The Kepler Telescope is on a roll, it is discovering exoplanets like crazy, and there’s no reason for it to ever slow down, because there are stars in every direction, everywhere it looks. It has recently discovered eight “earth-like” planets, which I think is maybe still a bit of a stretch because “earth-like” can be up to 2 or 3 times earth’s size and unless it was a gas planet like Jupiter, it’s likely to have gravity that would crush a human being. Also, a couple of them are circling red dwarves, which is not very Earth like. The nights, maybe, but the days would never amount to the beautiful baby blue experience they can be on Earth.
Kepler 62f
Still, we’re getting closer all the time and eventually we’ll find one that’s the same size as Earth, has a similar rotation around a similar star, and has land and water.
Why is that so important? Life can develop in a wide variety of environments, we’ve seen that just on our own planet and we have no idea how alien an environment has to be before life cannot evolve.
But, we are not just looking for life. Although any life at all would be a good sign that we’re on the right track, but we’re really looking for life as we know it. Oxygen breathing, mouth speaking, tool using people who are physiologically similar enough to us that we can relate.
Then, we could trade ambassadors, even if it took several generations to get there. We’d be able to survive on their planet without special equipment and vice verse.
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