A lot of news and speculation from space lately, including the discovery of a very earthlike planet.

We’ve also found some otherworldly holiday greetings!

Kepler 22B has been confirmed as an earthlike planet: coverage may be found
here and here and in a thousand other places, including your local newspaper.

This may be especially good news for otherworld-seekers, since NASA has reason to believe nearly all of the Kepler-discovered planets really are planets.

Astronomers also recently identified two extraordinarily massive black holes, here and here.

How weird might other worlds be? A lab experiment suggests diamond worlds could exist.

Meanwhile, Voyager has reached the edge of the solar “bubble,” as a good a marker as any for the border of the solar system.

But earth still contains some strange life-forms, such as the giant Weta.

In lighter news, Kerry Callen’s blog recently ran these animated versions of classic comic covers.

With the holiday season approaching, we’ll run this recent video, clearly the most coherent *cough* expression of seasonal joy on Youtube. How could it not be, since it samples both the Star Wars Holiday Special and A Charlie Brown Christmas?