It’s one of the biggest unanswered questions in science – do aliens exist, and if so, where are they?
Now, scientists have taken a massive leap towards answering these queries once and for all.
Experts from the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University have pinpointed 45 Earth–like planets that could have perfect conditions for aliens.
The planets all lie within the so–called habitable zone – an area not too close to a host star that it’s too hot, and not too far away that it’s too cold.
Being in this zone raises the tantalising possibility that a planet has water at its surface, which is a key ingredient for life.
Excitingly, some of these worlds are only tens of light–years away, suggesting we might be able to reach them in the future.
‘Life might be much more versatile than we currently imagine, so figuring out which of the 6,000 known exoplanets would be most likely to host extraterrestrials could prove critical,’ said Professor Lisa Kaltenegger, an author of the study.
‘Our paper reveals where you should travel to find life.’
Experts from the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University have pinpointed 45 Earth–like planets that could have perfect conditions for aliens
Scientists have already discovered more than 6,000 exoplanets, but until now, exactly which of these have the potential for life has remained a mystery.
In their new study, the team pinpointed 45 of these planets that may support life in the habitable zone, and another 24 in a narrower 3D habitable zone.
The worlds includes some you might have heard of before, such as Proxima Centauri b, TRAPPIST–1f and Kepler 186f.
Meanwhile, some of the others are not so well known, such as TOI–715 b – a planet located 137 light–years away that was spotted by the TESS satellite just three years ago.
According to the researchers, the most interesting planets are TRAPPIST–1 d, e, f and g, which are just 40 light–years from Earth.
Unfortunately, NASA says that it would currently take at least 800,000 years to reach the TRAPPIST–1 system.
However, as spacecraft begin to use more modern technologies like nuclear pulse propulsion, we could potentially reduce this time to a few centuries.
Meanwhile, the researchers are also interested in the planets that get light from their stars most similar to what Earth receives from the Sun today.
The planets all lie within the so–called habitable zone – an area not too close to a host star that it’s too hot, and not too far away that it’s too cold. Pictured: An artist’s impression of a theoretical planet orbiting a redder star
According to the researchers, the most interesting planets are TRAPPIST–1 d, e, f and g, which are just 40 light–years from Earth
These are TRAPPIST–1 e, TOI–715 b, Kepler–1652 b, Kepler–442 b, Kepler–1544 b and the planets Proxima Centauri b, GJ 1061 d, GJ 1002 b, and Wolf 1069 b.
While the planets well within their habitable zones raise hopes of finding aliens, the researchers also hope the planets on the edge of the habitable zone will shed light on exactly where habitability ends.
‘While it’s hard to say what makes something more likely to have life, identifying where to look is the first key step,’ explained study author Gillis Lowry.
‘So the goal of our project was to say “here are the best targets for observation”.
As part of the study, the team also pinpointed the best techniques for observing the 45 planets.
This includes the James Webb Space Telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (set to launch in 2027), and the Extremely Large Telescope (set to see first light in 2029).
While this study focused on exoplanets, scientists have previously revealed how aliens could be hiding in our very own solar system.
Dr David Armstrong, an expert on exoplanet detection from the University of Warwick, told the Daily Mail: ‘On Earth, we find life almost everywhere there is liquid water, so the easiest place to look for extraterrestrial life is the same.
An artist’s impression of a planetary system around a slightly hotter star than our Sun. In prior research, Carl Sagan Institute scientists have theorised that organisms could evolve biofluorescence to protect themselves from a more intense star
‘The most likely place to find it would be in the subsurface oceans of some of the moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter.’
Saturn’s moon Enceladus is seen as a particularly promising candidate to look for extraterrestrial life because of plumes of liquid water constantly spewing from its South Pole.
Meanwhile, Titan, another of Saturn’s icy moons, has also been put forward as a strong candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life.