While many people would love to set out for space and live among the stars or on a distant planet, some scientists are now saying that we couldn’t get to even the nearest habitable planet.
The Announcement of Kepler-452b
When NASA announced their find of the planet Kepler-452b, it sparked the imaginations of so many people of going into space someday soon. This is one of the nearest habitable planets, and so it made many people think that they might be headed there sooner rather than later. However, this may not be the case, as some are saying that getting to even this nearest habitable planet is impossible.
The Impossibilities of Getting to the Nearest Habitable Planet
Tom Kerss, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, says that it’s impossible to get to the nearest habitable planet. Impossible with our current technology, at least.
Kerss says that the fastest spacecraft that we have is NASA’s Juno pace probe, and while it travels at speeds of up to 86,000 mph (~138,000 kph), this isn’t nearly fast enough to travel anywhere significant in a timely manner. Getting to only the nearest sun to us would take around 33,000 years.
The nearest star is only 93 million miles away. Kepler-452b, the nearest habitable planet, is about 1,400 light years away. With the fastest we can travel at the moment, it would still take about 11 million years to get to Kepler-452b.
Don’t Give up Hope!
Kress did make a point to say that this was only impossible with our current technology. He said that if we develop more advanced technology, it could potentially be possible for humans to inhabit other planets. Natalie Batalha, a NASA scientist, estimates that there are probably close to 14 billion habitable planets, and even this is a conservative estimate.
In 2009, the Kepler telescope, designed specifically to find exoplanets, was launched. Since then, it has found 1,000 exoplanets, and 12 of those planets are in the habitable zone of their stars. Planetary traveler hopefuls will probably never get to set foot on another planet and get to call it home, though, within the next few generations, it may be possible.
