bloke nor wench who could say, in all honesty, "You know what, I reckon the possibility of other stars having planets in orbit is bullshit," mostly because it's not a possibility; it's fact.

Anyways, at this stage you might well be wondering why I'm bringing this topic up now, in the AtomPunk issue, rather than waiting for an issue of Tevun-Krus within which such a thing would be far more sensible, like Space Exploration...

Well y'know Alpha Centauri, right? Y'know, our closest star system-type neighbour that's made up of three stars (Right?! A three star system!) designated A, B & C. The first two make up a binary system and the third is much smaller star known as Proxima Centauri.

Anyways, 'they,' have only gone and bloody found a bloody exoplanet in orbit around Proxima Centauri. It gets even better, too 'cos this exoplanet, designated Proxima Centauri b, is actually well within the stars Goldilocks Zone (y'know where it ain't too hot or too cold...) and is a genuine candidate for a little exploration at some time in the future.

Proxima Centauri b is also the closest, by a fair margin, exoplanet to us. In fact, technology that's currently in development could mean that within our lifetime, mankind might get to explore this planet.

That, in my view, is inestimably cool!

There's a whole lotta' sci-fi that revolves around there being habitable worlds in the Alpha Centauri star system and now, with the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, that's another load of sci-fi that is now, in part at least, no longer science fiction; it's science fact!

So I figure I'll leave you with a pretty picture... An artist's impression of said recently discovered world stolen straight from the fount of all knowledge and everything else, Wikipedia...

By ESO/M. Kornmesser - https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1629a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50868898