Gliese 876d
Sunrise Gliese 876d. This is an artistic illustration of a faraway alien planet, and its too close for comfort red dwarf star, Gliese 876. No one really knows what the exact conditions are on this molten planet, but scientists do know that it's about 2-3x the mass of our Earth, and that it has an orbit that would go well inside of Mercury's orbit. Since its star, Gliese 876, is a red dwarf star, it doesn't burn as hot as our sun and it isn't nearly as big either. Therefore the distance that this planet is from its star, puts it in the "habitable zone" of the solar system. Earth is in our solar system's "habitable zone", and that is why I'm able to present to you this article. The fact that Gliese 876d falls within this "zone", has scientists imagination in over drive, and their curiosity raging like a southern California wild fire.
HD188753
Believe it or not, this artist's vision of a triple sunset viewed from an alien moon is based on factual evidence. In the recent past, a hot Jupiter size planet was discovered orbiting the triple star system HD188753. An astrnomer by the name of Maciej Konacki discovered the planet, which is depicted at the top left of this illustration, 149 light years away from Earth. The view from this hypothetical rocky moon shows the first star, which is similar to our own sun, setting to the right. The other two stars, being farther away, are lingering in the sky waiting for their turn to say goodnight.
Gliese 581c
Another planet that falls within its star's habitable zone, is Gliese 581c. Gliese 581c is a mere 20 light years away, and is the most Earth-like planet discovered yet. Its sun is also a red dwarf star, which means that it's smaller and cooler than our sun, and is shown here rising through clouds over a calm ocean. Should future observations of this planet confirm that it is not only capable of sustaining oceans, but also capable of harboring life within the oceans, it very well could be used as a pit stop for future interstellar travelers.
Proxima's Planet
The sun setting in this painting is Proxima Centauri, the closest star outside of our solar system. Compared to our wonderful sun, Proxima Centauri is relatively small. Classified as a red dwarf star it is about 7x smaller than the bright yellow disk in our daily skies, and just slightly bigger than Jupiter. Proxima is part of a triple star system called the Alpha Centauri system, and you can see Proxima's companions in the upper right hand corner. The other two stars in this system are more like our sun than Proxima. At just 4 light years away, the fantasy of taking a cruise-like trip through this unimaginable star system is not out of reach. Just imagine being in a space craft suitable to withstand the violent conditions of this hypothetical alien world and watching each one of these beautiful stars put on its own unique sunset scene. Any individual fortunate enough to behold such a splendid wonder, through their very own set of peepers, is sure to have his or her view and defenition of life altered indefenitly.
Binary Stars Rising
In this purely science fiction based work of art, the artist illustrates a set of twin suns rising and shedding light on this, what seems to be, planet harboring intelligent life. The alien built towers stand silent as this majestic sight unfolds before them.
Roughly there are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, The Milky Way. There are billions of galaxies in the ever reaching universe. You do the math. I believe that at least one of those stars has a planetary system in which one of it's planets has a 'perfect storm' of conditions for life to thrive, and itself also evolve into possibly a greater variation of species than that found on our planet. In my personal unprofessional opinion, I think it would be a very foolish and close minded decision to deny the possibility of other intelligent beings sprouting and evolving much like the human race has... But who really knows anyway.
