Two New Planets Discovered Within the Habitable Zone

person

Kepler-62 is known to have at least five worlds orbiting it. Two of the exoplanets, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f, are located within the star’s habitable zone with orbital periods of 122 and 267 days, respectively. But the groundbreaking thing about this pair is the fact they are very small and may even possess rocky surfaces. “e” is 1.6 times the size of Earth and “f” is 1.4 times the size of Earth. Sadly, at 1,200 light-years distant, that’s all we know about the alien worlds. They are too far away for followup observations by ground-based observatories to determine their masses and any hope of detecting their atmospheric chemistry will be unlikely for some time.

Still, this is exciting as Kepler-62e and f are the smallest worlds detected by Kepler to date that orbit within the habitable zone of their star, allowing liquid water to exist (if it is indeed present), thereby potentially supporting the evolution of life as we know it on their hypothetical rocky surfaces.


http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/kepler-62-is-a-ripe-seti-target-13041.htm

nenkohai

That would take us just under a year to get there traveling at a constant Warp 9 (using the updated scaling). Warp 9 is calculated at around 1500 x c. (I just recently found out that Star Trek is NOT a documentary...)

person

I don't know if you read the full article or not @nenkohai but it slips into a little bit of scifi speculation about 2 planets sustaining life right next to each other.

how

I am sorry to report that the aliens might now be on their way to earth in blood vengeance for our soul capturing photos of their world as it was 1200 years ago.
The mind boggles.

vinlyn

how said:

I am sorry to report that the aliens might now be on their way to earth in blood vengeance for our soul capturing photos of their world as it was 1200 years ago.

Maybe they're metta-loving Buddhist aliens.

ThailandTom

I read this a couple of days ago, all we need now is to wait for the telescope that is being built in Chile to be complete, and maybe we can get a better look-ee-loo. I thought the same kind of thing as @how thought, maybe they have recently found us as well but are looking at us as we are 1,200 years in the past.

how

@Vinlyn
When was the last time a Buddhist worried about soul loss?

how

@Tom
Oh yeah..And if you believe in the light barrier, it will be 1200 years into our future before they realise we've seen them.
We are such mayflys.

lamaramadingdong

The fact that they haven't tried to contact us proves there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.