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Earth analog

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Habitability of natural satellites

The habitability of natural satellites describes the study of a moon's potential to provide habitats for life, though is not an indicator that it harbors it. Natural satellites are expected to outnumber planets by a large margin and the study is therefore important to astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life. There are, nevertheless, significant environmental variables specific to moons. It is projected that parameters for surface habitats will be comparable to those of planets like Earth - stellar properties, orbit, planetary mass, atmosphere and geology.

Exomoon

An exomoon or extrasolar moon is a natural satellite that orbits an exoplanet or other non-stellar extrasolar body. Exomoons are difficult to detect and confirm using current techniques, and to date there have been no confirmed exomoon detections. However, observations from missions such as Kepler have observed a number of candidates, in particular around Kepler-1625b, Kepler-1708b, and Kepler-1513b. Two potential exomoons that may orbit rogue planets have also been detected by microlensing.

Kepler-442b

Kepler-442b (also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-4742.01) is a confirmed near-Earth-sized exoplanet, likely rocky, orbiting within the habitable zone of the K-type main-sequence star Kepler-442, about from Earth in the constellation of Lyra. The planet orbits its host star at a distance of about with an orbital period of roughly 112.3 days. It has a mass of around 2.3 and has a radius of about 1.34 times that of Earth.

Kepler-186f

Kepler-186f (also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-571.05) is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Kepler-186, the outermost of five such planets discovered around the star by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. Kepler-186f orbits its star at a distance of about from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 130 days, and a mass and radius around 1.44 and 1.17 times that of Earth, respectively.

Terraforming

Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on. The concept of terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. Carl Sagan, an astronomer, proposed the planetary engineering of Venus in 1961, which is considered one of the first accounts of the concept.

Kepler-22b

Kepler-22b (also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-087.01) is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the Sun-like star Kepler-22. It is located about from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope in December 2011 and was the first known transiting planet to orbit within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star, where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. Kepler-22 is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.

TRAPPIST-1

Extraterrestrial liquid water

Extraterrestrial liquid water () is water in its liquid state that naturally occurs outside Earth. It is a subject of wide interest because it is recognized as one of the key prerequisites for life as we know it and thus surmised as essential for extraterrestrial life. Although many celestial bodies in the Solar System have a hydrosphere, Earth is the only celestial body known to have stable bodies of liquid water on its surface, with oceanic water covering 71% of its surface, which is essential to life on Earth.

Super-Earth

A Super-Earth is a type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to the mass of the planet, and so does not imply anything about the surface conditions or habitability. The alternative term "gas dwarfs" may be more accurate for those at the higher end of the mass scale, although "mini-Neptunes" is a more common term.

Rare Earth hypothesis

In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth (and, subsequently, human intelligence) required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances. According to the hypothesis, complex extraterrestrial life is an improbable phenomenon and likely to be rare throughout the universe as a whole.