Remember that movie Another Earth? It was in theatres maybe a year ago or so, and it was about the discovery of this duplicate planet in our solar system called Earth 2 which was populated with duplicate people living parallel lives? (Or something like that. I didn't actually see the movie, but I remember the commercials.) Anyway, guess what? Scientists just discovered ... another Earth. Except this one's not in our solar system and they're calling it a "Super Earth" because it's seven times the mass of this Earth, but it still "orbits its parent star at roughly the same distance as Earth does from the sun." And THAT means it could have similarly habitable conditions to our home planet! Meaning ... duplicate people living parallel lives?
Well, maybe. This Super-Earth gets only about two-thirds the amount of sunlight our Earth gets, but it has a day/night cycle much like ours and astronomers are pretty sure it has water, too. So it's very, very, very possible that just 42 light years away ... in the constellation Pictor ... one of 8 planets orbiting a sun-like star known as HD 40307 is fully populated with ... life. Of some kind. Maybe nothing like the life forms we have here, maybe exactly like the life forms we have here. Either way, the discovery is a monumental one, to be sure. Inspiring and awesome and humbling and just really cool. But I have to say, if there are duplicate people on that exoplanet? I hope they're not living parallel lives. I hope they're living way better lives, so they can tell us how to do the same thing.
What kind of life do you hope exists on the newly discovered Super Earth?
Image via Wired
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Comments 10
I watched that movie, it was good.
at the most im sure its bacterial life or close to that
Wow Jacqueline,it would be so cool if they could get the answers in our lifetime...really thought provoking and interesting stuff here:)
It's interesting, this presumes that any other life form would require the same conditions that earth has. What's to say that all life forms require the same temperature as us, sunlight, or even water? They may not neccesarily be composed of any elements we're familiar with or have discovered. Maybe they'd require temps at 100 degrees below freezing, zero sunlight, and breath mensasoxide?
Anyhow, I'm no expert, I'm sure scientists have good reason to search for planets similar to ours.