IN SEARCH OF A BETTER PLANET

One after another, the astronauts gape as they leave the landing craft. Wherever the group of cosmic colonists look, the ground is covered in a jungle of blueycoloured alien growths that greedily absorb the local sun’s orange light. Each step requires effort: although it has been several months since the astronauts woke up from their 100 years of hibernation, their muscles have not yet fully regenerated. And furthermore the alien planet’s more powerful gravity makes even the lightest of the astronauts weigh more than 100kg – a necessary evil if they are to experience their new world.

Odd creatures of all sizes and shapes are creeping, crawling and climbing around them. Unnaturally large creatures are sailing by high above the purple tree-tops.

The scientists that chose the destination of mankind’s first interstellar expedition were right. There are planets that are far more fit for life than our home on Earth, and this is definitely one of them.

Super-planets teeming with life

Earth is the only place in the universe where we know positively there is life. The Amazon rainforest includes at least three million species. But in 2013, astrobiologists René Heller and John Armstrong chose to ask themselves what