The Top 5 Potentially Habitable Alien Planets

A recent count points towards approximately 700 planets having been confirmed to exist, while thousands more have been detected but require follow up confirmation. Most lie outside the habitable zone, being too hot or too cold to harbor life as we understand it.

Recently, the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo’s Planetary Habitability Laboratory released a list of the top five potentially habitable exoplanets.

Space.com


Gliese 581g, located only 20 light years away from earth is somewhat controversial, with some researchers doubting its existence. Others however are steadfast in their discovery. While rotating its star every 30 days, it exists in the habitable zone where liquid water potentially exists.


Link

Gliese 581d is a planetary sibling of Gliese 581g, orbiting just a little further out. While initially thought to be too cold to support life, this view has since been revised in light of a presumed greenhouse effect.



Gliese 667Cc lies only 22 light years away from earth and exists in a triple star system.



HD 85512b is 35 light years away with a surface temperature thought to be 25 degrees centigrade (77 degrees Fahrenheit). It is 3.6 times as large as the earth.



Kepler-22b is 600 light years away but it is suspected that the surface temperature could be a hospitable 22 degrees centigrade (72 degrees Fahrenheit).



It is quite exciting that planets suspected of being habitable lie only 20 light years away. It makes the prospect of planetary colonization a real prospect.

It could be argued that in light of the very real danger of asteroids striking this planet and wiping out the human race, the sooner we get off of this planet and 'diversify' our habitat, the better.

Perhaps it would also be prudent to not broadcast our new location to the surrounding universe?

I honestly wish they could find out for sure in my lifetime but unfortunately unless there is some hidden military high tech that becomes public being used I doubt it will.



S & F

Now, Habitable doesn't mean it's inhabited.

Really neat

If the technology was available I'd make the move and if the artistic styling is correct I would choose Kepler-22b because it's pretty lol

I still can't believe there are still people out there that think we are all alone..How dense can one be? Good post OP. I was reading this very article three days ago.

Originally posted by TheLonewolf
I still can't believe there are still people out there that think we are all alone..How dense can one be? Good post OP. I was reading this very article three days ago.

And to further RUB it in..
This is our neibourhood, as in CLOSERANGE...
Well one is 600lj, but imagine 1000-100.000lj
out. OR other galaxies even...

So close, yet so very very prohibitively unreachably yet teasingly far away.

These are all wonderful but immensely frustrating.

We can only just eye-ball them.

reply to post by Miccey


Really blows ones' mind when you sit back and contemplate it doesn't it? It's mathematically IMPOSSIBLE that we are alone. Hundreds of trillions of billions of galaxies, stars, planets, and moons out there. When you start to realize that, it makes you kind of feel not so special anymore.

Originally posted by Druscilla



These are all wonderful but immensely frustrating.

That should be the new motto for Extrasolar Planetary Astronomy.. So close, yet so damn far away..Well said girl

reply to post by Druscilla


Yep, unfortunately too far. 20 lya is way out of our current capability. Generation ship, anyone?

reply to post by Druid42


I'll drive..Let's go..Damn, I forgot we have to build one first

Originally posted by TheLonewolf
reply to post by Miccey

 

Really blows ones' mind when you sit back and contemplate it doesn't it? It's mathematically IMPOSSIBLE that we are alone. Hundreds of trillions of billions of galaxies, stars, planets, and moons out there. When you start to realize that, it makes you kind of feel not so special anymore.

edit on 30-9-2012 by TheLonewolf because: forgot a word

That is exactly what I've been saying. We're a spec in the background of the cosmos. But we're so arrogant as a species that we make up a story about a super duper sky ghost that made us especially for him, and then he made everything just as it is today and all in 7 days, by which time he said "Crikey I'm buggered" and had a little lie down.

To these folk it is inconceivable that we're just not that special in the grand scheme of things.

Dont you have "Faith"..Dudes...
Dont be sad, weve probly been
there and back. Atleast according
to other posters on ATS...

oh sorry, to much sarcasm...

But i hear you, its abit frustrating,
and teasing. Could it be, nahh, do
you think they could be lying to us.
That there ARE no planets...Like,
"Oh, we have to give them something".......

Religion and garbage aside, I'm always interested in reading more about planets that may contain life.

I'm an optimist, unlike some of the pessimists in this thread.

Anything is possible if we could stop focusing so much on war and hatred.

I wonder how long it will be until they manage to find on thats closer the the actual size of our earth , same gravitational pull, with a 24hr daylight cycle, water and breathable air?

In other words something we could live on.

Theres a new Gliese I think... 163C? Discovered this year or something.

EDIT: Thinking about it... theres a lot of habitable rocks in Gliese. Maybe they have set up a planetary colony since, thats we would do if we had the tech to mars and prolly venus.

20 years at the speed of light - well considering that our fastest thing out there is still voyager 1 traveling at a bit more than 60.000 km/h that would take us around 350000 years to get there. I dont think even a "Generation Ship" is possible. Considering that you have 3 generations per century that would give you about 10 thousand generations? My math isnt that great, I got a history and archaeology degree lol... so if my math is wrong please correct me.

So 350 thousand years to get to a place takes us more than our time here as a "modern species" - about 100 thousand years more than we, as humans, exist.

Considering mutations and advancements in technology, we would eventually get there a bit faster, but we would also have mutated to something else other than just "humans" taking into account all the surrounding habitat and every condition and environment those humans would be subjected to, they would adapt and would never get there as "simple-today humans".

So... its pretty impossible for humans to get there for now

Since Mars is our closest celestial neighbour , beyond the moon, and it has polar ice-caps,
wouldn't it be the most obvious destination for our first terra-forming expedition?(And 'alien'/'panspermia' investigation)
If we could recreate the same global warming antics that run rampant on our current floating rock,
wouldn't the same methods lead to liquid water and an atmoshpere on Mars?
(Real question for anyone that is learned on the matter.)

I do hope humanity will once be united as full space faring species.
but I don't see it happening soon

Originally posted by rambo1112
I do hope humanity will once be united as full space faring species.
but I don't see it happening soon

I seriously doubt we will ever be united as a full space faring species. Maybe in the future super rich people will have somewhere to go once the earth is a total mess. The rest of humanity will be stuck here forever.

I believe on a planet four times as massive as earth gravity would be four times as strong and so these planets are potentially habitable for "life" but not humans.
How many of us can even deadlift twice our own bodyweight? maybe with some sort of exoskeleton like the raytheon designs human exploration might be possible but not permanent colonization. 3-4 G's is a lot for the body to endure for any significant period of time. We need to find something more in the Mars to Venus size range and in the meantime focus on getting boots on the ground on mars. Hopefully an absence of native biology on the red planet will mean terraforming can begin sooner rather than later.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD

I seriously doubt we will ever be united as a full space faring species. Maybe in the future super rich people will have somewhere to go once the earth is a total mess. The rest of humanity will be stuck here forever.

Nah, who'll flip the bigmacs and scrub the toilets on earth 2.0? there's still hope!