Exoplanets
May 20, 2015 Assumptions 9 comments nrosenshein15
Exoplanets are planets that are outside of our solar system. Among the vastness of space, there are billions of stars, around those stars could be many planets. Among those planets, some of them could even be habitable. NASA developed and launched a space satellite called the Kepler Space Telescope. This telescope finds exoplanets by looking at many different stars, and waiting for the brightness to dim a little bit. If the light from a sun dims, that shows that there is a planet there. From that the scientists at NASA can also find out much more information about the planets. The Kepler Space Telescope is a telescope that is extremely important for the discovery of new planets.
Exoplanets are extremely important for a couple of reasons. First, the only other planets that could potentially be habitable in our solar system is Mars and Venus. Mercury has days that are almost as long as their year which makes it so one side is extremely hot and the other at frigid temperatures. It also has no atmosphere to hold in temperatures. Venus has an atmosphere, except it the surface temperature is very hot and the clouds can rain down acid. Mars is cold, but it can also have a temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Jupiter and the planets past it are to far from the sun to have decent temperatures, and the majority of them are gas giants anyway with a pressure that would crush you if you were on the surface somehow. Out of 8 planets, only 3 are close to being habitable (with a lot of work).
Kepler is extremely important because it searches for planets that are within a star’s “habitable zone” where it is not to close to be too hot and not to far to be too cold. These planets that they find there are extremely important as they could be potential planets for humanity if we could ever achieve faster than light travel. A lot of the planets they find are rocky super Earths, planets that could have an atmosphere with liquid water just on a planet that is much bigger than Earth. Kepler cannot directly detect life, or even image the planets, but the information that it receives can be used to hypothesize the density, mass, size, and what it is made out of. These planets have the potential to host life. Or, if humanity is able to eventually, they could be used for future homes of humankind. Exoplanets are extremely important in the discovery of extraterrestrial life and future colonies.
9 Comments
Do you think that maybe eventually we would have to find a new planet to live on?
I do believe we will have to. Over population and the want that many people have of visiting another planet would be the biggest reasons for humanity to move onto other planets. The problem that we currently have, is that these planets are light years away and just getting there in a timely manner would mean we would need to develop faster than light travel. Without it, by the time a ship or colony arrives, something devastating could have happened to the Earth leading them to be stranded forever or even have technology that is far beyond what was sent with them.
Great post! I am fascinated by this sort of work and have done a few papers on it myself! I was curious if you have heard of limiting factors, dealing with ecology? I was also wondering if you were familiar with the fermi paradox? Worth researching I promise.
So this is kind of like what the astronauts did inn Interstellar, they looked for new planets that might be inhabitable? It would be interesting to find an inhabitable planet years away.
Yes. They looked for new planets to escape Earth. Finding a planet only light years away would be astonishing and possibly make many people rush to the New World.
This article I have to say is the most appealing to me. I absolutely couldn’t resist the temptation to read this! I think you put a lot of effort and time into this piece and you did a great job! All of this information about planets with potential life has always sparked my interest and I just loved the article! I’m glad that someone else finally believes in this!
I really liked this article because I always thought it would be really cool to find another planet that we could live on! But how long do you think it will take for us to have either the technology or knowledge to make space traveling faster for us to get there? I feel like by the time we can actually make some very good progress it will be far beyond our lifetime, but it would be nice to see that advance in technology while we are still alive. I also did find it interesting that there is a telescope that can do that because I never knew about that before. This reminds me of star trek 🙂
Great post may I ask, what percent of exoplanets are inhabitable with the technology we have today?
I also applaud you with this post, and would like to second the question if there are planets we can inhabit right now? I realize that we think mars could be, but I am thinking more along the lines with an “Earth-like” planet, and if current space transports would be able to bring humans to it?