NASA just discovered 'Earth 2.0'
We have discovered the very first Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star in the perfect sweet spot where liquid water could be sloshing on the planet's rocky surface, a team of scientists at NASA, SETI, and Cambridge University said Thursday.
This is the Earth twin that planet hunters have been searching for 20 years. It's called Kepler 452b.
Some scientists speculate that we're most likely to find life outside Earth if we look beyond our solar system. This is because Earth is the only celestial body that we know of so far with life, and there are no similar bodies in our solar system. We now know, however, that they exist elsewhere in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
Kepler 452b will forever be remembered as the first "second Earth," or what NASA refers to as "Earth 2.0," ever discovered:
(NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle) Illustration of Kepler 452b.
Here's what we know so far about this Earth 2.0:
It's 60% larger than Earth.
It's most likely rocky, meaning it has a solid surface as opposed to nothing but a gaseous atmosphere, like Jupiter.
It's about 1,400 light-years from Earth.
It orbits its star every 385 days, very similar to Earth's orbital length.
The planet and star it's orbiting are about 6 billion years old — 1.5 billion years older than our sun.
While NASA does not know whether there is life on Kepler 452b, Jon Jenkins, the Kepler data-analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center, said during the announcement:
"It's simply awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star, which is longer than the age of the Earth," Jenkins said. "That's considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on the surface ... should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life on this planet [exist]."
Moreover, right now, Kepler 452b is receiving about 10% more energy than Earth does.
In another 1.5 billion years Earth will receive 10% more sun than it does now, meaning Kepler 452b is a look at what Earth could become.
12 new planets
NASA used a planet-hunting space telescope, called Kepler, to find Kepler 452b. And scientists are more excited than ever about this new planet's potential.
"This is about the closest [to our Earth], so far," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for Science Mission Directorate in Washington. He added that this was just the beginning of exciting Earth-like planetary discoveries from Kepler.
In addition to the discovery of Kepler 452b, the scientists announced that Kepler had identified 11 more potential Earth-size planets. Here they are in a diagram. Kepler 452b is the only one orbiting a G star, which is the same type as our sun. K and M stars are much dimmer and cooler than G stars:
(NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt)
Jeff Coughlin, the Kepler research scientist at SETI Institute, cautioned that 11 of these 12 new planets were only candidates for exoplanets at the moment. They need to be further observed by other telescopes before scientists give official confirmation.
"There are some scenarios that can trick us," Coughlin said. "We need ground-based observations to really confirm that these are actual planets."
But one of the 12 has been confirmed: Kepler 452b. This new discovery is a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like planets that could support life. What's more, it suggests that our home planet isn't alone in the Milky Way galaxy.
"We can say that near earth-sized planets in the habitable zone around G stars are common throughout our galaxy," Jenkins said.
NOW WATCH: Here's what we know about the new 'Earth' — a planet that could support life
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