A New Planet Found… But is It Habitable?
Our planet’s resources are decreasing with more population increasing, and with these new problems arising, such as global warming, we need to search for a new planet. But the question here is: Where is it?
There are actually many habitable planets than we expected in this universe. So far, over one-thousand planets that are assumed to be habitable is discovered and more are being found. For example, Kepler 22b was the first habitable planet found in 2010, in the Kepler-22 system.
If you didn’t know, there is actually another solar system beside ours. Surprising, isn’t it? It has another sun and possibly, a planet like Earth.
But let’s get back on track. NASA stated that Kepler 22b was 2.4 times bigger than Earth and had the average temperature of 72F. The gravity would be seven times stronger than on Earth and is 60 light years away from Earth, and it may have liquid water existing on the surface.
“Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet,” said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b.
However, there are some who oppose this planet being habitable. Since this planet being 2.4 times bigger than Earth, the atmosphere is much denser than Earth, even Venus. This would make us humans, difficult to survive. Earth’s atmosphere is very thin compared to the size. This is because of the collision that occured that created the Earth’s moon. Also, with Kepler’s dense atmosphere, it would create a large greenhouse effect, which would increase the temperature, thus clashing with idea of the temperature being 72F. And lastly, if this statement is true, then Kepler’s water resource must have evaporated due to the intensity of heat.
[Kepler-11] most likely has an atmosphere as dense or denser than Venus. With such a thick atmosphere, any water on the planet would be in the form of superheated steam or boiled off completely. I wouldn’t plan on moving there any time soon.
But there are many more planets like Earth, so everything will turn out fine, rest assured. For example, a new “Super Earth” called GJ 667Cc. It’s twenty-two light years away from Earth, and is so far, one of the best candidates to support life. If atmosphere existed in this planet however, it’d be like evening all the time because the star GJ orbits around is very red, but it’s no big deal. Also, GJ would receive slightly less amount of light from the red dwarf star than the Earth does from the sun. However, most of the light is infrared, so it should receive more of its incoming energy than the Earth does from sunlight.
To conclude, there are many planets like ours, waiting to be discovered, and will one day, live in one of the many planets we have discovered. But, will we find one before humans deplete the resources on Earth? Will we make it in time? We will have to see.
Liked it
