Trekkies could be right about vulcan

Star Trek’s producer Gene Roddenberry wrote a letter in 1991 positing that Vulcan, home of the beloved Mr Spock, was in the vicinity of a star named 40 Eridani A, as it was about the same age as our Sun.

Only ‘Trekkies’ probably took him seriously, even if he was backed by three Harvard astrophysicists. Now it seems Roddenberry may have been right: according to a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a new ‘super-Earth’-type planet, twice the size of Earth, has been found orbiting Star HD 26965, only 16 light years from us.

And HD26965 happens to be 40 Eridani A. Ergo, the super-Earth could well be Vulcan, as it is even orange in colour. “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” as Spock once said.


From tablets, cellphones and video-calling to exoplanets and positronic brains, Roddenberry has been remarkably prescient about many things. So, this may be the final frontier.

If deeper probes indeed reveal that the newly discovered super-Earth orbiting 40 Eridani A (HD26965) is Earth-like — i.e., a possible real-life Vulcan — it does not inevitably mean that pointy-eared, extremely logical Spock-like humanoids flourishthere rather than tiny microbes. But, then, as Mr Spock also famously said, “Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.”