And that sunlight would be very similar to Earth’s, Jenkins said.
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John Grunsfeld, NASA’s science mission chief, emphasized that the exoplanet system identified Thursday – “a pretty good close cousin to the Earth and our sun” – is the closest so far. Since then, it has found 1,000 exoplanets, and 12 of those planets are in the habitable zone of their stars.
Jon Jenkins of NASA’s Ames Research Center, which runs the Kepler project, and lead author of a paper (pdf) being published in The Astronomical Journal, told The New York Times in an email that the likelihood of the planet being rocky was 50% to 62%, depending on how big its sun is.
In 2009, the exoplanet hunter telescope, Kepler, was launched to survey our galaxy’s portion for habitable planets. As said by Jenkins, scientists are nearly certain that Kepler-452b has an atmosphere, but can not determine exactly what is it made of; it’s probable to believe however that due to a thicker atmosphere, Kepler-452b has more active volcanoes than Earth. Kepler-452 is six billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than the sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger, as indicated by NASA. At this speed, necessary 33,000 many years before most of the people achieve the closest stars later on Sunday.
If the planet is indeed rocky, geologists believe its mass would be five times that of Earth and its gravity would be twice Earth’s.
A “cousin” to Earth has been located by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists, raising the possibility that another planet may contain life on it. It’s just a bit farther from its star than Earth is from our Sunday. But aside from that, there isn’t much that scientists can say regarding its atmosphere (or lack thereof), its surface water (and whether it exists) or its parent star. And water could mean life.
The planet, Kepler-452b, is about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
“So pack your bags, it’s a long trip”, joked Jenkins.
The astronomers note that the planet has not been observed directly – detected only by the dimming of its host star as it passes in front of it – and while much can be learned from such “transit” observations, like its orbit size and duration and its approximate size, much is still unknown about Kepler 452b.
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Natalie Batalha, NASA scientist, said that there are 14-billion planets potentially habitable for us. On our planet, space themed online casinos are all the rage. At present, there are 1,030 planets, and more than 3,000 planetary candidates discovered by NASA.
