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.

[GraceG]

[ 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 ]

That would be awesome, a whole lot more landmass and less gravity to boot!!!! Awesome Holiday planet!

Actually a larger planet may have a higher differentiation during formation, making more of the heavy stuff sink into the core so your scenario is plausible!

2/3 the gravity with 2x the surface area, Let’s call it Earth II and find a way to get there NOW! :)

[Verginius Rufus]

There could be potentially habitable planets in any direction from earth, and no doubt they will discover more of them in the future.

Before we spend any money actually getting to one of them, we need to determine if that planet has any chocolate. So far the earth is the only planet known to have chocolate.

[Izzy Dunne]

The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth.
That would make for one long-a*s day!

Maybe you can explain to me the connection between planetary radius and period of rotation, because I just don't get it.

[hc87]

Plus:

i)plate tectonics (avoids the full globe resurfacing problem seen on Venus and an important part of magnetic field sustainability);

ii) low eccentricity orbit (i.e. mostly round);

iii) a Jupiter mass or larger companion to suck up rocks that would otherwise perpetually bombard the inner solar system;

iv) low variability in solar output; and

v) a quiet neighborhood where nothing big has gone supernova in the last billion years.

[Izzy Dunne]

Saw a T-shirt once:

SAVE the EARTH!

It’s the only planet with chocolate!

[Dallas59]

Probably more but the line of sight is off if your just looking for planets that transit the host star.

[Lazamataz]

It’s still Minshara-class.

[central_va]

Kepler 22B has a nice ring to it.

Everyone that is cool knows that the Starfleet nomenclature for human habitable planets are called class M planets.

[The Cajun]

Sad, more discoveries are being made about possible habitable planets and we don't have a viable space program anymore.

Serious actual work on really advanced drives should be going on, not just theoretical work and damn sure no more crap like the ISS.

[Spirochete]

It could easily be that most habitable planets orbit red dwarf stars, and orbit them very close in.

Most likely with one hemisphere in eternal daylight. I don't buy the usual arguments against such worlds as habitable worlds (flares and atmosphere freeze-out). They probably offer a more stable environment for life than worlds like ours.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Those are very good points. However, I have also imagined that there could be planets in which the conditions are even more favorable than here. Less asteroids in the system, for example. Or a star that has been ejected from its host galaxy by a merger. So although an extinction event occurs once every hundred million years or so here, and restarts evolution again almost from scratch, there are others that take much longer. Rare of course by a huge factor, but with more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth, it’s possible.

[hc87]

All excellent points.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I stand corrected. The article does not mention how quickly this planet rotates on it’s axis.

[GraceG]

[ Serious actual work on really advanced drives should be going on, not just theoretical work and damn sure no more crap like the ISS. ]

Yes need to work on Heim Drives and gravity manipulation type devices.

Anything that can decouple an object from inertia will be a goo thing to research.

[The Cajun]

Anything that can decouple an object from inertia

Yep, agree on that.

No matter how fast the drive, if you can't accelerate at a decent speed, you ain't going nowhere fast :^)

[Oatka]

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.

But maybe THEY do to get here. :-)

I have this fantasy that, just as people muddled along without electricity even though it was all around them, we stumble through space at liquid propellent speed until somebody says, "Hey, look what I discovered!"

[Blessed Mother Country]

Notice the fine line Jesus built in order to make life possible. I have loved viewing the glory of the God through Hubble, or any of the half dozen, or more satellites and earthbound telescopes, which grant us unbelievable images of this universe. Hallelujah to Christ Jesus, Amen & Amen

[KevinDavis]

[Jack Hydrazine]

Who is THEY you mention?
Maybe the cloaked ship orbiting Mercury that was revealed by a CME in this video posted on GoogTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X96xI1gLdQ&feature=player_embedded

[Oatka]

Who is THEY you mention?

The Roswellians - or those folks mentioned on "Ancient Aliens". :-)