NASA announced Thursday morning that its Kepler planet-hunting mission had discovered a bigger, older cousin to Earth revolving around a similar star to our sun.
The planet is the smallest yet discovered within the “habitable zone” — the area around a star where water would pool on the planet’s surface — though it’s estimated to be about five times the mass of Earth, plus or minus two Earth masses, NASA officials said in a briefing.
“This is the closest things we have found to an earth analogue, a planet like our own,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, during the briefing.
Researchers have dubbed the planet Kepler 452b and it is one of 12 planetary candidates announced in the latest review of Kepler data.
Kepler 452b revolves around a sun similar to our own, on a 385-day orbit and is about 6 billion years old — while Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. That’s sufficient time for life to develop, providing all the necessary ingredients are there, Jenkins said in a NASA release.
“This is really the first step to answering that question, ‘Are humans alone in this universe,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We’re finding out if planets like Earth are common and the answer seems to be yes.”
Here’s a video showing Earth and Kepler 452b’s movement within the timeline that’s considered habitable:
Unfortunately, little is known about the atmosphere of the planet — though researchers estimate it does have one — and it’s unlikely we’ll get there any time soon. Kepler 452b is 1,400 light years away.
Still, if humans could get there, it might feel familiar, Jenkins said.
“If you traveled to this (planet) with an ark full of plants and animals, even when we got there, there would be a lot of raw materials for you to use, but even for the plants, the sunshine…is very similar to the sunshine of our own star,” he said. “It would feel a lot like home in terms of the sunshine you would experience.”
The discovery brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030,
Here’s a gallery of 10 planets NASA has found that are like Earth.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1IkTJGa
NASA announced Thursday morning that its Kepler planet-hunting mission had discovered a bigger, older cousin to Earth revolving around a similar star to our sun.
The planet is the smallest yet discovered within the “habitable zone” — the area around a star where water would pool on the planet’s surface — though it’s estimated to be about five times the mass of Earth, plus or minus two Earth masses, NASA officials said in a briefing.
“This is the closest things we have found to an earth analogue, a planet like our own,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, during the briefing.
Researchers have dubbed the planet Kepler 452b and it is one of 12 planetary candidates announced in the latest review of Kepler data.
Kepler 452b revolves around a sun similar to our own, on a 385-day orbit and is about 6 billion years old — while Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. That’s sufficient time for life to develop, providing all the necessary ingredients are there, Jenkins said in a NASA release.
“This is really the first step to answering that question, ‘Are humans alone in this universe,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We’re finding out if planets like Earth are common and the answer seems to be yes.”
Here’s a video showing Earth and Kepler 452b’s movement within the timeline that’s considered habitable:
Unfortunately, little is known about the atmosphere of the planet — though researchers estimate it does have one — and it’s unlikely we’ll get there any time soon. Kepler 452b is 1,400 light years away.
Still, if humans could get there, it might feel familiar, Jenkins said.
“If you traveled to this (planet) with an ark full of plants and animals, even when we got there, there would be a lot of raw materials for you to use, but even for the plants, the sunshine…is very similar to the sunshine of our own star,” he said. “It would feel a lot like home in terms of the sunshine you would experience.”
The discovery brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030,
Here’s a gallery of 10 planets NASA has found that are like Earth.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1IkTJGa
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire