NASA’s Kepler Mission Finds First Earthlike Planet in ‘Habitable’ Zone

According to an announcement from NASA, their Kepler mission today has sent back data which confirmed the first planet in what is called the “habitable zone” in another solar system. The planet is located at a distance from its parent star in a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.

This “habitable zone” is a small window, based on the size of the planet and the type and size of star, in which the distance is ideal for supporting life. Scientists have long said that just small changes in the Earth’s distance from our sun and our home would either be too warm or too cold for life to have evolved the way we know it.

While the Kepler mission has recently found over a thousand planets circling other stars, this is the first one which appears to be in the right orbit for the conditions to exist which could support life like that found on Earth.

But Kepler has found more than one candidate planet. Of the 1000 plus planets discovered and evaluated, 10 are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. More follow-up observations are required to verify that they are indeed planets.

In a recent press release, NASA said that, “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.”

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Kepler’s results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.”

For more information about the Kepler Mission and its discoveries, visit the home page for Kepler at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html.