NASA Discovers First Earth-Sized Planet in The "Habitable Zone"

[Steven Bogos]

NASA Discovers First Earth-Sized Planet in The "Habitable Zone"

"Kepler-186f" confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.

Anyone who knows anything about space, knows that planets that can sustain life like Earth can are an extreme rarity in our universe. Essentially, they have to fit into the "habitable zone" -- the perfect distance from a sun where liquid water can pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. We've found some planets in the zone before, but now, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet. Introducing Kepler-186f, which may well become our new home when we bleed this one completely dry.

Previous planets discovered in the zone have all been at least 40 percent larger in size than Earth, so understanding their makeup is challenging. Kepler-186f should prove less of a challenge, and research suggests that a planet of its size is likely to be rocky.

"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."

Kepler-186f resides in the Kepler-186 system, about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, meaning it will probably be quite a long time before we're actually able to find a way to get there.

"Kepler-186f can be thought of as an Earth-cousin rather than an Earth-twin. It has many properties that resemble Earth," said Thomas Barclay, research scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at Ames.

Source: NASA [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-119]

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[shirkbot]

Cool. Between this and the formation of a new moon around Saturn there's a lot to talk about in space news right now. Still, we can't really say too much about this exoplanet without actually sending a probe there, and that's going to be a long way off. Still, nifty. Now to play some Kerbal.

 

[Rublore]

For me, it's not a proper planet until it features in a Die Roten Punkte song.
(Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo_r4OoMvvY )

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Cool. Between this and the formation of a new moon around Saturn there's a lot to talk about in space news right now. Still, we can't really say too much about this exoplanet without actually sending a probe there, and that's going to be a long way off. Still, nifty. Now to play some Kerbal.

If you like Kerbal, I recommend you try Space Engineers. It's like first person kerbal space program, with you as the Kerbal. Or maybe Kinetic Void if you prefer the combat side a lot more.

Or you know, mod the crap out of Kerbal. Nothings more fun than shooting down an auto-pilot passenger plane with a one man Kerbal jet of lazers and death.

OT:

Waaaait. This is a damned conspiracy! First, Civ: Beyond Earth, telling us all about how an apocalypse is going to happen and we are going to fly to a new Earth, then NASA discovers an Earth.

People of Erf, it's only a small time until the apocalypse comes. And when it does, I'll be ready! With extra tinfoil, that is.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Hey I can see my house from here.

 

[Bke]

Holy shit! I know it was statistically inevitable to find another planet that's mildly like earth... but wow. This is monumental. We should really focus on trying to improve our optics now, I desperately wanna see this thing.

when we bleed this one completely dry.

A bit pessimistic a viewpoint, wouldn't you say? However this does behoove us to actually go to this new planet. Which is always a bonus.

 

[LazyAza]

Be cool if I'm around long enough for this planet to be explored some day. Wonder if its yet another endless death ball of shit weather and toxic fumes and molten water or actually has some kind of atmosphere/land mass like earth or something.

Of course if such a planet existed and it even had foliage or lifeforms of some type, chances are they'd all be super hostile regardless of intelligence level to our very presence. And we humans certainly wouldn't be the friendly visitor types if we ever did find a habitable planet also.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Yay, we found Alpha Centauri!

All that's left now is to rush the Science Victory!

In all seriousness, this is very interesting news indeed.

[small]It's fun to live in the future [/small

 

[RonHiler]

We aren't getting there any time soon. Let's do the math!

The fastest space vehicle we have ever launched (the Helios 2) moved at 150,000 miles per hour (of course it was cheating and using the gravity of the sun to do so, but let's just assume we can get a spacecraft to move that fast on its own).

One light year is 5.88x10^12 miles, multiply that by 500, you get 2.94x10^15 miles. Divided by 150,000 mph give you 1.96x10^10 hours, or roughly 2.2 million years.

Finding these planets is cool and all, but unless and until we have some kind of breakthrough in propulsion which allows us to increase our speed by a couple of orders of magnitude, it's all academic (and even then, you are talking about generational ships, we're not zipping there in an afternoon).

Somebody go invent the warp drive already

 

[Nimcha]

You know another planet that's near earth-sized and technically in the habitable zone of it's sun? Venus... otherwise known as 'murder world'.


Also the place is 500 lightyears away.. that's sorta not even worth bothring to note. Thats so far away that even if we could send a probe at light speed theres a good chance that no one would be able to understand the language the probe was beaming back in. Much less remember that there's a probe in the first place. Seriously. 1000 years.


It's the sort of discovery that is a non-discovery. No one questioned that there were earth sized planets in the universe that exist within the habitable zone... that was a given... me thinks we need less money in NASA and more money on sustainable energy research. Just sayin....sure it's not as flashy but guess which field will actually have an impact on humanity.

How very unimaginative. 500 light years is actually not that much.

Your kind of thinking is actually what holds humanity back!

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

You know another planet that's near earth-sized and technically in the habitable zone of it's sun? Venus... otherwise known as 'murder world'.


Also the place is 500 lightyears away.. that's sorta not even worth bothring to note. Thats so far away that even if we could send a probe at light speed theres a good chance that no one would be able to understand the language the probe was beaming back in. Much less remember that there's a probe in the first place. Seriously. 1000 years.


