Finding earth-like planets by finding...earth...

The Discovery Channel website has an article on a different idea for locating extrasolar planets that are more earth-like... water, atmosphere, maybe habitable. The idea is to take a look at earth the way we are trying to look at other planets - from a distance. Of course, we can't get as far away from earth as we have to be from anything else we're looking at, but hey, that's what math is for, right? At the moment it seems that scientists are making some use of Deep Impact's telescopes to peek back at earth as Deep Impact makes its lonely way out to comet Hartley 2.

The article says:

For example, at a planet-hunters conference in France last month, researchers reported that from the perspective of space, light from Earth twinkles as clouds pass in and out of view.

"A distant extraterrestrial observer would see Earth as a point source of light that varies in brightness in a repeating, predictable pattern, just like spots on a spinning ball," Science magazine reported in an article last month about the research, which was headed by Enric Palle of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.

More about Deep Impact's new missions can also be found here.