We all know we found water on Mars, and even some on the moon, but have you ever heard about it being in another galaxy? Scientists say that they found a planet named Kepler 22b that has the same temperature as Earth and may contain water. They are about the same distance away from its sun. The planet’s sun is almost exactly like our sun. There were 2,326 Planets discovered and 139 of them may contain life. Out of all, Kepler 22b is the closest in size even though it is 2.4 times bigger than Earth. Kepler 22b is 600 light-years away, and we won’t be able to visit. Alexandra Petri from the Washington Post asked “What other wonders await us on Kepler 22b? Well, there is a basically no chance we will make it there but if we do it will be an extraordinary and a huge advance in Science.”
Being able to go 600 light-years in this generation is the impossible, but what would we do if we actually got there? Would it already be populated? Will there be a separation from Earth? Since the planet is over twice the size of Earth, we can fit 8 billion people. The planet, if it is like Earth, would have an average temperature of 72?F and at the equilibrium the temperature would be -11?C. It would be very cold at night time, but it’s nothing humans couldn’t get used to.
NASA has been talking about colonizing different planets for years. The reduction of resources has caused this search for a new planet. NASA is just trying to avoid extinction. If we want to survive a world ending situation we have to have a back-up plan. Kepler 22b is one of the special planets and it would be great to find life on it. NASA isn’t really trying to go there mainly because it is so far away but they are studying it. They are finding new planets out there that could be closer or even better than Kepler 22b. So far there are few and they are farther away. Maybe someday we will find a planet that is just like Earth.