Where to look for life in Universe?

What is life?
How do we define life? More importantly, how do we perceive life?
Sometimes, it can be just breathing or a beating heart but an actual meaning of life is far more
complicated than it seems
Scientifically, life or existence of life is a existence of humans, animals, nature,
microorganisms.But would it be fair to say that mere existence of all these elements describes
life?

The air we breathe in, the food we eat, the ground we walk on, everything is life. If you look
around and observe life is everywhere in various different forms. Life is only driven when one
form of life depends on another form of life for it's survival i.e. when different forms of life
coexist, they together defines life.
But where did it come from? Who made it? Does it exist somewhere else other than earth? And
will it ever cease to exist?

The BIG BANG THEORY: Origin of Life

Origin of life: a unique and an extremely important event in history of life.
The big bang theory makes a great attempt in explaining this event.
It begins from a single huge explosion which expanded the universe, lowered down the
temperature leading to formation of gases like helium and hydrogen. These formed gases
condensed under gravitation formed present day galaxies.
Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old and life appeared on it 500 million years ago.
Initially, no atmosphere was present on earth. Gradually, water vapors, methane, carbon
dioxide was released from molten mass and eventually they covered the earth surface.
UV rays of sun broke down water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen being lighter, escaped
and oxygen combined with ammonia and methane to form water and carbon dioxide.
Ozone layer was formed around the earth and as it cooled, water vapors fell as rain forming
oceans.
What is Universe?
As per NASA, "The universe is everything. It includes all of space, and all the matter and
energy that space contains. It even includes time itself and, of course, it includes you."
Universe is almost 20 billion years old. It is a cluster of galaxies which in turn contain multiple
solar systems containing planets. Universe is a vast combination of different galaxies having
stars, clouds of gases and dust.
In this huge universe, where earth is a mere speck, possibility of life on exoplanets is very high.

What are exoplanets?

A simple definition would be a planet that revolves around a star other sun or a planet outside of
our solar system.

Above figure shows a planet wobbling around a star, it is one of the methods to locate
exoplanets in the universe.
There are certain categories according to which exoplanets are grouped and they are gas
giants, neptunian planets, super earth's and terrestrial planets.

Where should we look?

As per NASA records, there are nearly 4900 exoplanets in our galaxy alone, in the entire
universe the number is in trillions.
Now the main concern is, how do we look for life into each of them?
Scientists have now narrowed this approach to rather look for habitable zones.

Habitable zones - A zone which provide appropriate temperature and atmospheric conditions
which are able to sustain life.

How will we know when we find it?

Presence of an atmosphere similar to that of earth comprising of different processes like
photosynthesis. Possible existence of human and animal life. All of this is only possible by use
of telescopes and high quality machinery.
References: NCERT textbook(12th grade),
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/what-is-an-exoplanet/planet-types/overview/,
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/search-for-life/can-we-find-life/#otp_will_we_know_life_when_we_s
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