Newest alien planet is just the right temperature for life.

DaltheJigsaw

The search for Earth-like planets circling other stars is heating up, but the latest discovery is not too hot at all. It’s not too cold, either. Instead, the temperature on the newly announced planet Kepler-22b could be just right for life — about 72 degrees, a perfect spring day on Earth.

Spied by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, Kepler-22b marks the best candidate yet for a life-bearing world beyond our solar system, project scientists said Monday.


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“If it has a surface, it ought to have a nice temperature,” said Kepler’s lead scientist, Bill Borucki, during a teleconference Monday.

“It’s right in the middle of the habitable zone,” said Natalie Batahla, a Kepler scientist, referring to the narrow, balmy band of space around any star where water can be liquid. “The other exciting thing is that it orbits a star very, very similar to our own sun.”

The actual temperature on Kepler-22b hinges on whether the planet has an atmosphere, which, like a blanket, would warm the surface. Even without an atmosphere, Borucki said, the planet would likely be warm enough to host liquid water on its surface.

If it has a surface.

At 2.4 times wider than Earth, the composition of Kepler-22b is a puzzle. It could be rocky, a “super-Earth” much like our planet but bigger. It might also be a water world covered with deep oceans, said Dimitar Sasselov, a Kepler scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Or it could be gaseous like Neptune or Uranus.

Determining the planet’s composition rests in part on measuring its mass — how heavy it is. The Kepler telescope is unable to make this measurement, but ground-based telescopes can by watching the planet tugging on its star. Telescopes in Hawaii and elsewhere will attempt these measurements when the star comes into view next summer, Borucki said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/newest-alien-planet-is-just-the-right-temperature-for-life/2011/12/05/gIQAPk1vWO_story.html

Cinorjer

As a huge science and science fiction fan, I follow the space programs. It amazes me what we've discovered, but I'm just as amazed that most people don't know and if told, don't care that we have found planets around almost every star we have turned our telescopes on. We have robots beaming back pictures of Martian deserts and can see where Mars was once covered in oceans. We even have a space probe sending back marvelous closeup pictures of comets and asteroids and Saturn's moons right now. And it's all available on the internet.

Our big problem isn't that there are few worlds orbiting in the "life zone" around other stars, but that these worlds are usually too small and have orbits too long for current technology to see. It's right at the edge of what we can tell for certain.

ThailandTom

I recently watched a documentary about how the first planet was found outside of our soloar system and subsequently the following 200+. It is very inetersting as with each find seems to come new questions. But on this documentary they had yet to find any planet that was remotely close to our earth, mainly gas giants or chunks of ice. So this find is very exciting. Will it make any difference in a big way in our life time, who knows. But if we can master fusion (which many scientists think we are on the verge of) we may be able to reach this planet and others. Every force we have come across, gravity, elector-magentism and nuclear fusion, we have learnt to master it, harness it and use it to our capability.

SattvaPaul

Maybe NASA can put some more research into warp-drive..? With warp 9 it's less than a year's travel away - not that far.

ThailandTom

Last time I heard, NASA don't have too much money right now Nor does the US nor does the west

DaltheJigsaw

Last time I heard, NASA don't have too much money right now Nor does the US nor does the west

Lol. Yea, supposedly this is the case. Yet the wars keep coming.

Honden

Warp drive would be awesome, I was reading an article the other day that gave some perspective on the vast distances we'll need to travel.

If our sun was the size of a penny (¾in or 19mm), the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) would be 350 miles (563km) away...

For those who are interested .

BeachHouseGuy

This is so awesome

Telly03

DaltheJigsaw

This guy is so interesting! What does everyone else think?

ThailandTom

Tavel in space is commonly measured in light years, but better stil AU. That is one space unit, which is the estimated distance from earth to our sun, 150 million km.

ThailandTom

To add, I often what Michio kacu on youtube, type 'Michio Kacu big think' in youtube and he has some amazing facts and theories.

Dakini

Great, we've found a habitable planet, a place we can bail to if we trash this one. But...how do we get there? How long will it take us to trash that one? And just because it can support life, doesn't mean it has the right conditions for us.

But it'll be interesting to see what they discover there.

Telly03

@Dakini I agree, this does nothing for us at the moment except exercise our imagination... If we reach level 2 and 3 of civilization though, as described by Michio, we may have the technology to add relevance to this discovery. But also as Michio described, our biggest challenge will be surviving the transition from level 0 to 1 here on earth.

ThailandTom

In another very short video of about 3 minutes, he describes how we may actually finally workout fusion within the next 20 years. If so, then we then would not be far off of speeding around the universe.

DaltheJigsaw

@Dakini I agree, this does nothing for us at the moment except exercise our imagination... If we reach level 2 and 3 of civilization though, as described by Michio, we may have the technology to add relevance to this discovery. But also as Michio described, our biggest challenge will be surviving the transition from level 0 to 1 here on earth.

Great points!

zombiegirl

i find it so fascinating, but it's a bummer that it's 600 light years away! that means that the images we're receiving are still 600 years old... so who really knows what it looks like at present. the whole planet might not even be there anymore, heh.

DaltheJigsaw

i find it so fascinating, but it's a bummer that it's 600 light years away! that means that the images we're receiving are still 600 years old... so who really knows what it looks like at present. the whole planet might not even be there anymore, heh.

Great points!