Word: lyra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...which is equipped with a new, state-of-the art planet detector, astronomers from Japan, the U.S. and Germany snapped pictures of an object they're calling GJ 758 B orbiting a sunlike star called GJ 758, about 50 light-years from Earth and between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Scientists have narrowed their estimate of the mass of GJ 758 B to only about 10 to 40 times the mass of Jupiter. If it were more than 13 Jupiter masses, it would probably be considered a brown dwarf, which is a kind of failed star. "We're calling...
...lights on a lot of porches. With perhaps 70 sextillion stars in the universe (that's 7 followed by 22 zeros), the spacecraft can't possibly survey them all. Instead, it will sample about 100,000 in a region of our solar system known as Cygnus-Lyra. That spot was chosen both because it's rich in stars and because it lies above our own orbital plane. Kepler - which will be launched into not an Earth orbit but a solar orbit - can thus simply train its gaze up and never have to worry about any bodies in the home solar...
...unblinking look at Cygnus-Lyra is important because even if Kepler were to detect any telltale fluctuations in stellar light, that wouldn't be proof of a planet. The telescope would have to keep looking and see if the flickering is repeated roughly once a year, or about the time it would take an Earth-like planet to circle around its star and pass in front again. Record three or four such passes, and you can be pretty sure you've got a planet - hence the 3½-year mission...
...Kidman has played the bitch goddess before, though never with such silky pleasure in being malevolent. If there's a casting revelation, it's the lead actress, who was just 12 when she was chosen for Lyra, her first professional role. Dakota Blue Richards: it sounds like the name of a second-tier rock star's kid. But she's an actual English girl (with an American mother), and a knockout. Her look is both wary and sleepy, as if she'd just been poked awake from a bad dream. There's an intelligent insolence about Richards, suggesting...
...point he dropped out of directing the film for that very reason.) Faithful to the novels' narrative if not their philosophy, his movie bustles through the plot twists and lightning characterizations as if it were its own Cliff Notes, rarely taking the time to acquaint the audience with Lyra's allies and enemies. Even a genre film has to relax; it's in the quieter moments that epic fantasies find their richness...