A common refrain among tree-hugging, Al Gore-types is that we have to take care of our planet because it’s the only one we’ve got. That’s an effective argument, but NASA proved it wrong earlier this year when it announced that it had discovered seven Earth-like planets that humans could theoretically live on orbiting around a sun called TRAPPIST-1. Granted, the solar system is 40 light years away, so we can’t exactly hop on over when Earth gets too full of trash, but at least we can all sleep a little easier with the knowledge that we’ll all be totally fine in the future—assuming we make huge advances in interstellar travel within the next few years.
If TRAPPIST-1 isn’t quite your scene, though, NASA has just announced the discovery of another batch of Earth-like planets that have yet to be stunk up by those stupid Trumps we have on our planet. According to The Independent, NASA has actually found 219 new objects that could be planets, 10 of which are “rocky” like Earth and are at an appropriate distance from their star to avoid being too hot for life to exist or too cold for water to exist.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like any of these planets are grouped together like the TRAPPIST-1 boys, which leaves us with two options: Either we all pick a planet as Earth 2, then move to a third planet once we’ve ruined that one, or we all just split off and pick our own separate planets. We’ll eventually ruin those as well, but it would take a bit longer and open the door for some cool space wars.