I asked a similiar question earlier in regards to research for a writing project I am doing, and got some great help, but want to be more specific in this one.
I recall reading an article where planets had been identified, maybe with the Hubble Telescope, that were identified as possibly "earth like" with the potential ability to support life as we know it, but were in a completely different solar system.
First, does anyone have any further information on this topic?
Secondly, my question would be how far (in light years) are these planets and solar systems estimated to be?
If you don’t know about these identified planets in particular, what would also be useful is some general information as to how far away (again in light years) some of the closest complete solar systems (im not a physicist if you can’t tell already, but by "complete solar system" I mean planets orbiting a star similiar to our own).
Im working on a space travel portion for a writing project, where in the future humans travel to distant planets in other solar systems, but am working on the method of travel used. I want to understand some of the known distances to other solar systems to determine a method of travel that works with the story. My story won’t be "hard" sci-fi, meaning I wont have to explain the technology inside and out, but will just incorporate the basics of the idea to allow the story to unfold around the characters.
Any help you have is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the info everyone. I’d like to add that this will be fiction writing, and so one theory with travel near light speed is an idea I am considering. **Would you say it is believable, or at least doesn’t stand out as rediculous, to speculate that in the future, we detect multiple planets in the universe that have the potential to soupport life, on different star systems that are, say, within 50-80 light years away or less?
