Searching for earthlike planets in space

In 1923, Edwin Hubble, who worked with the large telescope in California, discovered the existence of a galaxy besides our Milky Way and it was called the Andromeda Galaxy. He found more than 40 additional galaxies before he passed away. This was the real beginning of the discovery of galaxies throughout the universe, billions of them.  

Astronomers have become more and more interested and curious about what is going on out in space. They have built larger and larger telescopes, they have sent shuttles up into space, and they are spending time looking for planets that are similar to those in our own solar system, looking for planets that support life, perhaps life like ours. They call these planets “exoplanets� and they rotate around distant suns which are similar to our own sun.

The first exoplanet was discovered by scientists in 1991 after many years of searching the universe. It was large, much like our planet Jupiter. Since then, a total of more than 400 such planets, and a number of smaller ones, have been discovered by scientists who look for them many hours per day, every day.

Several months ago, astronomers discovered 32 more of the exoplanets and several of them are about twice as large as our own Earth. What they are now looking for are exoplanets that will resemble our Earth in size and mass because they are convinced that such planets could carry life on them like our own planet does.

Actually seeing the planets that rotate around other suns is impossible right now. They are too small and they are too far away. But since they rotate around their suns they change the brightness of their sun as they pass in front of it because they cover part of the sun. And the larger the planet, the more the sun drops its brightness when it moves in front of it.  

Astronomers are working on creating larger telescopes to see smaller things in outer space. They believe fully that there are many planets circling suns throughout the universe.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 6, 2009. Kepler’s mission has been to continuously observe more than 150,000 stars while searching for any planets rotating around other stars. It is designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars. At present it has discovered its first 5 new exoplanets, or planets, beyond our solar system.

Kepler is sensitive to both small and large planets and that has enabled the discovery of  exoplanets in January, 2010.

European scientists and astronomers are now working on the development of much larger telescopes for viewing what exists in outer space. Today the largest ground-based telescopes have mirrors that are 10 meters (33 feet) wide. The future of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT) is being worked on in Europe and the scientists and astronomers expect to have telescopes with 50- to 100-meter wide mirrors in operation within the next 10 to 15 years.

They expect to be able to  actually see the planets circling the far-off solar stars, and to  see how large they really are and whether they have water or hydrogen or other materials on them that are the ingredients of life.

Scientists believe that a 100-meter telescope would have such extremely sharp vision that it would be able to see objects up to 40 times farther away and smaller than the Hubble Space Telescope can see. This new space telescope seems like an amazing device which is expected to be able to see the actual planets, large and small, and to see what is happening on them.

A primary interest of the astronomers and scientists is to discover actual life on planets that resemble the planet we live on, planet Earth. This requires being able to really see the surface of the planet and to see what goes on there.

Sidney X. Shore is a scientist, inventor and educator who lives in Salisbury.

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