All of us learned at a very young age that we live on the planet Earth. Our planet is the 3rd planet from the sun and we are one of 8 other planets in our solar system (if you don’t count Pluto). Earth is roughly 4.54 billion years old and mostly covered in water. As we all know, Earth falls into the habitable-planet category meaning it can sustain life. It takes our planet 1 day to rotate on its axis and 365 days to rotate around the sun, that’s 255,342.5 miles per day! That is the same as 10 times the circumference of Earth itself. An article published by NASA in July of last year reports the discovery of the first near-Earth-size planet 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This new planet was given the name Kepler-452b (K452b). K452b is thought to be a habitable planet like Earth and orbits around a star much like our own sun. “On the 20th anniversary of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0." K452b is not exactly like Earth, but is similar in many ways. It is 60% larger in diameter making it a “super-Earth-size” planet. The mass and composition have yet to be determined but most scientists believe a planet this size to be rocky. It has a yearly orbit of 385 days because it is 5% further from its sun than we are from ours. It is also roughly 2 billion years older than Earth and 20% brighter. Jon Jenkins, the Kepler data analysis lead researcher, was quoted saying, "It's awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of it’s star; longer than Earth. That's substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet." In addition to K452b, 11 other habitable planets have been discovered. Could there really be other life like us out there? ~Michael
0 Comments
|
The Slime Times is written by the Stress After Dark Creative Inquiry TeamScience isn't all white lab coats and ivory pillars, sometimes you just need to get slimy. Archives
August 2016
Categories |