The next earth

The next earth

Earth’s population is now at a tremendous high level with an approximate forecasts number of 7,794,798,739 during 2020 and a fertility rate of 2.47%. As of 2021, the population is at most 7.9 Billion. With this astonishing number, a question in my mind always popped up, can humanities make a way to find a new planet? A planet where we can continue to strive, a planet that is just like our own mother earth.

Its been decades since the exploration of the experts through space to find a suitable planet for us to live with. Finding such precious planet that will somehow resemble our own is far from over because of over a thousand of them that has been found, not a single one is suitable for human kind to continue and strive or to avoid extinction.

There has been a lot of exploration and mission led by the experts in order to find earth like planets but they found not a single planet for us to live or to migrate sooner. Of course, it will not be as easy as finding a place to spend your vacation, why? Because there are difficulties in which experts are struggling when it comes to this mission some of which are the following;

Technology:

Its very obvious that our present technology is limited and most of which are intended only to use on earth so innovating and creating such technologies that will likely to deal with the condition outside the world is a tough job. Indeed, we already have invented spacecraft but sad to say we are far from developing a super high-speed spacecraft that can carry human from earth to another planet. By the way I’m talking about the speed of light. As of 2020 the fastest human spacecraft accelerated to a speed equal to 289,987 mph that’s 466,592 km/h relative to the sun. honestly, this speed is far from 299,792,458 m/s which is the speed of light.

Financial aspect:

Aside from technology, a lot of funds are needed in order for one space exploration project to succeed. Without money we can’t even make or build a specific technology for the exploration and for sure you already know that for a single mission, we need billions of dollars of funds not to mention the risk of failing.

So, why do I keep on sharing this thing? It’s because we need to consider the future of human race and time will come the earth will be out of resources and scarcity is waving and no one will ever stop that unless all humankind will likely to cooperate to stop killing our planet but it’s impossible because we are naturally greedy species and we always want to strive, to improve, to develop even if  it means killing our own planet.

Will there be a planet like ours?

There are billions of stars and planets in the universe and we are stupid if we think that with billions of heavenly bodies outside our planet, earth is the only one full of life. We don’t know for sure which is true but for me the possibility of life on other planets is very likely to exist. This is one of the reasons why expert’s eagerness to find exoplanets are at highest level. So, what is exoplanet? And why do experts are so persistent trying to search and examine these planets?

Currently we have eight planets that orbits around the sun and these forms our solar system. Planets that orbits around other star or located in other star system is what we call exoplanets. Searching for these planets are very hard using telescopes because of the effect of their parent star/s but astronomers use the relevant changes of the glares of the stars directly affected by the planets orbiting around it so that they can find the planets. Astronomers also observe the orbit of the stars itself, if the star does not orbit perfectly around its center then a planet or planets maybe affecting it but it is only possible for larger planets like our gas giants or even larger.

Earth-like planets:

Unlike exoplanets, earth like planets are much more difficult to find, but perhaps the most exciting parts of space exploration because searching for planets that highly resembles our planet is the first step of finding our future generation’s new home where they can live freely and peacefully.

In its basic sense, earth like planets are planets which highly likely to become the next earth. It’s quality and behaviors must be somehow or perfectly related as to earth. According to the estimates made by the University of British Columbia, the possibility of earthlike planets is likely to occur for every five sun-like stars in the milky way galaxy.

To be considered as Earth-like Planets the following must be observe:

·         The planet must be rocky

·         It should be approximately earth-like in size

·         The planet should be orbiting a G-type star like our sun

·         It should be located at the habitable zone or the place of orbit from which the planet can potentially host a liquid water and possibly life.

·         There must be a suitable atmosphere for human or any life to exist.

For decades the search for earth like planets never stops and so far, there have been reported of about 24 earthlike planets over the 4000 exoplanets that has been discovered that are said to be a good candidate for the so called “next earth”. Current data shows that a total of 60 potentially habitable exoplanets have been found.  Some of which are listed below:

Gliese 667Cc

This exoplanet, which lies just 22 light-years from Earth, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, and researchers aren't sure whether or not it's rocky. Gliese 667Cc completes one orbit around its host star in a mere 28 days, but that star is a red dwarf considerably cooler than the sun, so the exoplanet is thought to lie in the habitable zone. However, this planet which was discovered with the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile may orbit close enough in to be baked by flares from the red dwarf.

Kepler 22b 

Kepler 22b lies 600 light-years away. It was the first Kepler planet found in the habitable zone of its parent star, but the world is considerably larger than Earth — about 2.4 times our planet's size. It's unclear if this "super-Earth" planet is rocky, liquid or gaseous. Its orbit is about 290 days long.

Kepler-69c

Kepler-69c, which is about 2,700 light-years away, is about 70 percent larger than Earth. So, once again, researchers are unsure about its composition.

The planet completes one orbit every 242 days, making its position within its solar system comparable to that of Venus within ours. However, Kepler-69c's host star is about 80 percent as luminous as the sun, so the planet appears to be in the habitable zone.

Kepler-62f

This planet is about 40 percent larger than Earth and orbits a star much cooler than our sun. Its 267-day orbit, however, puts Kepler-62f squarely within the habitable zone.

The Kepler-62 system lies about 1,200 light-years away.

Kepler 186f

This planet is at most 10 percent larger than Earth, and it also appears to reside in the habitable zone of its star, though on the zone's outer edge; the planet receives just one-third of the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun.

Kepler-186f parent star is a red dwarf, so the alien world is not a true Earth twin. The planet lies about 500 light-years from Earth.

Gliese 581g

This planet is a controversial find. It was discovered in 2010, but there has been difficulty in getting it confirmed. Still, the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo calls Gliese 581 the top candidate for alien life. If confirmed, this rocky world is about 20 light-years away from Earth's sun, and is two to three times as massive as Earth. It orbits its parent star, Gliese 581, about every 30 days in the constellation Libra.

There still many more but I won’t waste your time reading all of them.

Despite all of these discoveries, we are still on a scratch and the planets which we are searching for is still hiding beyond our reach. Hopefully, it will show up in the near future and finally shows us that we can live not only on earth but on another planet as well. But you know what?
I think the best way to survive and continue to exist is to love and take care of our mother earth. If we stop our greediness and cure our dying planets slowly then maybe one day she will recover and we will no longer need to find another extraterrestrial planet to conquer and leave our planet behind. C’mon! let us help mother earth be helpful, be kind and please shall we take care of her? If we don’t she’ll die and perhaps all of life that blooms on this planets will with it if we don’t take care and at least try to care for it.