Exoplanets

 Exoplanets are the planets situated out of our solar system. Exoplanets are very interesting celestial bodies because they have similar characteristics to that of normal planets. They revolve around a parent star, have moons and could also have life on it. There are more than a trillion exoplanets, and many of them resemble Earth. All of these planets are very far away from us and therefore needed amazing inventions and a lot of technology before we could see them, though many scientists had predicted in the 20th century that there were planets outside our solar system. One launch which led us to a very interesting planetary system, was a telescope which was launched into the earth’s heliocentric orbit called Kepler space telescope. It was launched on 7th march 2009. It’s main purpose was to find celestial bodies which had earth-like characteristics.  

What the Kepler telescope found was mind blowing. It found a planet called Kepler 62-e. Kepler 62-e is a planet also known as the water world as it is fully covered in water. It revolves around its parent star Kepler 62. It is 1200 light years away from the Earth. It is also called a super earth. These planets are much larger than earth and have huge oceans which are not interrupted by any land mass causing the pressure of the waves to build up. They have more gravity than our planet, and they have more of a sticker atmosphere than our Earth. There could be a lot of tectonic activity going on. These planets may also have moons, causing the high waves. Will life be possible on this planet? Yes, life is possible on this planet because of the warm and wet environment it has. What would be better is some piece of land which can stop the force of the waves.  

Another one of this planet is Kepler 62-f. It is from the same planetary system and is the farthest planet from its star. This planet was discovered in 2013 by the Kepler mission. It found out that there was water there but couldn’t find other features. What the scientists are most concerned about is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We know that it has an atmosphere but we don’t know what the atmosphere is made of. If it wants to keep its water from freezing it would require an atmosphere with several layers maximum of them should be made up of carbon dioxide keeping the planet warm however if the planet isn’t able to produce carbon dioxide, then life would be next to impossible on Kepler 62f

The next planet is Ross 128b. This is an exoplanet which is just 11 lightyears away from our earth making it one of the closest exoplanets from Earth. It revolves around it’s parent star Ross 128, which is the second closest star (first being Proxima Centauri). This star is a red dwarf and is 5 billion years old and therefore not being that active. Ross 128 has 1.38 times the mass of our Earth and it is just 7 million kilometers away from its start therefore it takes only 10 Earth days to revolve around Ross 128. This star is actually moving closer to Earth and in 50 thousand years it will become the closest exoplanet. This is extremely rare because most exoplanets are big gas giants, and have very low chances of life but this planet has more chances of life than Earth has. Its hottest places have a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius and the coldest places have a temperature of -60 degrees Celsius. Which could be ideal for life to be there. Scientists also believe that there could already be life on this planet, because of it’s ideal characteristics.

Machines have still not been able to figure out whether there is life on these planets or not mainly due to the distance between them and us. Though in the future after we have better technology and we figure out the atmospheric and surface matter we will be able to conclude whether we can or cannot start a colony on these planets or if there is already life on these planets.