If we ever want to find life on other planets, we should start with small steps. Finding as many Earth-like exoplanets as possible represents one of the steps. Space agencies are investing a lot of time, knowledge and money for that goal. With every such planet discovered, chances are sky rocking that humanity will encounter one day some extraterrestrial life forms.
Scientists recently found a new Earth-like exoplanet named Kepler-1649c. Oddly enough, the scientists discovered the cosmic object while they were rummaging through old data gathered by the Kepler telescope.
Almost the same size as Earth
The Kepler-1649 exoplanet is not considered an Earth-like planet for nothing. It has a radius of only 1.06 times larger than the one our planet has. If you’ve planned a vacation on the exoplanet, you should cancel it ASAP if you didn’t find the secret for teleportation – the host star for Kepler-1649c is 300 light-years away from us
However, scientists still need more data in order to conclude if the newfound exoplanet is habitable or not. While science hasn’t yet discovered for sure how life emerged on Earth, we do know that we need the following basic ingredients to make amino acids, the building blocks for life: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. Therefore, scientists need to find out if they’ll ever find these elements on Kepler-1649c.
Panspermia or the primordial soup?
There are basically two major scientific theories that describe how life could emerge on Earth. On the one hand you have the Panspermia Theory, which claims that life exists throughout the Universe and that it’s getting carried by asteroids, comets, space dust, planetoids, and so on. On the other hand, we have the so-called primordial soup, the set of conditions present on Earth long ago that could have luckily led to the emerging of the first life forms.
If none of the two theories is correct, the answer to how life could emerge is most likely beyond human comprehension.
