Word: centauri
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When archaeologists from Alpha Centauri alight on earth and begin excavating the rubble of our world, they will be astonished to find, on reaching the stratum circa 1996, that they have stumbled upon a civilization that at the same time produced 1) Dick Morris and 2) pictures of Jupiter's largest moon (430 million miles away) taken from a distance of 162 miles...
...planet, they believe, lies the Kuiper belt, a ring of dusty ice chunks that surrounds the solar system. Beyond that, astronomers say, is the similarly composed Oort cloud, which forms a vast sphere around our planetary system. The cloud stretches two light-years from the sun, halfway to Alpha Centauri, the next nearest star. Occasionally one of the icy lumps in these outer regions is nudged toward the sun by a passing star or gas cloud. As it falls toward our world, it flares into view as a streaking comet...
...acted like a jerk. Cockiness shaded into arrogance. He seemed to guest-star in his own films (Harlem Nights, Another 48 HRS.), touring them with the grudging ennui of a celebrity at a Kiwanis gig somebody had booked for him. The star was now as remote as Alpha Centauri. A squadron of bodyguards kept him cocooned in satiety, assuring that no fan would rush up to ask, "Weren't you Eddie Murphy...
...complain? Under my new name ALF -- for Alien Life Form -- I'm now a bigger star than Alpha Centauri. My half hour on Monday nights on the NBC-TV network sometimes hits the Top Ten in the Nielsen ratings (just like ours, except recorded electronically instead of with marshmallows and thumbtacks) and is playing in about 50 countries. The show is the story of my life in a typical suburban household -- working dad, nonworking mom, teenage daughter just out of braces, chirpy son who dresses up as a vegetable for the school play, and yours truly, the alien...
...live up there on Alpha Centauri...