Habitable Earth-like Planets?

People wonder whether there are other Earth-like planets that humans can move to in the future. Global warming and other crisis destroy the Earth every day and thus, scientists are trying to search for possible other planets. The result may be surprising to many people.

To find Earth-like planets, it is necessary to search for a particular type of star. Our star is a medium-sized star categorized as a g-type. This is a fairly stable star but still emits some dangerous elements. The best chance of finding habitable planets is looking for A-type stars. You may have heard of a star called Altair; it is one of the brightest stars in the night skies. This is one of the stars that could potentially host a planet with the most habitable conditions. Even though Altair is a bit more massive, powerful, and brighter than other stars, it has the best chance of finding planets similar to Earth.

The main reason these A-type stars are the most suitable stars for planets like ours is that the habitable zone is larger. This means that several planets in this zone may have similar environments to Earth. Thus, since the zone is larger, there is a higher possibility of finding planets like ours.

An A-type star called Sirius is only around 6 light years away. This star also has a high chance of having planets similar to Earth since the habitable zones are more massive. Nonetheless, these stars do not live too long since they lack something called the convective zone. In small stars, they live longer because they can convert hydrogen into helium. They are constantly using convection to power itself. Stars such as the Trappist 1 and the Proxima Centauri can survive for trillions of years. Next, normal stars such as our sun are not too efficient and release gasses. They do not live as long, only around 10 billion years before transforming into red giants and white dwarfs. Lastly, large stars including the A-type stars live the shortest, only around five to six billion years. However, these stars are the most suitable for having planets that sustain life since they do not have much magnetism or flares. Moreover, they do not have X-ray emissions or other dangerous emissions that are deadly to humans. In total, the A-type stars live shorter but are less dangerous and more hospitable than our own sun.

Why don’t we start moving to one of the planets that orbit the A-type stars? The answer to that is because we have not yet found any planets that can host humans. The problem here is that it is tremendously arduous for the scientists to discover the planets that orbit the A-type stars due to its spin. These stars spin really fast and with our current technology, we cannot observe the doppler’s effect that the planets cause. In other words, the effect is so minuscule that scientists cannot figure out the position of the planets. Furthermore, the planets can only be visible when they passed in front of the star. These problems make it hard for scientists to calculate or spot the planets that orbit the A-type stars.

With many obstacles, finding a replacement for Earth may take decades and even centuries. There is also a problem of traveling to the habitable planet since we do not currently have the technology to travel at the speed of light, or even close to it.