“Earth’s older, bigger cousin” has been discovered by N.A.S.A’s Kepler satellite. It is the first planet that is about the same size as Earth to be discovered in a star like ours’ habitable zone. It’s the closest match N.A.S.A has uncovered so far, yet they are unsure if the planet is similar to ours in composition or if it has liquid water and atmosphere.
About 1,400 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, is where Kepler-452b is located. It lies in the habitable zone of its star, which is the region where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface, and is, according to N.A.S.A, around 60% larger than Earth.
The likelihood of it having a stony surface is “better than even,” according to scientists. The gravity there would be almost twice as powerful as it is here. The planet receives almost the same amount of energy from its star as Earth does from the sun despite being farther from it than Earth is from the sun due to its star’s brightness. According to Jenkins, the light coming from that sun would resemble Earth’s light quite a bit. The planet very probably possesses an atmosphere, but its composition is unknown, according to Jenkins. However, he added, if what planetary geologists believe to be true, Kepler-452b would likely have an atmosphere thicker than Earth’s and active volcanoes.
N.A.S.A says that it takes the planet 385 days to go around its star, which is a lot like Earth’s 365-day year. Jenkins said that it has had plenty of time to make life because it has been orbiting in this area for 6 billion years.
“That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet,” he said in a statement.
According to N.A.S.A, Kepler-186f was believed to be the planet that most closely resembled Earth before this one was discovered. The distance between us and that planet, which is barely a tenth as large as Earth, is around 500 light-years. However, according to N.A.S.A, its star only provides approximately a third of the energy that Earth receives from the sun, so there, noon would appear to be evening.
In 2009, the $600 million Kepler mission got going. Its goal was to look for planets that could support life in a part of the Milky Way. It looks at the light from faraway stars from a distance of 64 million miles from Earth. It looks for almost imperceptible drops in a star’s brightness that indicate a planet has passed in front of it.
It has found more than a thousand planets. Twelve of them, including Kepler-425b, have been less than twice the size of Earth and in the habitable zones around the stars they orbit.
Scientists are getting ready for missions that will help them get closer to their goal of finding more planets and making a list of their atmospheres and other features.
