Question: is there any chance that stars along way away are actually planets we could inhabit and if we continue to destroy the earth that we could in billions of years get to those planets

Mark Kennedy answered on 4 Nov 2016:

What an excellent question! You’re definitely onto something here. When we look up at the night sky, and we see all of the little dots of light, we are pretty confident that they are all stars rather than planets – this is because for something to be really, really far away from Earth and still be really bright, then it also has to be really, really hot! Which means it can only be a star (there are exactly 5 exceptions to this rule – and they are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as they can also be seen in the night sky as little dots of light).

Every now and again, one of these stars in the night sky might seem less bright than it was before – and normally, the cause of this is a planet orbiting that star, passing in between the star and us, and blocking some of the stars light. So yes, there definitely are planets out there! In fact, as of writing this answer, there are 3,403 confirmed exoplanets (that is, a planet that is not in the Solar system). You can search them all here: http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

Also, you can help other researchers find exoplanets by playing this online game: https://www.planethunters.org/

And in a few billion years, it will absolutely be necessary for us to travel to one of these planets to make a new home (even if we stop destroying the planet, we’ll still have to do this, as the Sun will eventually run out of fuel!).

So who know’s? Maybe by playing Planet Hunters, you might discover the planet that humans will call home in a few billion years!