The Carl Sagan quotation, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself,” applies to how and what we know about exoplanets, which are planets that exist outside our solar system.
Although these planets have only been detected as blips of shadow across faraway stars, artists have worked with scientists to imagine what these far-away planets might look like. Some of these planets are tidally locked, as seen in the Trappist datasets, which means that one side of the planet always faces the sun, similar to how one side of the moon always faces Earth. There are billions of other solar systems within the Milky Way and scientists are just beginning to explore what they might hold.
Download an SOS playlist for this module.
The classic satellite shot of the Earth from space is shown with the shadow of night as if it were orbiting the sun. Use this image to contrast with exoplanets, and note that Earth is not tidally locked due to the regular shadow making its way around the entire Earth due our rotation around our axis.
For SOSx use Blue Marble - Seasonal.
Spacecrafts like Kepler are monitoring distant stars in search of Earth-like planets, helping us learn a bit more about the possibility of life—or simply even the possibility of liquid water.
These artist renderings of what exoplanets might look like give students a creative idea of how a tidally-locked planet with an entirely different atmosphere could appear.
For SOSx use Earth, our Goldilocks Planet.
These artist renderings of what exoplanets might look like give students a creative idea of how a tidally-locked planet with an entirely different atmosphere could appear.
The Milky Way contains billions of other solar systems. Alpha Centauri is our Solar System's closest neighbor, and likely contains exoplanets.
For SOSx use Our Pale Blue Dot.
Science On a Sphere