It's the sort of discovery that is a non-discovery. No one questioned that there were earth sized planets in the universe that exist within the habitable zone... that was a given... me thinks we need less money in NASA and more money on sustainable energy research. Just sayin....sure it's not as flashy but guess which field will actually have an impact on humanity.

How very unimaginative. 500 light years is actually not that much.

Your kind of thinking is actually what holds humanity back!

If we could accelerate a probe to 1% of light speed (which we can't) it would take 50,000 years for it to get there. And now we have fired a missile carrying a kinetic force comparable to a strategic nuke at our new neighbors, hope we don't accidentally hit something. And then we have the problem that in 50,000 years who will be listening when the probe gets there? Sure, we could just do the plaque thing, but I don't much like the idea of giving aliens our home address blindly.

So yeah. Don't do a probe. We have radio telescopes for a reason.

 

[Gabanuka]

Wonderful, now all we need to do is increase the speed of light so it's easier for us to travel within in.

To the science labs!

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Also the place is 500 lightyears away.. that's sorta not even worth bothring to note. Thats so far away that even if we could send a probe at light speed theres a good chance that no one would be able to understand the language the probe was beaming back in. Much less remember that there's a probe in the first place. Seriously. 1000 years.


It's the sort of discovery that is a non-discovery. No one questioned that there were earth sized planets in the universe that exist within the habitable zone... that was a given... me thinks we need less money in NASA and more money on sustainable energy research. Just sayin....sure it's not as flashy but guess which field will actually have an impact on humanity.

As another person on the internet said, "There are almost certainly dozens of planets in the universe that once held intelligent life, but are now barren and dead because they decided space travel wasn't economically viable."

Granted, we do need to work on conservation so we can make it to the point where we can escape this rock, but if the species is going to survive for any significant period of time, space travel is the only thing that truly matters in the long run.

As for the distance, it's sort of a non-issue until we can come up with a means of travel that doesn't involve traditional movement and speed. It really doesn't matter whether it's this planet of Alpha Centauri, the distances are just too far for any normal propulsion that we can currently think of. But I trust that it will happen just as it has a hundred times before.

 

[Something Amyss]

I hope it is habitable. I want to see creationists justify the "we are special snowflakes" argument then.

Yay, we found Alpha Centauri!

All that's left now is to rush the Science Victory!

That's usually when I score a political victory. Mwahahahahahaha!

You know another planet that's near earth-sized and technically in the habitable zone of it's sun? Venus... otherwise known as 'murder world'.

And "technically" is kind of an important thing here. It's on the edge of the habitable zone at the points it's within it. And the rest of the time, it's not.

But even then, there's a reason they haven't declared that this is a habitable planet off the bat. Just being in the habitable zone isn't really a guarantee. It is, however, a cool discovery that would provide further evidence for a lot of models predicted. Even if we can never go there or even make contact with life (assuming any exists, it is still worth knowing about.

But then, how many times in human history have we dealt with things that were beyond our grasp?

Wonderful, now all we need to do is increase the speed of light so it's easier for us to travel within in.

To the science labs!

This is why we need a libertarian President. He will let the free marketdetermine the speed of light, unlike this socialism of a "constant" speed of light in a vacuum.

RON PAUL 2012!

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

If this planet is in the Cygnus constellation, whatever ship that first reaches it must be named the Rocinante.

 

[KazeAizen]

Be cool if I'm around long enough for this planet to be explored some day. Wonder if its yet another endless death ball of shit weather and toxic fumes and molten water or actually has some kind of atmosphere/land mass like earth or something.

Of course if such a planet existed and it even had foliage or lifeforms of some type, chances are they'd all be super hostile regardless of intelligence level to our very presence. And we humans certainly wouldn't be the friendly visitor types if we ever did find a habitable planet also.

You'd think with all the dang movies we've made on the subject someone in charge would approach the situation cautiously but friendly.

 

[KazeAizen]

I hope it is habitable. I want to see creationists justify the "we are special snowflakes" argument then.

Science article shows up.
Takes cheap swipe at creationists and by proxy religion.
Makes total sense because this is the internet and we have to constantly be assholes to those types of people at all times and let them know they aren't welcome here or on this planet.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

As another person on the internet said, "There are almost certainly dozens of planets in the universe that once held intelligent life, but are now barren and dead because they decided space travel wasn't economically viable."
snip

As for the distance, it's sort of a non-issue until we can come up with a means of travel that doesn't involve traditional movement and speed. It really doesn't matter whether it's this planet of Alpha Centauri, the distances are just too far for any normal propulsion that we can currently think of. But I trust that it will happen just as it has a hundred times before.

Comparatively one could postulate that those that once held intelligent life died off because they blew all their resources on space travel instead of environmental sustainability.

As I said, we absolutely need to work on conservation until our technology can advance enough, but the primary point of the statement is that no planet can maintain a species forever.
Space is the [i/]only[/i] long term answer.


[quote/]
As for non-traditional movement. Yeah.. unless physics stops being what it is.. that's not gonna happen.
[/quote]
It's nonsensical to try and say something cannot happen at any point in time with knowledge based in a fixed period of time.
Human history is a litany of breakthroughs that people couldn't imagine or thought impossible. It may not happen within our lifetimes, out children's lifetimes or our great great great grandchildren's lifetime, but it's naive to try and state that it can't ever happen.