All in a spin about the planet's dreaded fate

The bad news is that the world will end; the good news is that it won't happen for more than 1 billion years, not long after my trusty new washing machine has finished its last rinse cycle and the Beijing property bubble has burst.

We know this because Kepler 452b - not to be confused, of course, with Keplers 452a and 452c, whose letter boxes are made of titanium - tells us so, its PR company being an outfit named NASA.

Why, the NASA PR folk are so schooled in the ways of the universe that they know exactly how to spin a tale that will charm the simple minds of the inhabitants of a place called Earth, dubbing Kepler 452b's sun "a cousin" of our planet's sun.