Question: During your work, do you try find planets that are habitable for human life? Have yu found any? Thank you :)

Namrah Habib answered on 8 Mar 2021:

Hi Aaliyah! This is a really good question. Mostly in my work I look at planets that are habitable for “life as we know it.” What this means is that the planet must have an energy source, it must be rocky, and the planet must be able to have liquid water on its surface. The energy source is usually the star the planet orbits. So when we search for habitable worlds, we look for planets that fulfil these three criteria. However, even if a planet fulfils these criteria it may not be habitable for humans because the atmosphere could be made up of a gas that is something we can’t really breathe, like carbon dioxide, or even be toxic to humans.

It is really tricky to find habitable worlds that fulfil the 3 criteria I mentioned above. Thus far, the exoplanet community has not yet been able to find any planet that we can robustly show is habitable. But we do know of some planets that we think may be habitable and there are many people working to further study these worlds. Whether they will be habitable for humans or other alien life is something that people are still trying to figure out!