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A planet being hailed as a possible “Earth 2.0” has been discovered by the NASA Kepler exploration mission.
The distant planet – Kepler 452b – is nearly 1,400 light years away, and it’s about 60 percent larger and slightly farther from its sun than Earth. Nevertheless the discovery has generated excitement among astronomers because the new planet is within the so-called habitable zone. That means it is situated the proper distance in orbit from a star where a planet’s temperature is amenable to liquid water, providing a greater possibility for sustaining life. Kepler 452b’s star is remarkably similar to our sun.
NASA astronomers are describing Kepler 452b as the most Earth-like planet ever discovered.
“It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler’s lead data analyst at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View. “That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”
The Kepler mission so far has discovered 1,030 planets, of which only a dozen are less than twice the size of Earth and located within the habitable zone.
Congratulations NASA! This is very exciting and expected.
We knew that finding a near earth sized planet in the habitable zone would be much harder than finding a Jupiter sized planet. However, once many planets had need found, it was inevitable that some would be earth sized planets in the habitable zone.