NASA Update: Scientists Discovered New Habitable Planet Similar to Our Earth

Scientists Discovered New Habitable Planet Similar to Our Earth

NASA’s Kepler mission has just confirmed its first planet around the “habitable zone,” the area where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also announced that it has discovered over 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling the previous count. Ten of these candidates are orbit and near-Earth-size in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require development observations to authenticate they are real planets.

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Kepler-22b, newly confirmed planet is the smallest found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star very similar to our normal sun. The planet is approximately 2.4 times the radius of normal Earth we’re in. Scientists do not know yet whether the Kepler-22b has a mostly gaseous or liquid or rocky composition, but this discovery is another step closer to the finding of other Earth-like planets.

Credit: NASA.gov

Preceding research hinted us at the existence of a near the Earth-size planets in the habitable zones, on the other hand, the clear confirmation proved indefinable. Two other small planets revolving the stars that are smaller and cooler than our own sun were recently confirmed very close to the edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely similar to those of Mars and Venus.

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Kepler’s outcomes continue to show the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.”

Kepler determines planets and some other planet candidates just by evaluating dips in the clarity of more than 150,000 stars in order to search for planets that crosses in front, or journey through the stars. Kepler normally requires at least three transits in order to verify a signal as a planet.

“Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet,” said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b. “The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the crucial third travel over the 2010 thanksgiving holiday season.”

You can read more of this news from NASA website here or watch the video interview here below:

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