A New Habitable Planet Has Been Found, But It Takes a Lifetime to Get There!

The recent discovery of planet 581 c deep in another galaxy has scientists everywhere searching for a solution. While 581 c, dubbed “Gliese planet”, is very likely to sustain normal life, it would take a little under a lifetime to reach the planet; 120 trillion miles to be exact! While scientists work to find a faster drive than our current rockets have, Gliese has been studied.

Controversy over what Gliese is made of will determine its size. If it were a rocky planet like our own, its diameter would be just over 1.5 times bigger than ours. However, if it were made of ice, it would be even bigger!

Gliese orbits a red dwarf, a tiny, low-energy start that gives off dim red light. It also lasts longer than our sun. Before now, red dwarfs were thought not to give off enough heat and light to sustain a planet like ours. Studies have shown they can.

One main problem scientists have yet to solve is that of an atmosphere. It is unknown whether or not Gliese has one. Other planets discovered have had the “Goldilocks” problem. The atmosphere, if too thick, would cause temperatures to rise, and vice versa. Gliese seems to be about right.

Gliese has a gravitational pull of about 1.6 times as strong as ours. A boy of 100 pounds would feel as though he weighed about 160 pounds. Since Gliese orbits the red dwarf in about 13 days, birthdays would become a thing of the past. The last thing about this alien world is that it is still unknown if it rotates on an axis such as Earth’s. If it didn’t, one side would be forever dark, and the other permanently sunlit.

Now comes the ethical question. Is it worth sending a team of astronauts to the planet, knowing that they would most likely die a bit after they arrived, if not from the environment or lack of survival skills, then from old age? The ride to the planet alone would be hell! You would be in the same space with the same people for well over half your life! If the spaceship was created larger, with more berths and room, it could be possible to reproduce on the way to Gliese.

The kids would be raised as survivalists, the modern Lewis and Clarke. And of course, waiting for your entire life to see the last frontier would be worth it, right? The first of mankind to see, to set foot upon an utterly alien world, even if only for a few years. Worth it? I think so.