Scientists To Look For Other Life Forms Near Older Stars

Our solar system is so far, the only place where living things were ever found. This is why most scientists train their telescopes to look for younger, sun-like stars in order to find other life forms.

Is alien life hiding around red giants: Older stars could have pushed habitable ... https://t.co/9Vs3i0MFBQ #Science pic.twitter.com/GCL3ShzTvZ

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However, there could be something amiss. Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger and her colleagues at the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University noted that life could exist around stars that are older and bigger than our own sun.

Around two dozen of these potentially life-sustaining suns could exist right in our own galaxy, and Kaltenegger and her colleagues want scientists to take a closer look at them.\

This idea is not a new one. According to The Washington Post, Alan Stern, who led the New Horizons mission to Pluto had the same idea in 2004, when he examined how conditions in our solar system could change what's known as the habitable zone -- where worlds are warm enough to have liquid water.

For now, the Earth is at a celestial sweet spot that makes it close enough to be warm enough to give life, but not close enough to burn to a crisp. This won't always be the case, though, because in about 4 billion years, the sun will be able to use up most of its hydrogen fuel and will become a red giant. It would end up ballooning to 200 times its size, and will soon tough the earth's orbit. Stern suggested that at this point, the most habitable worlds could be Pluto and its moon, Charon, as well as Neptune's moon, Triton.

The earth will be a wasteland at that point -- if it doesn't get engulfed by the sun in the first place, but the universe is already full of older stars -- who knows, there could be a planet with sustainable life in there, too.