Inside NASA's hunt for exoplanets just like Earth
Earth may be home, but it's not alone.
Looking around at Earth's neighbors, it's fair to say we're on the most livable planet in our solar system. (Lift your game, Mars.)
But while Earth seems unique in being able to support life, it's probably not the only planet in the universe with that distinction.
There are other planets, known as exoplanets, which are rocky orbs like ours and which orbit their own stars in other solar systems. If those planets exist in the so-called Goldilocks zone -- the orbital distance around their star that makes them not too hot and not too cold -- then they could have the conditions (and, most importantly, the liquid water on their surface) to support life.
In this week's episode of Watch This Space, we take a look at NASA's hunt for exoplanets and the role the Kepler spacecraft has played in hunting out "Earth analogs."
Launched in 2009, Kepler has found more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, as well as a further 2…
Looking around at Earth's neighbors, it's fair to say we're on the most livable planet in our solar system. (Lift your game, Mars.)
But while Earth seems unique in being able to support life, it's probably not the only planet in the universe with that distinction.
There are other planets, known as exoplanets, which are rocky orbs like ours and which orbit their own stars in other solar systems. If those planets exist in the so-called Goldilocks zone -- the orbital distance around their star that makes them not too hot and not too cold -- then they could have the conditions (and, most importantly, the liquid water on their surface) to support life.
In this week's episode of Watch This Space, we take a look at NASA's hunt for exoplanets and the role the Kepler spacecraft has played in hunting out "Earth analogs."
Launched in 2009, Kepler has found more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, as well as a further 2…
