NASA Has Discovered Another ‘Earth’ In Deep Space
NASA’a Kepler planet-hunting mission has discovered an ‘Earth-like’ planet orbiting around a distant star.
The newly discovered Kepler-452b is described as ‘an older, bigger cousin to Earth’ and is estimated to be 6 billion years old.
Located 1,400 light-years away, in the Cygnus constellation, Kepler-452b is the first Earth-sized planet to be found in the ’habitable zone’ - the area around a star such as the sun, where water remains as a liquid, potentially making it suitable for humans to live there.
“On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.“
The new exoplanet is 60% bigger than Earth in diameter, with previous research suggesting that it has a rocky terrain.
While Kepler-452b is slightly larger than Earth, it still has a similar 385-day orbit, compared to Earth’s 365.
NASA has also identified 11 other ‘Earth 2.0’ candidates which will require follow-up obervations and analysis to determine whether could potentially be inhabitable.
Launched in 2009, the Kepler Mission is the first to detect Earth-sized planets that many sustain liquid water, raising the possibility that they could be safe for humans to inhabit.
The first exoplanet orbiting another star like our sun was discovered in 1995. Since then, more than 1,000 have been discovered but only a handful have been classified as ‘potentially habitable’.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)
