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LIAM: Hey, Brad.
Got another letter.
This one's from Thomas from Helsinki, which I recently
found out is a real place.
So, let's see what it says.
Ah, blue.
Love the color blue.
Dear Liam, go [BLEEP]
yourself.
Love, Thomas from Helsinki.
BRAD: OK.
I've got a letter.
It's from Courtney in Alabama.
And she asks, what planet in our solar system has given us
the most clues to alien life?
OK.
Roll the clip, Tim.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-According to NASA research, we have defined habitable
criteria as extended regions of liquid water, conditions
favorable for the assembly of complex organic molecules, and
energy sources to sustain metabolism.
So on March 7, 2009, NASA's Kepler Space Observatory was
launched to search for habitable planets outside of
our solar system.
The Kepler spacecraft was specifically designed to
survey a portion of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth
size planets and determine how many of the billions of stars
in our galaxy have such planets.
This past February, the Kepler mission team released a list
of approximately 54 planets outside of our solar system
that met the requirements for supporting life.
But during their analysis of these planets, it was found
that they are likely to support only simple life
forms, such as single-cell bacteria, and not complex
mammals like humans.
That being said, most scientists agree that we have
to begin somewhere.
And finding a planet able to support single-cell life is a
really good start.