If There’s Life Out There, Do They Eat Pastrami?  The Hour  By
Leonard Fein    • Print   • Share Share  All right, folks; this
could be very serious.  As you have likely read, astronomers
have now discovered a planet some 120 trillion miles from Earth,
off in another galaxy, which seems — from a distance, as it were
— capable of supporting life. (The astronomers tell us that 120
trillion miles isn’t all that far away. At 39,000 miles an hour,
the speed of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the trip could be
accomplished in 300,000 years.)  It may therefore be some time,
though less than eons, before we know whether the possibility of
life has translated into the reality of life on this newly
discovered planet, which carries the fetching name “Gliese 581
c.” But even if it proves barren, the discovery comes to remind
us that somewhere out there, there is almost surely life.  After
all, there are billions of galaxies in the universe — our very
own Milky Way is just one, one with about 100 billion stars —
and galaxies ca