By Nic
Have you ever pondered if there is another blue paradise like earth? Well, if you have it’s ok, you’re not alone; I’ve caught myself doing this, too. In this article, I will be discussing other planets that might host life as we know it.
Now we need to get some things straight; we will be talking about planets that are outside our solar system, and we call those exoplanets. The word exo means outside or external, so exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system in another neighboring solar system.
You might be wondering how astronomers discover/detect exoplanets.
Because they are so far away, we use a method called the “transit photometry technique.” It uses a space telescope that is looking at another star. As the light dims for a second, it is because a planet orbits in front of the star and dims the light of its parent star as the planet passes.
This can be understood by moving a ball or some sort of object in front of a light source, because of this method, we have discovered over 6,100 exoplanets since 1992.
The first exoplanet we will be talking about is KOL 5715.01., this exoplanet is 3,000 lightyears away. It orbits in the habitable zone of its star, and this star is a yellow dwarf. The star is bigger than our sun and is extremely stable, so it does not have as many solar flares as our sun. KOL 5715.01. is known as a super-earth. A super-earth is an earth-like planet bigger than earth, and it would take you 100 hours to fly across the planet with a jet airplane. That’s huge! And it possibly has water in the three forms: vapor form, liquid form and ice form; this means that it could have a large ocean and large land mass with desert, polar ice caps, and maybe even tropical environments! But don’t pack your bags yet unless you’re jacked because, with the large size of this planet and a potentially thick atmosphere, these characteristics could pose a threat to life, and because the planet has a stronger gravity, it would be very hard to walk on this planet. You would have to keep your spacesuit on at all times because the thick atmosphere and large size of the planet would crush your lungs and boil your blood! So you better keep that spacesuit on.
The next exoplanet we will talk about is one of my favorites. Kepler 22-b; it’s 600 lightyears away from earth and it orbits within the habitable zone of its star. This planet’s parent star is called Kepler 22-A, a yellow dwarf star. It’s almost the same size as our sun, but just slightly dimmer and cooler. Kepler 22-B is 2.1 times larger than earth. and our observations point to the idea that it’s an ocean world! Its ocean is estimated to be hundreds of kilometers deep that covers the core of the planet. But its water could be fatal to humans with toxic elements are like heavy metals. If there is life on Kepler 22-B, it would probably be microbial life that you must see with special equipment. And if this planet has a thick atmosphere, with the large size of Kepler 22-B, then water could be in a critical condition, meaning neither liquid or gas form. If the water is in a critical form this means that there would be a lesser chance for life to exist on Kepler 22-B.
Now let’s talk about temperature. It’s estimated that the average temperature on Kepler 22-B is 20 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, comfortable to me! The atmosphere is everything. Without an atmosphere, life wouldn’t be possible because, at night without atmosphere, the planet couldn’t retain any heat without a greenhouse effect, and all existing life existing on the planet would die. And with an atmosphere that’s too thick, the atmosphere would turn into a blanket, and heat would bounce around on the surface. The planet would collect more heat, and the planet would turn into a hot exoplanetary Venus. Life wouldn’t be possible. Life has a lot of requirements! So, its atmosphere would have to be just right for life to exist. And this planet could have an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but because of its size, it also could have a hydrogen-helium rich atmosphere. Most of the large planets we have discovered have this atmospheric consistency.
There are some downsides about living on Kepler 22-B, your bones and muscles must be a lot stronger because Kepler 22-B-s’ gravity is 2.07 times the gravity of earth so you would have a hard time walking around on the planet and if you fell down, good luck, because it will be almost impossible to get back up. And also if you were to fall into a deep hole or cave you would fall to the ground in just 1 and a half or a half of a second, and you wouldn’t be able to get out. If you would want to live there you’d have better luck not to live near or close to a deep hole.
There are a few more things about Kepler 22-B we need to talk about. Kepler 22-Bs’ axis is on its side like our own Uranus. Its north and south poles are rather shrouded in darkness for about half the year. This doesn’t mean if you’re a night owl or you like night clubs, this means life or death, because the light side of Kepler 22-B could be boiling hot, and Kepler’s nightside could be freezing cold and life threatening.
