Scientists have discovered a new planet called GJ 1214b, that is mostly made of water, which is 40 light years away. To put this in perspective a light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles away. Now that is only 1 light year. Now a light year helps you determine age as well. So for example, a star that is 1 million light years away, means that that start has traveled at the speed of light to reach us, and it took 1 million years for us to see it. So the star we are seeing is really how the star looked a million years ago, not how it looks today.
Now that's a crazy thought to handle. Thinking that we are seeing something in a different time then it is traveling even at the moment.
The main reason I chose this article was because there is no possible way for us to get to this planet. So if you could actually ride a space ship, it would take us 40 light years to get there. If we could only build a ship to get there, what would we find. People believe there would be life, however much different than ours. Because the planet is bigger and much warmer than earth (400 degrees in fahrenheit), people like us could not live there. But since there is water, there would be life-like beings or creatures.
It is amazing how we can find planets that are this far away from us, yet alone know that there is water and life on it. This planet was discovered when 8 MEarth project telescopes on top of Mt. Hopkins, Arizona watched it's star and saw the star dim slightly as the planet crossed in front of it. It is amazing that even today we have telescopes that let our eye see 40 light years away.
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