Have you ever wondered if aliens were real? Or if in the year 3053, aliens would take over Earth? Maybe you thought we’d team up with aliens and conquer the galaxy? Or maybe, we wouldn’t. Maybe they don’t exist; maybe they are all a scam; maybe--but, even if there is a possibility of them not being real, that still leaves a possibility of them being real. Just because we can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

But don’t take MY word for it, take the expert’s.

“I think it’s foolish to think that we’re the only intelligent beings in the universe,” said Ray Goulet, an expert on the subject. “Imagine we’re ants, living on this anthill, VERY far away from the other anthills. So, we’re too far away to see any other ants. Maybe we can barely see a little bit of an ant hill, but we can’t see any ants. So, does that mean we’re the only ants that exist? No!”

Scientists everywhere are all doing their part on finding habitable exoplanets. And they’ve been doing it for a while. In November of 2013, (which was 5 years ago) astronomers reported that based on Kepler space mission data, there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs stars in the Milky Way, and that 11 billion of them might be orbiting stars that are Sun-like.

But how do they find and tell if it is ACTUALLY habitable? And what are exoplanets? Well, all of these questions and more will be answered.

First of all, I’m going to explain a few vocabulary words that you need to know. An exoplanet is a planet outside of our solar system. Extraterrestrial life is life on other planets (aliens). The “habitable zone” is a zone that it is neither too hot, nor too cold; We are in it. And finally, astronomers are scientists who research space (i,e. Look for extraterrestrial life, research planets, etc.).

Step one𑁋Look for an exoplanet that is similar to ours.

“If you’re looking for a cow, you could try looking at an ice cream store. But, it’s not often that you find cows in ice cream stores. We know that cows like to eat grass, and we’ve seen them living in fields. So we look for cows on a field somewhere. You wouldn't look in an ice cream store. There might be a cow in an ice cream store, but we know they’re in fields,” said Goulet.

When astronomers look for potentially habitable planets, they look for planets like ours. For instance, Earth-sized planets, planets in the “habitable zone”, or planets orbiting stars that are like the Sun. We do this because the only planet we know of that has life is our own; so maybe there’s something special that another planet that has life has.

There’s one thing that we’re almost 100 percent sure life needs𑁋water. But, why is water so special? Well, we know that every animal needs water: dogs, cats, humans, monkeys, ostriches… Even plants. So, since all life we know needs it, others probably do, too.

Step Two𑁋Reason: Could it ACTUALLY have life?

Even if an exoplanet DID follow all (or most of) the criteria, it still might not have life. This is because of a few things....

The first thing is the star. If the star is like our Sun, it’s probably going to be pretty “quiet”, but some stars𑁋like really BIG stars𑁋aren’t so quiet. They tend to “lash out” on their surrounding planets with big flame-like bursts of cosmic radiation (which is bad). This cosmic radiation would wipe out any life (without a good atmosphere).

Our Sun makes cosmic radiation, but it doesn’t affect us. Why? Well, because of our atmosphere and magnetic field. Our atmosphere is basically a thin invisible bubble of a gas called ozone that protects us from bad stuff from the Sun. Like ultraviolet radiation! Also, without Earth’s atmosphere the temperature would drop down to below freezing. Our magnetic field is basically a force field made by A LOT of electric charges all moving.

The exoplanet also needs to be orbiting around a star that is going to last. For awhile. If it was orbiting around a massive star, the star would burst really quick, and so no life would have enough time to form, and even if it DID form it would be… dead.

Step Three𑁋Find the life!

To find life, you have to𑁋well, find the life! Scientists are all still trying to figure out accurate and easier ways to tell if life is on a planet, but for now we don’t have the technology.

One way is what an organisation called SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) is doing. They are pointing sound telescopes at the sky, 24/7, to find any irregular sound waves. So far they’ve found nothing, but they aren’t giving up so easily.

Another way to find life is to look in the atmosphere and see if there’s any molecules that aren’t created naturally in there and that only life could make. Right now, we don’t have the technology to do this but we hope someday we can.

There’s also a way using the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect is basically when a sound gets higher pitched as it gets closer to you and gets lower pitched when it gets farther from you.

“For example, if a police is coming and it has it’s siren on, when it comes closer to you it gets higher pitched, and when it gets farther it gets lower pitched.” Goulet said.

It’s basically the same for color. You can use this to see how far the planet is.

When the planet is going closer to you, it gets slightly more blue and when it is getting farther away it gets slightly more red. You can use this and some other ways to find out how far the planet is from its star, then you can find out if it’s hot enough (or cold enough) to have water.

There are plenty of other ways, like spectroscopy, and finding out the shadows length, find out how long it takes for it to go around its star, etc, but if I added ALL of those methods to this article it would BE this newspaper. So, I’m not going to. But, I will tell you that we haven’t found life yet, but scientists everywhere keep trying.

“A failure you almost weren’t entirely expecting is just as important as success.” Goulet said.

I guess we’ve failed, in a way, but we’ve also succeeded. Nobody knows how long it will take to find life, but scientists don’t care, they just keep trying. Not giving up.

Maybe one day you’ll become a scientist. And maybe you’ll find life. You never know.