4 Planets Better For Life Than Earth!

As of right now, Earth is the only place in the entire universe where life is known to exist. We've been searching far and wide—Mars, Venus, Titan, Europa—and yet, so far, we've found nothing. But when you consider that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth, and nearly every star has its own planets, it's hard to imagine that Earth is the only inhabited world. We've found some pretty promising options. So let's embark on a journey to the most exciting exoplanets ever discovered. These planets aren't boring and dry like Mars; these are super habitable worlds that are bigger, better, and more suited for life than Earth.

The Giant Planet KOI 5715.01

This planet is considered the best candidate for a superhabitable world—a massive rocky world twice the size of Earth, orbiting in the habitable zone of its star. This means the conditions are just right for liquid water to exist on the surface, a key ingredient for life as we know it. Imagine a world so big that you could spend over 100 hours flying between continents. There would be so much more land for life to thrive on compared to here on Earth. It orbits a very special kind of star. Our sun is a G-type main sequence star, sometimes referred to as a yellow dwarf, and these stars only hang around for 10 billion years. Our sun is nearly halfway through its entire life cycle, meaning in around 5 billion years, the sun will expand into a red giant star, potentially consuming the Earth in the process. But in the case of KOI 5715.01, it orbits an orange dwarf star. These stars are a little smaller than our sun but they are much more stable, sometimes lasting up to 70 billion years. Life on Earth has been evolving for just 4 billion years. Can you imagine what life might look like after 70 billion years of evolution? That's when you start getting into tier 3 civilizations and Dyson Sphere territory. While this world sounds perfect, it is, unfortunately, 3,000 light years away. Even with the fastest spacecraft, it would take us over 100,000 years to reach it. Maybe one day, we'll have a rocket quick enough to get us there in a reasonable amount of time, but for now, we can only dream about what interesting life forms might be thriving over there.

The Trappist-1 System

Just 39 light years away, we come across a potential safe haven for life: seven Earth-sized worlds huddled tightly around their star, three of which orbit within the habitable zone. This is the Trappist-1 system, first discovered back in 2017. For the last five years, astronomers have been spending every waking minute researching the system in an attempt to find life. They detected this gold mine of planets by observing the star's brightness dip ever so slightly as each planet passed between us and the star, known as the transit method. These planets are much older than Earth, meaning life there would have had at least 3 billion years to evolve before Earth was even finished forming. Trappist-1e, the fourth planet from the star, is of particular interest. It's a little smaller than Earth and has the right conditions for water to exist, and we think it may have a thick oxygen atmosphere even better for life than Earth's atmosphere. However, this system is very different from ours. The planets orbit a tiny red dwarf star similar in size to Jupiter, far cooler than our sun, meaning the planets have to be close. So close that the entire system would fit within Mercury's orbit of the Sun. This could cause some problems.

We think the planets are tidally locked to their star, with one side permanently cooked and the other frozen. Under perfect conditions, this could create a single strip of land around the planet where conditions are just right for life. What's most exciting is imagining living on these planets. They are so close together that you could see massive planets orbiting alongside you. You could take holidays to different planets as if they were countries, skiing on Trappist-1H and summer holidays on the tropical world of Trappist-1d. Since it's just 39 light years away, maybe one day this could be a reality for humanity.

Earth 2.0: Kepler-452b

Next, we have Kepler-452b, often called Earth 2.0. The planet shares many similarities with Earth that it's kind of scary. It orbits a sun-like star every 384 days, just five percent longer than our year. This would also make every single month exactly 32 days, which feels right. This is a super Earth, meaning it's roughly 50 percent bigger than Earth. This means more land, larger continents, and potentially more water. It's looking good so far, but it does come with a few downsides. While it is 50% larger than Earth, it is actually five times more massive, meaning gravity will feel twice as strong on the surface and everyone would weigh twice as much. Interestingly, this is the only planet in the Kepler-452 system, meaning no gas giant planet. While Jupiter protects Earth from asteroids, recent simulations show that this might not be true. A solar system without Jupiter would have 3.5 times fewer asteroid collisions. So, a civilization on Kepler-452b might not have to worry about asteroid collisions at all. However, its star is slightly older than our own, and as sun-like stars age, they become more energetic, potentially receiving too much radiation and leading to a runaway greenhouse effect. This could leave the planet looking like Venus, killing all life on the planet.

The Water World: Kepler-22b

We end our journey 600 light years away in the distant constellation of Cygnus. This is Kepler-22b, one of the most interesting super Earths ever discovered. This planet has stumped astronomers for years. It orbits well within the habitable zone, and our best observations point towards it being a true water world, like Miller's planet from Interstellar. A massive ocean covers the rocky inner core, hundreds of kilometers deep. It is possible that life may have evolved in the depths of this ocean—strange fish that only seem real in your wildest dreams. If humans ever made the journey across the galaxy to visit Kepler-22b, we would be in for a surprise. So, the real question is, which planet do you think you would want to move to? For now, I think I'll be staying here on Earth.