Have we just taken a huge step towards discovering life elsewhere in the universe?
The planet Earth is currently the only place in the entire universe that we know of which can support life. Earth is orbiting a rather unremarkable star in a rather unremarkable part of the Milky Way galaxy. The fact of the matter is that our sun is just one of about one hundred thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone. And the Milky Way, well it's just one of at least one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Or to put it another way, there are more stars in our universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. But yet, as of now, Earth is the only place in the universe that we know there is life.
But why is there life on Earth? Very simply, the conditions on Earth are good for life. We live in what is known as the "Goldilocks" zone. This means that we get just the right amount of energy from the sun, and...