Could There Be Life On Planet Gliese 581g?

Astronomers say they have spotted, for the first time, a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Just right. This new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And, it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star - 14 million miles away versus our 93 million. It's so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn't rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark. Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between - in the land of constant sunrise - it would be "shirt-sleeve weather." It is unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz believes "that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent."

The only problem with all of this is that the planet is 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. However, while this seems like a long distance, in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is "like right in our face, right next door to us," astronomer Vogt said in an interview.

Hebrews 11:3 tells us: By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Ephesians 4:10 says: He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe. Many verses in the Bible tell us about a Creator unlimited by time or space. We cannot even comprehend distances like 120 trillion miles. Somehow that doesn't seem to me to be "right in our face, right next door to us." Last summer we drove out to the West Coast and back to St. Louis, about 8,500 miles, and we were totally exhausted. The incredible thing about this is that the God who created the universe, who I am sure, delights in us finding things like new planets, is the same God who knows me intimately. The Bible tells me that he knows things about me that I do not even know. Have you ever tried to count the number of hairs on your head? Once again, science, and specifically astronomy, have blown me away with the vastness of God, and yet He knows and loves me, me. Wow...