Earth like planets in our universe?
Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology. by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi Twinkle, twinkle little star, goes the nursery rhyme, but what scientists are really wanting to find is planet’s similar to our earth. When scientists confirmed in October that they had detected the first rocky planet outside our solar system, it advanced the longtime quest to find an Earth-like planet hospitable to life. Rocky planets -- Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars -- make up half the planets in our solar system. Rocky planets are considered better environments to support life than planets that are mainly gaseous, like the other half of the planets in our system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. We know that earth is a pretty rare planet in our universe. Only a relative handful of planets are rocky and even fewer are in the habitable zones of their stars. At the same time, there is still a lot that we don't know about our universe outside the solar system. The challenge in f...