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NASA scientists confirm new habitable planet has been discovered
by Joseph Earnest December 7, 2011
Newscast Media HOUSTON, Texas — NASA scientists have confirmed their first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. 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."
NASA's Kepler mission science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space
Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft
finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus
and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring
through early fall. The data from these other observations help
determine which candidates can be validated as planets.
Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is larger
than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that
of our world. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our
sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.
"The tremendous growth in the number of Earth-size candidates tells us that we're honing in on the planets Kepler was designed to detect: those that are not only Earth-size, but also are potentially habitable," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif. "The more data we collect, the keener our eye for finding the smallest planets out at longer orbital periods." Add Comments>>
Source: NASA Ames Research Center
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