Does anyone live on another planet

Until , when the first exoplanet was confirmed, it was uncertain whether there were even any planets outside those in our own Solar System. Today we know of over planets around other stars and thousands of planet candidates. Do any of these planets have conditions that would support life? What conditions favor the formation of terrestrial-class planets in developing planetary systems?

NASA can help address these questions by developing missions designed to find and characterize extrasolar planetary systems. Before we can determine if there are other planetary systems capable of supporting life, we must first find them. NASA Science pursues this goal by supporting a focused suite of ground-based observations through the Kepler mission, a now retired space-based observatory which studied the prevalence how many there are per star of extrasolar planets, and through the operation of TESS Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite which is performing an all-sky survey to discover transiting exoplanet ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants.

Universe Learn About This Image. How does the universe work? The thornier question, then, is: are we alone or could there be intelligent life on an exoplanet somewhere? The series comes to an answer — sort of. If there were other advanced societies out there, surely they would have attempted to detect us in search of another home?

Trending Latest Video Free. New mineral davemaoite discovered inside a diamond from Earth's mantle Paralysed mice walk again after gel is injected into spinal cord Will a scramble to mine metals undermine the clean energy revolution? The parent stars of other solar systems would emit radiation as well, and the planets orbiting them would need the same kind of protection. So molecules like oxygen in the atmosphere of another planet would be one indication—not proof—that there are living things there.

Scientists have been studying the planets of our own solar system for more than 50 years, looking for evidence of past or present life, among other things. Living well past all expectations, Opportunity not only transmits landscape photos and the occasional tweet , but also collects and analyzes soil and atmosphere samples.

The discovery of thousands of planets orbiting nearby stars has nevertheless greatly increased speculation that there may be some kind of life on a planet outside our solar system.

In the past 20 years, we have confirmed the discovery of almost 2, planets, called exoplanets, beyond our solar system. Four thousand other exoplanet candidates await confirmation. The ones most likely to harbor life would be smallish, rocky planets like Earth. Larger planets tend to be composed of hydrogen gas, the most abundant element in the universe, and to not have a solid surface.

The Kepler mission —a space observatory launched by NASA in to search our galaxy for just these kinds of Earth-like planets—has found one candidate that meets both requirements, Keplerb. So the chances of life on another planet are high.