This is a long video, but it describes how Kepler 22b may host life:



It is also theorized that Saturn's moon Enceladus may host some forms of life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_0V1DeDa4
It has been confirmed that Enceladus harbors liquid salt water and organic water. Other candidates for life in the solar system include Saturn's moon Titan as well as Mars. Venus may once have had life on it before a great heating period several hundred million years ago; it was then resurfaced. Two bodies (other than Enceladus) in the solar system have volcanic/tctonic activity.

I've long been interested in astrobiology and exobiology. It looks like we're getting very close to confirming that life exists in various places in our own galaxy, if not in our solar system. Just to paint a general picture, the universe is about 13.7 billion light years old. A single galaxy contains billions of stars, and there are billions of galaxies; roughly 100 billion of them. Organic material is assumed to be common. Hydrogen is widely available in the universe, and stars are like furnaces that produce heavier elements. Among these, lithium and carbon are both stable and common products; planets are expected to be commonly infused with these elements. It is rather easy for planets, given the right circumstances and a bit of time, to produce what we call organic molecules. Organic chemistry is dominated by the utility of carbon; it includes life as we know. The confirmed existence of organic molecules on Enceladus is, in my opinion very exciting. Now that warm, atmosphere-containing planets are being discovered, we're moving toward finding l(other) ife in the galaxy.

I thought I would share some of these basic ideas along with some recent discoveries in science. Enjoy!

EDIT: oh yeah, Kepler 22b is pretty far away.
NEW EDIT: go to about 17 minutes into the first video to get the big announcement The next 10+ minutes are fascinating.

This post was edited by RewtheBrave on Dec 14 2011 01:58pm

very interesting.