Can We Live on Another Planet?

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Mars+by+Kevin+M.+Gill+is+licensed+under+CC+BY+2.0

“Mars” by Kevin M. Gill is licensed under CC BY 2.0

By: Aiman Ullah, Journalist

Can there be life on another planet? This may seem like a nerdy question but actually, this is an important matter. Earth can only hold so many humans. Maybe if you kill half the population, then people can keep on living on planet Earth. However, that seems really inhumane.

The idea of living on another planet just seems like a big challenge. We have to adjust to the temperature, get used to the gravity, avoid cosmic radiation, and all that stuff. There would be economic and technical challenges. We’re going to need to find a new planet because the average population increases about 0.5%-1.15%, which is a lot. As of 2021, there are around 8 billion people on Earth. In 2022, studies show that there is going to be an increase of maybe 80 million people! That would end up being almost 8,080,000,000 people! We have laser communication, rockets, spacesuits and more. Will it be enough?

Maybe, we’ll be able to terraform the planet. Terraforming means to modify the temperature, atmosphere, and ecology etcetera of a planet. In simpler words, it means to modify a planet to whatever you want. We might be able to terraform another planet, which would preferably be a planet next to us like Venus or Mars. It all seems unreal. It’s almost as if it’s just dream that is impossible of happening. But there’s still a chance. We still have about 8 million- 4.5 billion years to perfect it! Hopefully, there will be enough time.