Is there life on 581 c

That does not quite fit into that David Bowie song.

It looks like astronomers have found habitable planet. This is the first planet outside our solar system we think is like earth or even kind of like earth.

Two things stood out to me.

The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.

Wow. We cannot even get to Mars right now. How the hell are we going to go 20.5 light years. We do not even have an active exploring space program. How long would it take to get there under current technologies?

Gravity is 1.6 times as strong as Earth's so a 150-pound person would feel like 240 pounds.

I wonder how heavy we could survive. Could our bodies survive long term exposer to this kind of gravity. What would have to our organs? Would we be able to build up to living there or would it kill us?

I am excited that we have found another planet out there that might be like earth. It would be great if this got up back into space in a real way. I feel this does not excite me in the way it might have when I was young.