Alien Earths
Premieres Sunday 8/23 at 9pm et/pt.

You know, we've been living here on this planet for, well, forever. Isn't it time we expanded a bit? Wouldn't it be nice to have a little getaway stashed in some backwater of the galaxy - a weekend place where we as a species could go to escape the workaday worries of life on Earth, kick up our feet and pop a cold one?

If you're going to build yourself a weekend retreat, interstellar or otherwise, the first thing you need is a great plot of real estate - ideally one that's, as Goldilocks would say, "just right." Lately, we've been shopping around in completely new planetary neighborhoods. It's just a matter of time before we spot one in that just-right goldilocks zone.

Alien Earths in and out of the "Goldilocks Zone"

To date, astronomers have discovered over 300 planets orbiting other stars - but most of these are bloated, massive, gassy, hot, frigid, inhospitable places. Definitely no day at the beach. Why is this all that's been found so far? In part because these worlds are so massive - while we can't directly observe them, they are detected by the effects they have on their host stars. We just haven't had the technology to find the smaller, terrestrial, Earth-like planets. But that is changing. New missions such as "Kepler", launched in March of this year (and already finding not-quite earth-like planets) and other space telescopes, launching in the coming years, will greatly enhance the tools astronomers have at their disposal.

Once that happens, we may find ourselves overwhelmed with choices for that weekend getaway. One estimate puts the number of earth-like planets in our galaxy alone at over 100 billion. Wherever the human race chooses to build its first galactic beach house, let's just hope that with all those neighborhoods to choose from, we also have a chance to meet the neighbors.

Alien Earths
Premieres Sunday 8/23 at 9pm et/pt.