Hello! Kepler-22b

The web is abuzz with the new habitable Kepler-22b planet that was recently discovered. The scientists and space observers and the astronomical community are over joyed with this new found discovery. The credit goes to NASA's SETI, who have been on a discovering spree for finding Earth like planets in and beyond our solar system, in and beyond our galaxy. The appreciable fact is that SETI has mentions of about 1000 such planet with a potential of sustaining life.

At the face of it, it looks exciting, that we may no longer be the loners in the Universe. But the very important question I ask is, is there a really a life form on this planet. Just because, Kepler-22b closely resembles Earth and is closer to Earth and is just 2.4 times larger than Earth and that it also orbits around a Sun like star, and the yearly revolution of 290 days, closer to Earth's 365, may form a concrete basis to conduct study on the existence of a life form; but the very fact that it is 600 light years away, is in itself a big punch in the face.

A light year, is the distance travelled by light in one year. Kepler-22b, at a distance of 600 light years away, means that the recent discovery of this planet, the images of which are from 600 years back. So basically we are looking and studying the data which is 600 years old. Now, even if we assumed that the life did exist and they are as evolved as we are and they are as technologically advanced as we are, saying just a "Hello" or a "Hi" would taking 600 years to reach them. So we are looking at a total communication turn around time of 1200 years every time we try to exchange any information.

Say if the inhabitants are hospitable enough to extend an invitation to us which we can expect to come by in 1200 years, if we impress them now in our very first communication, it would take us about 22 million years just to have a tea with them, since we obviously cannot travel at the speed of light, at least, anything that has mass, can never travel at the speed of light.
So, the whole point in trying to study about some thing that is so far far away, doesn't really make much sense to me. What kind of practical purpose is it going to serve to the common people, other than satisfying the hungry scientific minds? And there already are instances of extrapolating the fantasies of Kepler-22b, without even knowing, what color is the planet, without knowing what kind of atmosphere there is, without knowing the density, and therefore not knowing what the gravity would be like. We don't know what its made of, gas, rock or liquid, we don't know its chemical composition, we don't know if it has any water on it. And we will never know anything about which is some trillions of trillion miles away.

If we are able to come up with a technology that can allow us to travel faster than the speed of light (at the speed of light will just not work), then all this study will be much appreciated and the efforts cheered and whistled and greatly applauded. Until then, we have to just call blind shots!

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