![]() ![]() These planets originally form around stars like any other but get kicked out of their system at some point due to gravitational effects of giant planets within. Scientists think planets that don’t orbit any star, called free-floating planets or rogue planets, can harbor life too. If sunlight, a surface and an atmosphere aren’t necessary to make a world habitable, then why confine our search for life to Earth-like worlds that orbit stars? ![]() Their liquid water isn’t due to the Sun’s heat but rather warmed by friction between parts of their interiors being tugged by their planets' gravity. We know from our own solar system that icy moons orbiting giant planets far away from the Sun - such as Europa, Ganymede and Enceladus - can have underground, habitable oceans too. Simply put: Earth-like planets are not the only places where life could form. ![]() Quite a few of these exoplanets seem to be Earth-like, where surface conditions could sustain liquid water and life as we know it.īut even as next-generation telescopes aim to detect gases on such planets indicative of life, our search for such habitable worlds remains somewhat limited. Our search for planets around other stars in our galaxy has yielded us more than 4,500 worlds. ![]()
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