Throughout history humanity has been fascinated by the existence of extraterrestrial life. Today such ventures are in the development process and the discovery of life beyond our solar system, no matter how primitive, may soon become a huge(important?) scientific breakthrough. The three basic things that are required to consider a place even remotely habitable are water, a source of energy, and organic materials. Habitability also depends on other factors that must also be taken into consideration such as how close the planet is to its star (in the case of our solar system, the sun), how long the water and organic materials existed there, and the size and mass of the planet. One must not confuse habitable with inhabited. The term habitable suggests only that there is a possibility that life could exist, not necessarily that life was present or still is. For more than a decade the interest of searching for exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system) that are Earth-like has grown.
At present, NASA’s Kepler mission is searching almost 170,000 stars for orbiting planets. (Astronomy, April 2011, p.31). Only recently have discoveries of exoplanets been confirmed, although astronomers have been searching for such planets for centuries. One method employed by astronomers for planetary discovery, that uses data collected by the Kepler spacecraft, is the transit method. A transiting planet is a planet that passes in front of its host star as seen from Earth. (Wolf, 2007) In essence, what is detected is a slight dimming in the host star’s light. Astronomers then determine whether the planet in the habitable zone of its star. The habitable zone (HZ) is the area around a star where it is possible for water to remain liquid on the surf...
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... expensive venture. What is possible now is to pinpoint the planets with the best odds in supporting life. For now, perhaps the best approach is to stay close to home and explore the planets in our solar system.
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The research area of detecting exoplanets, planets outside our own solar system, is a huge area of interest and funding. The importance of being able to detect these planets is they can give us information and an insight into planetary formation, to help the search for ”Earth- like” planets in the habitable zone, and of course the ever-present question of extraterrestrial life. So on order to attempt to gather information about these things we must be have solid detection techniques in place for exoplanets. A few of the important methods shall be discussed here, including the radial velocity method, transit method, direct imaging and gravitational microlensing among others .
Finding life in our solar system could potentially answer the questions humanity has been asking for thousands of years. Sarah Seager, a professor at MIT, mentioned some of these thought provoking questions, “why are we here? Why does our universe exist? How did Earth form and evolve? How and why did life originate and populate our planet?” Answers to these questions could give humanity a deeper understanding of who we are and what our place in the universe is. Steven Dick believes that humanity has “… deep psychological yearnings for companionship, superior wisdom, or ‘an ineradicable desire to see the skies filled with life’.” Those opposed may argue that a biological universe will have little effect on humanity’s understanding of our place in the universe because a biological universe simply does not exist. One may argue that life is exceedingly complex and the odds of conditions being just right for the production and the sustainment of life are slim. Our civilization may have managed to beat the odds, but many its unlikely to for this to occur elsewhere in our solar system. The proof to back this argument is the N =1 equation. The only solid evidence we have proves that only one planet has beaten these insurmountable odds and produced life. While this argument makes logical sense, relying solely on evidence we have at the moment, takes our focus away from the
Although Pluto was discovered in 1930, limited information on the distant planet delayed a realistic understanding of its characteristics. Today Pluto remains the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft, yet an increasing amount of information is unfolding about this peculiar planet. The uniqueness of Pluto's orbit, rotational relationship with its satellite, spin axis, and light variations all give the planet a certain appeal.
The existence of life – Aliens, beyond our planet has been a controversial topic for several centuries, and is a debatable issue even today in the 21st century. What is our topic you may ask? Aliens, Do, Exist. According to theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere other than Earth. This is a bold claim, but there is evidence to support this statement. The evidence we seek is in the many Alien occurrences we have experienced throughout human history.
It is without a doubt that the most fascinating thing about space is the possibility of life elsewhere beside Earth. It is estimated that the Milky Way Galaxy itself contains about 300 billion stars. Each star contains planets and some planets might even have moons. With these findings, the question is no longer whether life exists elsewhere. The probability that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe is far too slim. NASA has identified many planets that have similar conditions to Earth but most of these planets are hundreds of light years away so traveling there to find out if there’s any living organism is not easy. Luckily, scientific evidences have pointed out that one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, could be one of the places where life can exist. If the theories proposed by astronomers about Europa are true, life on Europa might not even be entirely different than life near the bottom of Earth’s oceans.
Jakosky, Bruce. The Search for Life on Other Planets. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Since the 18th century speculation of unearthly life has been brought up by many influential people. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, once stated "I believe that Man is not the most perfect Being but One; rather that as there are many degrees of Beings his Inferiors, so there are many degrees of Beings superior to him”. This quote justifies the fact that even the most prominent people believed in cosmic beings. Further in time, In July 1947, an unidentified flying object crash landed in a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. What military officials discovered was nothing more than the debris of a weather balloon that was being tested. However, people did not seem to fathom the truth and began to investigate what the military did not want the public to know. Bodies of unknown humanoid beings were seized by the military and taken into a secret base for further analysis. Various reasons as to why celestial beings could lurk the universe are being brought upon by today’s modern science committee possibly unlocking an insight onto future life. The first reason as to why extraterrestrial life could perhaps exist is that there is a vast amount of galaxies, stars, planets, and solar systems that humans have not yet discovered. To think that humans, the only civilization on planet earth, are the only living organisms in space would be quite absurd. Furthermore, a second reason as to why extraterrestrials could subsist is that life thrives in the most extreme conditions. This means that whether organisms are in the depths of the ocean, in the midst of the ozone layer, or in the scorching hot temperatures of volcanos; life always finds a way to adapt. However, some may argue that life could not possible coin...
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I was going alone. I caroused through all of the planets and solar system finding the ones that interested me most scanned. There I found a solar system. There was a large sun with a few planets circling it. Most of them revolutionizing with the shape of an ellipse though there was one which seemed to have more of one than all the others. That looked interesting. Resisting the urge I swept through the planets and the belts finding one massive star. The next was a small, at least smaller than the next two. One half was burning while the other was freezing. My scanning signals picked up no life an...