NASA announced yesterday that its Kepler mission has discovered the first planet known to be similar in size to earth while also being within a habitable zone, the area around a star which could support liquid bodies of water on an orbiting planet.
Read more: What Happened to Our Fascination with Space?
NASA Administrator John Grunsfeld confirmed that the Kepler explorer “discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun.” Named Kepler-452b, the form is the smallest planet to be discovered in the zone, which orbits a G2-type star similar to the Sun. Since its diameter is 60 percent larger than Earth’s, Kepler-452b is classified as a “super-Earth-size planet”
Sticking to NASA’s search for another planet that can host humans, NASA scientist Natalie Betalha estimates that there are roughly 1 billion planets similar to Earth in our galaxy. Also, a recent study led by the former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. James Hansen, suggests that Greenland and Antartica will experience faster melting than what was previously projected, resulting in fast sea level rises that could occur this century.
NASA discovers first-ever Earth-sized planet
NASA estimates 1 billion ‘Earths’ in our galaxy alone
Study by former NASA climate chief James Hansen predicts rapidly rising seas this century
Pluto Dazzles in False Color via NASA http://t.co/2cWcHzrPKf http://t.co/g42fO0yY7G
— Jason Ramsey (@Jason__Ramsey)
2015-07-24T14:19:33Z
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense