The Universe is full of planets and they come in many varieties. So, it is obviously possible for some of them to have better conditions for life than Earth itself.
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When it comes to habitable planets we really know of only one. And while Earth it great this doesn’t mean it is the best place to live at.
Famous astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch from the Washington State University and his colleagues recently created a list of 24 so-called superhabitable planets. These should – at least in some ways – have better conditions for life than Earth-like planets or orbit around stars that are more pleasant to life than the Sun. And considering the very low number of planets, we known of already knowing of 24 superhabitable ones is quite good.
So, what are Schulze-Makuch’s superhabitable planets like? In general, they are on the older side of planets, a bit larger, warmer, and wetter. They can also orbit stars that are calmer and have a longer life-span than our Sun. Sadly, none of the superhabitable planets are really close. The closest is 100 light-years This not only means that we will not be getting to them anytime soon but also makes studying them more difficult. But, maybe the new generation of devices such as future space observatories will tell us about them.
Once the future observatories come into play they will need some targets to focus on. Superhabitable planets could be among the first of them. Researchers are now searching for superhabitable planets among the roughly 4500 exoplanets that we know of. What needs to be remembered, is the fact that a planet is superhabitable doesn’t mean they have life on them. Or even that Earth-like life can be found there. There are so many factors we just don’t know about that we cannot really say.
If you take a closer look at the list of superhabitable planets you will realize how much variability is there among planets. But none of them fits the list perfectly. So, maybe it would be better to say that they are partially superhabitable. But that’s life for you.
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