So, this planet isn’t probably made for us, but maybe for fish and microbes that could thrive in these harsh conditions. Fish could exist on the night side of Kepler 22-B like fish we find on our very own oceans on earth where it’s pitch black and sunlight doesn’t ever reach down where they live. These fish could survive the extreme cold of the deep the same way deep sea fish survive on earth. With hydrothermal vents like what we find on earth. How they work is like underwater hot springs, where internal heat from earth’s crust gets released. These hydrothermal vents could be found on Kepler 22-B. And fish on the night side of this planet would maybe get food the same way deep, dark sea fish get their food on earth, by collecting microbes and other proteins that sink down to the deep from the surface. They could stay warm with hydrothermal vents. I believe that maybe fish on the nightside of Kepler 22-B could thrive the same way. And fish on the light side would have a much harder time thriving because they have a smaller food supply. Proteins couldn’t form and sink down from the surface, so finding proteins and microbes would be very hard,very hard. They would also have a hard time surviving the heat of the light side. So with a smaller food supply, an aquatic life form would struggle with body temperature regulating on the light side of Kepler 22-b. They would have to have an efficient body cooling system because the light side of Kepler 22-B is much hotter than the dark side of the planet. And they would have to live in a much deeper region in Kepler 22-B’s ocean to survive and stay cool enough from the everlasting daylight, so they would live in darkness as well but would still struggle with the heat.
Meet K2-18-B, this alien world is 124 light years away from earth. That would take you hundreds of thousands of years to get there with the fastest boosters we have. Think about this: the Parker solar probe was made to do a close fly-by of the sun and record observations and collect data about the sun. And because the sun’s magnetic pull sped up this probe it became the fastest manmade object in space, and it reached speeds of 430,000 mph, and even at that speed it would still take you hundreds of thousands of years to get to this planet. So, we’re not going there anytime soon.
K2 18-B is 2 and a half times bigger than earth and 8 and a half times more massive than earth. So, its size makes K2 18-B a super earth. For a planet to be a super earth, it must be at least 1 and a half times bigger than earth.
This planet has a dense atmosphere and under its surface, in the inner and outer mantle, there is internal heat. This means that this planet could be packed with small and large volcanoes. It could also have large oceans, beaches and flatlands. This planet has a surface temperature that is relatively earth-like, with colder and warmer regions. This planet orbits an M-type red dwarf star. These red dwarf stars are dimmer and cooler than our sun. Even though its star is dimmer and cooler, it’s very unstable, so this planet could have solar flares, where a star heats up and increases in brightness unpredictably. This happens once or twice every several years in our solar system but imagine this happening every day! Maybe this doesn’t happen in this star system, we are not sure.
K2 18-b could be bombarded in solar wind, so hopefully this world has a protective magnetic shield. Even though this planet is so far away, we do know some stuff about this alien planet. Its atmosphere mainly consists of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide. We know this by the method called transmission spectroscopy. How it works is we use a space telescope that is in space like the James Webb Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever made. And then we use its special tools on it to absorb light wavelengths from its parent star that hit the orbiting planet, and the light wavelengths travel around the orbiting planet like how water goes over and flows around an object in a river. And what is cool about this method is that we can detect gases and chemicals that the wavelengths carry through space that are taken from the planet as the light wavelengths pass. On earth these chemicals, dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide gases, are made from marine phytoplankton and other marine bacteria, life that you can’t see with your naked eye. This planet is unlikely to have an oxygen-rich atmosphere, instead it has a hydrogen-helium dimethyl sulfide, and dimethyl disulfide rich atmosphere. So, this means that maybe the microbial marine phytoplankton could be thriving on K2 18-B. Oh, and did I mention that this planet has constant plate tectonic activity? This is because of the large mass of this planet and its sistering planet neighbor that is a mini-Neptune that stretches and squeezes the planet with its strong gravity force. Because K2 18-B is being stretched and squeezed, the plate tectonics are being moved all the time, like what we see on the moon of Jupiter IO. This also means that this planet has daily and weekly volcanic eruptions. So this planet could, and could not be, made for us. But we need to find a way to make sure of that.
Maybe one day we will develop the proper technology to get there in a reasonable time, but until then, it’s our job to be the scouts for these planets. One day we could maybe send a probe to these planets and possibly manned missions, but that wouldn’t happen for quite a while.
That’s all the exoplanets that I am going to tell you about. But I have a question for you, what exoplanet would you live on? Would you live on an ocean world, or a planet with earth-like objects in the sky alongside you? Well, I’ll leave that up to you to decide, and there are probably millions and maybe even billions of exoplanets out there waiting to be discovered in our Milky Way Galaxy. And we can have a medium understanding of these planets, and sadly, I can’t tell you everything about these awesome planets but, I told you about them because I love studying these magnificent objects and I hope that I delivered a good explanation of these wonderful worlds. It’s fun to study and explore the outer worlds. God gave us this earth to take care of and steward responsibly, and God gave us this planet as a gift out of love, and we need to thank him more for what he has given us by taking care of it.
