The Best Earth-like Exoplanet Has 4 Major Problems

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If I could go to visit some Earth-like planet, my biggest concern would be the microbiological life there. I don’t care if there are some dinosaur-style reptiles, but microbes and viruses and that kind of stuff would be something to think about. We have zero tolerance to them so maybe we would just be in our space suits even though everything looks good?

I like the fact that we have finally gotten to the place where we can see planets outside our solar system only to realize we really do live on a gem inside the milky way

The painful part though… is the time between us and that planet Sure we CAN find a perfect Earth hundreds of lightyears away But both the time of humans having to fly there and the time dilation that comes from the limits of speed of light will make it all the more difficult for any of this to work

The thing is we haven't actually SEEN any exoplanets directly. We've only been able to infer their existence via the way starlight from their suns refracts / reflects around their atmospheres. We haven't been able to view planets outside our system with the same clarity that we can the distant worlds in this one.

Its crazy just how many things need to line up just to even have a shot at life - the right type of star - in the habitable zone - similar size to earth for good pressure/gravity - magnetic field (from liquid metal core/rotation) for protection - the right atmosphere to breathe/retain heat But then there could even be more things that we have that could be important: - having a moon to control tides - gas giants around it to suck up incoming meteors/comets? - still geologically active to renew the surface I know just by the numbers there are millions of perfect planets out there but its a lot of criteria to find one that's move in ready or close to it

"The Best Earth-like Exoplanet Has 4 Major Problems" 1. No McNuggets 2. Planet-wide edict to mount toilet paper so it spools off the bottom. 3. Sometimes denizens leave their turning signals on for miles past their last turn. 4. That smell.

The idea that there could be other intelligent life out there wondering if someone like us exists or if they're alone is crazy

Imagine random alien watching our Earth ,and then saying "oh, it's impossible that life developped in this planet"

I like the way you acknowledged the current futility of the entire discussion, without dismissing or belittling any of it. That humble eye to the future really is a very respectable and positive attitude to the benefit of science.

The gravity problem is probably why genetic manipulation will be important when we're read to finally colonize the stars. If we cannot wait for millions of years of evolution to fit a particular planet, we need to be able to customize our colonists to match their target.

TLDR: Earth: "Face it humies. Yo ass is stuck here"

Problem #1. We'll never be able to reach it 😂

If we have the technology to visit such places, we will likely have the technology to live anywhere. Compared to crossing the vastness of space, growing plants indoors, or manufacturing water will be trivial. By the time we can reach Earth 2.0, we’ll have advanced beyond the need for it.

To me, this video proves what a miracle planet Earth is. Humans and all other life forms on this beautiful planet were designed to live here. We are our planet and our planet is us. Excellent video!!!

A fact that was overlooked: The rotation period of planets. Earth's plants, animals and people are adapted to a (mostly) 24-hour day with a clearly defined period of daytime and night, with variations depending on latitudes and seasons. Deviate from that and plants will struggle to grow, animals will have severely disrupted cycles of hunting, migrating, breeding, etc. and humans may well have their sleep/wake cycles thrown out of whack and impart a more psychological toll due to extended periods of darkness or daytime. It's certainly noticeable already if someone moves from say, ±30º latitude to +60º latitude, not far from the Arctic Circle. Sleep is already rather difficult in the summer when at 04:00 it's already bright and sunny, or in the winter the sun's out for like two hours and you miss it because you're at work. But we've more or less adapted to it on Earth. What about another planet or moon where the cycle becomes much more extreme. Even on our moon, it's 2 weeks of day and 2 weeks of night. Mars doesn't really have that issue as it's "day" is just 45 minutes longer than on Earth, albeit dimmer.

I always thought that settling on other planets would involve us adapting our physiology to suit that planet, either through cybernetic augmentation, genetic engineering or both. So if we ever became a multi-planet species, we would soon become multiple species. Once we adopt that approach, the number of planets we can potentially live on will drastically increase as the conditions for our existence become less restrictive.

I get into this fight all the time, there is only Earth 1.0; there is no Earth 2.0. We haven't been able to identify how many specific variables are needed to be correct for Earth-like life to exist naturally, but we do know that if any of the known variables are a fraction different; life as we know it is impossible. And that's the thing, if we cannot exist naturally with no terraforming or evolutionary adaptions to exist, it's not Earth 2.0. And don't get me started on the distances....and "if" we can travel there.

Thanks for this. You said what I’ve been thinking all along. Not to mention travel time. Voyager’s have been cruising through space since 1974, they haven’t gone very far in the grand scheme of things. When I hear someone say “it’s ONLY 4 light years away” I just laugh.

One thing to be said about tidally locked planets and spin, they do spin, just in sync with their rotation. If you, theoretically, had a planet that orbitted in a few days (more likely with a gas giant or a very small red dwarf), they actually rotate every few days as well, and might generate hadley cells and an elecromagntic dynamo still.