Kepler's First Planet Will Soon Be Eaten

Soon being a relative term, of course, this is still astronomy. 

The Kepler Space Telescope did a lot of great work in the hunt for exoplanets over its 10-year lifespan; no other telescope has been so prolific in that field. Kepler alone is responsible for discovering over 2,500 exoplanets. One of those planets had to come first though, and that planet is Kepler 1658b, a so-called Hot Jupiter that orbits its star in just 3 days. (If you're wondering why it's not called Kepler 1b, the planet was initially dismissed as a false alarm until its existence was confirmed in 2019, 10 years after the initial discovery.)

Unfortunately, it's also dying. Kepler 1658b is spiraling in toward its star, with its orbit shortening by 130 milliseconds every year; in just 2.5 million years, give or take a few hundred thousand, it will be swallowed up. Obviously, a couple million years is a long time. If you scale the planet's life down to a more human life span, however, it's only got a month or so to live. That's not so long. So, if we ever want to visit an utterly inhospitable, searing-hot gas giant, we'd better get a move-on with the whole interstellar travel thing.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Fill Thy Frenchy Toast Hole

Brewed by: Dssolvr, Asheville, North Carolina

Description (from the website): "'Fill Thy Frenchy Toasty Hole' is a Coconut French Toast Cake Stout brewed with a base of Riverbend Southern Select and a whole bevy of Proximity Specialty Malts, then dosed with Cinnamon, Maple, Maple Granola, Toasted Coconut, Vanilla Beans, Vanilla Cake, and an extra dab of Macaroon Coconut for good measure. Big and sweet, but very well balanced, and at 8.3% it’s not gonna totally destroy you. Notes of a fat stack of French Toast doused in Maple Syrup and Cinnamon, some fresh Toasted Coconut Granola, extra fudgy chocolate cake, vanilla frosting, and…uh…yeah…this tastes like French Toast smothered in Hot Fudge and Coconut and Granola, but in Cake form?"

Would I buy it again? Okay, here's the thing with beers like this. It's very good. It's sweet and thick and perfect for a cold winter day. But it doesn't taste like much of anything. Look at the list of things in it. Cinnamon, maple, granola, coconut, vanilla, cake, and that's not even everything. It's just too many flavors. They mix together and I would have never guessed that this was supposed to taste like French toast. I would buy it again, because it's tasty, but I wish it actually tasted like French toast.