We can all probably admit that we as humans don’t take very good care of our planet.  It’s quite depressing actually, how wasteful we are.  I mean, yeah it’s enjoyable once in a while to purchase a bunch of junk that we don’t really need.  We all would agree that cars, computers, phones, iPods, etc.. make our life better for sure, but they also guzzle tons of energy that is destroying our planet. Not to mention how lazy we’ve gotten with putting trash in actual trash cans and recycling bins.  Having said that, I believe we do try to reverse, if not at least try to stop this process with recycling being easier than ever.  Organizations dedicated their time to physically cleaning up this Earth, solar powered items are available, and there is new smarter technology to conserve as much energy as possible.  But has anyone ever thought that maybe we’re too late? That the damage is done?  Earth will eventually perish and where are those future generations supposed to go to?

Fortunately, scientists have discovered a new planet that seems to be the most Earth-like yet!  It’s got an incredibly snazzy new name- HD85512b.  Gotta love those scientists’ creativity.  Research shows that it’s about 36 light years away and 3.6 times the mass of Earth.  It was spotted when a star’s light twinkled slightly, suggesting the gravitational pull of a nearby planet.  However, the best news for us is that it is the perfect distance from its parent star (its sun) to have liquid water exist on its surface.  More good news suggests that since it is less than 10 times the size of Earth’s mass, it is likely to have an atmosphere similar to it.  This planet also has a circular orbit, meaning that it will have a stable climate like Earth’s.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that sounds super promising and I’m really excited for more research to be done.  However, there was an identical discovery like this in 2010 that implies that the planet found then was simply a data glitch, and indeed ceased to ever exist.  Hopefully, our technology has improved in the last year because if this really turns out to be an error, the human race is kind of screwed if we don’t clean up our act.  After all, where are the 2012 survivors going to go? Just kidding…but still.  Can’t wait until some new data arrives! Keep you posted!

~Esha Bhandari