If you feel unsettled by national politics or climate change on Earth, to the point of considering relocating to another habitable planet, there is good news for you – such places may exist!

In 2016, an international team headed by Belgian researcher Michaël Gillon discovered a system of seven planets clustered around a star, outside our solar system, called TRAPPIST‑1. Three of these planets are located in TRAPPIST‑1's habitable zone, the area around a star within which a rocky planet could potentially have liquid water. At about 40 light-years away, the system is relatively close to Earth.

A residential infrastructure and childcare facilities are still lacking, but the next decade of space exploration is set to take humans from the International Space Station (ISS) to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

With a European service module, NASA's new Orion vehicle was successfully placed into lunar orbit in November 2022 during the first flight of the international Artemis programme. Future Artemis missions will help to build a deep-space station, known as Gateway, located in lunar orbit, a thousand times further out in space than the ISS.

Looking ahead, the European Space Agency (ESA) – which promotes, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European countries in space research and technology and their space applications – has published a new strategy roadmap. It envisages European involvement in human or robotic presence on Mars, as well as preparation for deep-space exploration over the next two decades. The EU regularly partners with and contributes funding to the ESA.