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NASA Announces Second Earth "Earth 2.0" , Bigger & Older Cousin
Meet Earth 2.0: Kepler 452b revealed as most similar planet to our own ever found with a 'substantial opportunity' for life
Kepler-452b is smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of a G2-type star, like our own
The planet is 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth and is 1,400 light years away in the constellation Cygnus
It has a similar size orbit to Earth, receives roughly the same amount of sun light and has same length of year
Scientists are not yet sure whether it hosts life, but say if plants were transferred there, they are likely to survive
Accodring to CNN, NASA said that Thursday that its Kepler spacecraft has spotted "Earth's bigger, older cousin": the first nearly Earth-size planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our own.
Kepler-452b is smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of a G2-type star, like our own
The planet is 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth and is 1,400 light years away in the constellation Cygnus
It has a similar size orbit to Earth, receives roughly the same amount of sun light and has same length of year
Scientists are not yet sure whether it hosts life, but say if plants were transferred there, they are likely to survive
Accodring to CNN, NASA said that Thursday that its Kepler spacecraft has spotted "Earth's bigger, older cousin": the first nearly Earth-size planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our own.
Though NASA can't say for sure whether the planet is rocky like ours or has water and air, it's the closest match yet found.
NASA officially tweeted about Earth 2.0 in Twitter
"Today, Earth is a little less lonely," Kepler researcher Jon Jenkins said.
Earth’s bigger, older cousin! @NASAKepler discovers new distant planet that's near-Earth-size: http://t.co/kEdzbbFEqE pic.twitter.com/hoog1ZsdNs
— NASA (@NASA) July 23, 2015
The planet, Kepler-452b, is about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It's about 60% bigger than Earth, NASA says, and is located in its star's habitable zone -- the region where life-sustaining liquid water is possible on the surface of a planet.
While it's a bit farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, its star is brighter, so the planet gets about the same amount of energy from its star as Earth does from the sun. And that sunlight would be very similar to Earth's, Jenkins said.
The planet "almost certainly has an atmosphere," Jenkins said, although scientists can't say what it's made of. But if the assumptions of planetary geologists are correct, he said, Kepler-452b's atmosphere would probably be thicker than Earth's, and it would have active volcanoes.
source: CNN
source: CNN
Watch NASA Reveals Earth 2.0 Kepler NASA Has Discovered New Earth Like Planet (FULL VIDEO)
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