NASA's Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star

NASA ^ | 12/5/2011 | NASA

[Dallas59]

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

[Dallas59]

No Muslims found.

[GraceG]

We need interstellar travel NOW, it is needed to escape the Earth while the Liberal, Socialists and Caliphate destroy each other....

[Beowulf9]

Only 600 light years away!

[henkster]

Gravity would be a serious problem.

[GraceG]

Not really, even a really large planet like that would only have gravity that is 1.5X to 2X the gravity on earth due to how gravity works via the square of distance.

2X gravity is not all that bad, it would be like being overweight when fit and for someone who is fit you would get used to it.

[Darteaus94025]

We need to send all SEIU employees, Communists, leftists and lawyers to this planet immediately in order to establish a utopian society. The survival of Personkind is at stake!

[TYVets]

If 0bama wins in 2012 ................

[varmintman]

They’re looking for planets around stars like ours. It could easily be that most habitable planets orbit red dwarf stars, and orbit them very close in.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth.

That would make for one long-a*s day!

Come to think of it, that means all the Muslims would starve to death during Ramadan.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Even if Proxima Centauri, at 4.27 light years distance, had a habitable planet it wouldn’t really matter since we don’t have the technology to get there in any decent amount of time.

[VanDeKoik]

I will proudly lead a scouting expedition made up of myself and a able crew of 1000 Swedish bikini models.

I will send for the rest of humanity once we get there and make sure it is safe.....maybe.

[blackdog]

Underwire bras required!

[blackdog]

I prefer to eat my fruit peeled, thank you!

An obscure kpax reference.

[mkboyce]

Also depends on how dense it is, right?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Gravity would be a serious problem.

We would all need one of those motorized whatever-you-call-ems that almost ran me over a couple times at Walmart. Anyway, I'll bet most star systems have at least one planet in the habitable zone. The real problem is the right combination of conditions. Water, an atmosphere, a magnetic field, maybe even a large moon. Tidal forces were probably responsible for causing recombinations of amino acids resulting in the first self-replicating protein. There are probably a thousand other factors that make conditions for life such as ourselves extremely rare. Just finding a planet in a star's habitable zone means nothing in itself.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

If mass goes as R-cube, gravity goes as R-squared, so surface gravity would be proportional to R, for equal denisity. All other things are rarely, equal, however. The earth is the densiest planet in the solar system, having an iron core. The Moon’s diameter, for instance, is about 3.67 times smaller than earth’s, but it’s surface gravity is about 6.05 times smaller because it is that much less dense.

If this planet has an iron core the size of earth’s and a lot of rock plied on top, it could have surface gravity much lower than earth’s. Either way, just as elephants and spiders exist on earth, complex life could exist on this planet. Even snakes.

Kepler measures light dips from transiting planets, a technique that gives the size, but not the mass of the planet. Doppler studies of its host star should reveal its mass as well.

[roaddog727]

This is what I was thinking also.

2G’s would not be too bad. 3 G’s would be sucky.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Dallas59. Previously these so-called scientists assured everyone that there WERE no planets in the habitable zone of this star -- just shows how they lie and steal my money! Oh, sorry. ;')

That was satire, people. :')

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

That would make for one long-a*s day!

Hmmm. The diameter of Jupiter is more than 22 times earth's and a Jovian day is about 10 hours long. The moon otoh has a diameter 3.66 time smaller than earth's and a solar day of about 29.53 days. The earth was "despun" by the moon over the past several billion years, in fact, even today, the length of day increases by about 0.0015-0.0020 seconds per century.

[mkboyce]

Nevermind...found it:

F = Mm/r^2

(Force of gravity = Mass (planet) x mass (person)/radius squared)

So until NASA figures out the composition of Kepler 22b, i.e. density, then we can’t know how much more a person would weigh.