Someone Talk That Poor Planet Down!

The AP reports that scientists have identified a "gigantic suicidal planet." The planet appears to be in a "death spiral" around a star in the Phoenix constellation. For those of you living in Phoenix, this is probably the equivalent of slowly driving eastbound on Route 101.

More disturbingly, scientists are apparently picking up noise from neighboring planets that sounds like the word "jump," chanted rhythmically.

I'm not sure how you treat a suicidal planet 325 light years away. Prozac seems an unlikely option, given that it's likely to be a few thousand years out of date by the time the delivery van brings it round (longer, when you consider all the stops on the way.) Psychotherapy is similiarly hampered by distance, unless we can quickly figure out a way to psycholanalyse using high-powered radiowaves or some kind of gigantic Aldis lamp.

Fortunately, thanks to the massive timescales involved, scientists predict that the planet still has about a million years to live before it plunges into the superheated nuclear furnace of its host star.

If only local suicide attempts were as easy to deal with.

"Hey, that guy's gonna jump off of the bridge!"
"Don't do it buddy!"
"Yeah! You've got a lot to live for!"
"Hey, what time is it?"
"It's five p.m."
"Man, I gotta go! Long Labor Day weekend, you know!"
"Wait, what about him?"
"Oh, he'll be here when we get back. He won't actually do anything until around April."

If only.