Monday, December 5, 2011

Earth-like planet confirmed


Kepler 22-b: Earth-like planet confirmed

Artist's conception of Kepler 22-b The planet lies about 15% closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun

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Astronomers have confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the "habitable zone" around a star not unlike our own.
The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C.
It is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like ours - an "Earth 2.0".
However, the team does not yet know if Kepler 22-b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid.
During the conference at which the result was announced, the Kepler team said that it had spotted some 1,094 new candidate planets.
The Kepler space telescope was designed to look at a fixed swathe of the night sky, staring intently at about 150,000 stars. The telescope is sensitive enough to see when a planet passes in front of its host star, dimming the star's light by a minuscule amount. end quote.

Though with present widely known technology humans couldn't live long enough to get there in one generation, if faster than light or even time travel were possible this could all change very quickly. Also, if I convert 22 C   I get 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

To read more about it here is one of the sites:
NASA telescope confirms alien planet is in habitable zone

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