The life beyond Earth has been agreed by many scientists and latest research suggests that billions of planets similar to the Earth that can support some life form may be out there in the space.
The research was led by postdoctoral student Tim Bovaird and Charley Lineweaver, an Associate Professor at The Australian National University (ANU). The researchers suggest that they came to the conclusion after applying a 200-year-old idea to the hundreds and thousands of exo-planets that have been discovered by the Kepler space telescope.
The researchers of the study suggest that a standard star usually has around two planets located in a zone where water in liquid form is present, which is vital for supporting any life form.
"The ingredients for life are plentiful, and we now know that habitable environments are plentiful," says Lineweaver. "However, the universe is not teeming with aliens with human-like intelligence that can build radio telescopes and space ships. Otherwise we would have seen or heard from them."
The study suggests that Kepler normally finds planets that are located very near to their stars, which means that these planets are extremely hot to support liquid water. However, the research team also highlighted that Kepler was also able to estimate the presence of Uranus in our Solar System.
"We looked at the sub-set of stars that have multiple planets, not just one or two, and among those we looked for specific pattern called the Titius-Bode relation and we found that these exoplanet systems fit the relation better than our solar system does," says Bovaird.
The scientists suggest that occurrence of planets that support some form of life may not be rare and not just in our galaxy.
Till now, humans have landed just on the surface of the Moon. Mars explorations has seen significant boost after the Mariner 4 spacecraft speculated that the Red Planet's surface may contain liquid and may supports or may have supported life on the planet. However, no manned missions have been sent to Mars but NASA is planning to send astronauts to explore the Martian surface in the next few decades.
Finding some sort of life on Mars or any other planet will be a giant leap for mankind.
The study has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
