1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. Kepler-10b an Exo-planet is a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that's more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun. The daytime temperature can reach 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea that hopped up space aliens are out cruising the cosmos spoiling for a fight remains key to most science fiction.
Our solar system’s own formation was likely triggered by the Milky Way galaxy’s collision with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. If microbial life did arise as soon as it did on Earth in greater than one percent of TTPs around K spectral type stars, then the closest ‘life-harboring Earth-like planet’ would be 65 light years away, Madau notes in his paper.
This may be cause for some cautious optimism in the search for habitability markers and biosignatures by the next generation of large ground-based facilities and instrumentation, says Madau.The late astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake's famous 1961 equation put probabilistic parameters on how many intelligent civilizations might be out there actively communicating over interstellar distances.