Where would you go if you could choose to live on a planet other than Earth? Are you thinking Mars?
BBC iWonder tells us that scientists predict there may be about 40 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, yes 40 billion! Yet, the Milky Way is just one galaxy out of countless billions in Space, and is also the galaxy where the Earth, the Sun, and the other planets in our solar system are situated.
The good news is that NASA’s Kepler Telescope has confirmed over one thousand of these type of Earth-like planets. But what requirements must a planet have to support human life?
What a Planet Must Possess to Support Life
- The planet must have water, which is an essential requirement for life
- It must be in the Goldilocks habitable zone. This means that it must not be too far from its sun that its water freezes, or too close to the sun that its water evaporates.
- The planet’s rotation must allow sunlight to reach all sides of the planet, so that one part won’t be baked hot and the other ice cold.
- It must possess an electromagnetic field that protects against harmful cosmic rays.
- The gravitational field must be strong enough to contain the gases required for life, and prevent them from escaping.
- They must also have plate tectonics which release carbon and regulate carbondioxide in the atmosphere.
Kepler 452b is one of such planets that have been identified. It is 60 percent larger than the Earth, and 500 times heavier than the Earth. It also orbits 20 days longer than the earth, and is 1400 light years away from the earth – which will take over 25 million years to reach at the current speed of NASA’s New Horizons probe.