New Earth-like planet discovered

NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The 'Habitable Zone' of Another Star >>Update July 23, 2015  -- N...

NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The 'Habitable Zone' of Another Star

>>Update July 23, 2015 -- NASA's Kepler mission has now confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun very similar to our star. For more information about this latest discovery, visit: NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth.

The artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f , the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone

Credits: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.

While planets have previously been found in the habitable zone, they are all at least 40 percent larger in size than Earth and understanding their makeup is challenging. Kepler-186f is more reminiscent of Earth.

The diagram compares the planets of our inner solar system to Kepler-186, a five-planet star system about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The five planets of Kepler-186 orbit an M dwarf, a star that is is half the size and mass of the sun.

Credits: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech

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"The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Future NASA missions, like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the James Webb Space Telescope, will discover the nearest rocky exoplanets and determine their composition and atmospheric conditions, continuing humankind's quest to find truly Earth-like worlds."

Although the size of Kepler-186f is known, its mass and composition are not. Previous research, however, suggests that a planet the size of Kepler-186f is likely to be rocky.

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http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star