Hello peopLe! Is Earth inhabited by only inhabitants or are there other people who exist outside the solar system?
Ever since the beginning of time, man has tried to look for signs of life other than those existing here on Earth; however, with technological advancement and discovery, man is now on the verge of making real life on other planets. Interplanetary travel, space discovery of planets and moons, and other solar systems have convinced scientists that life, be it simple or complex, could exist on far-flung planets. Still, more discoveries and current and future missions amplify our knowledge as well as our pursuit.Â
Let’s dive in!
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life: Contemporary Discovers and Upcoming Expeditions
Recent Discoveries
One of the most promising finds in the past several years is from our own Solar System. Europa, a moon that orbits Jupiter, as well as Enceladus, a moon orbiting Saturn, both have oceans of liquid water beneath layers of ice and may, therefore, harbor microbial life. The flyby observations of Enceladus through the Cassini mission brought out the evidence of water geysers, which have a variety of organic materials and probably the hydrothermal activity that existed.
Yet Mars, the closest planet that resembles Earth, is still another area that has remained a subject of pursuit for living organisms. These simple organic molecules might be remnants from Martian microbes, but more research is needed in the detection of biological signatures.
Outside of our solar system, exoplanets have largely replaced the search for life, as seen with UFOs. Approximately thousands of exoplanets have been discovered by NASA’s TESS since it was launched in 2018, including some in the habitable zone or the part of the star’s vicinity that may support liquid water.
Future Missions
There are several future missions already underway, and they will study areas where life might be habitable beyond the Earth. From those, the most anticipated is the Europa Clipper mission that is planned for 2024. It will gaze at Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and assess the thickness and composition of the icy exterior and a subsurface ocean to decide the first coast of habitability for the moon.
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The largest one at the moment is NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission, which also involves the participation of the European Space Agency (ESA). Perseverance is also equipped to leave small tubes filled with samples that will be retrieved by a future mission planned for sometime in the early part of the 2030s; these samples will then be returned to Earth and more carefully analyzed in specific labs in order to determine whether or not Mars has ever supported life in any form.
Even further than that, there are things like Breakthrough Starshot, which suggest space travel. This reckless mission will aim to send a solar-sail-driven spacecraft to the star closest to our Sun to capture photos of potentially Earth-like exoplanets.
Conclusion
 With the dawn of the new age, space exploration, the discovery of life on other planets potentially habitable, is still one of humanity’s biggest goals. The latest findings on exoplanets within habitable zones and signs of organic molecules on Mars and other icy moons of our solar system keep hope alive and send us on the search for life. Subsequent missions like JWST’s observatory, the Europa Clipper Orbiter to Jupiter’s moon, and Mars’s astronomical missions in the future may put us on the right track in the search for extraterrestrial life presence.
Which new inventions are still hidden in that vast expanse of the Universe?
FAQs
- How can we even search for planets, let alone life?
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The light will be the key light from the exoplanet’s atmosphere reduced to the bar code of a rainbow spectrum. This method is called transit spectroscopy.Â
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- What do the scientific people think is the general origin of all forms of life?
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Some defined beginning of life on planet Earth exists, and the researchers alleged that the beginning is LUCA, the abbreviation for Last Universal Common Ancestor.Â
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- Before we begin our search for life in outer space, what questions should we be posing to ourselves?
For centuries, scholars have tried to ask themselves if there is life in the other world apart from our planet Earth. The answer will reinvent us or redefine us forever: a universe full or a universe barren with stars or a universe empty of life itself.Â
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- Can we find life in space?
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Some sort of existence may not exist, but other possibilities of life on other planets, at least in our solar system, are immensely feasible. The basic compounds on which life is defined through the entire galaxy have not already been accumulated in the place of stars – the interstellar hydrogen.
