• Question: How many planets are able to sustain life and which ones do?

    Asked by tbrown to Ravi on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ravi Kopparapu

      Ravi Kopparapu answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      So, within our Solar System, we know one planet (Earth). We think Mars once may have supported some microbial life a long time ago (3.5 billion years ago). Jupiter’s moon, Europa, may possibly have some kind of life underneath its icy surface. We don’t know yet.

      As for life on planets around other stars, we found many planets in the habitable zone of their host stars. We are planning to build big space telescopes that can observe these planets to see if we can find life on them.

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