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Hillmen Messenger

The School Newspaper of Placer High School

Hillmen Messenger

The School Newspaper of Placer High School

Hillmen Messenger

Newly Discovered Planet Shows Possibility of Life

After decades of searching for planets that may hold life, astronomers say they might have found one. The Planet lies in the Goldilocks Zone and has been given the name Gliese 581g.  

In recent weeks a researching team released their discovery of the planet.  The earth sized planet is in a “habitable zone” where life on the planet is a very high possibility. The planet is also in a zone where liquid water can exist.

Life on the planet is 100% possibility, that doesn’t mean that there are humans or animals walking around, but there are life forms. Senior, Patrick Nevin, who has looked up information of the planet stated, “I think there is life, and they probably look somewhat like the life we have on earth, but it would be awesome if it was like an Avatar planet”. Nevin believes that this could be very crucial to earth’s future well being. Nevin believes once we build the technology to travel there, we could use the planet for resources and perhaps move a specific amount of humans to the planet.

The conditions on the planet are suitable to hold life. The planet is much closer to its sun, than earth is to its sun. The temperatures on the planet can range from 160 degrees on one side to 25 degrees below zero on the other side, but the temperature in the middle is just right or “shirt sleeve weather”. The planet also has a very fast orbit and very slow rotation, which creates a 37 day year and leaves one side of the planet mostly dark and the other side bright all of the time.

Junior, Alex marsh, who’s very excited about the planets discovery said

“the chance for more planets like earth is a lot greater now,” which he is correct about. Studies say that there are approximately 200 billion stars, and perhaps 40 billion of those stars have some type of life form on them. “I’m not sure if there is human life on the planet as of now, but there is probably some type of animal species,” stated Marsh “But it really makes you wonder, since we have found a planet with life, maybe there are planets out there that have had human-like species far longer than earth’s human species.

            However there are doubts about the reality of Gliese 581g. “How can you even get a legitimate description and picture from a planet 21 light years away” stated Senior Dominic Moon. “The population of the planet is probably made completely up of crab people, under a crab dictatorship, making crab pyramids and sacrificing sacred crawdads,” stated Moon “It’s a conspiracy, maybe not a complete conspiracy, but the possibilities of that planet having life are ridiculous”.

            Co-discoverer, Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz believes that even though the planet does not have advanced civilization, such as earths, he believes that the planet is in early stages of advanced life. In the next few generations, there is a very high possibility of seeing a new world along with new species.

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