Since its launch in the leap of 2009 , NASA ’s Kepler Space Telescope has been hunting exoplanets . The holy grail being a satellite that is fundamentally like ours in damage of size , composition , and habitability : an earthly concern - twin . While we still have n’t find a planet that exactly fits that bill , Kepler has now confirmed the discovery of anEarth - sized exoplanetin its wizard ’s habitable zone . The announcement was made at a military press league and the findings have been bring out inScience .
Kepler-186f is about 10 % larger than Earth and orbits an M dwarf star around 500 wanton - years out in the constellation Cygnus . The star is about half of the size of it and flock of our sun , and it takes Kepler-186f about 130 Earth days to complete a rotation . On the out edge of the star ’s habitable geographical zone , the major planet receives about a third of the radiation from its parent star as we do from ours .
Life as we know it require the presence of liquid water , so a satellite with the voltage for life would be not too nigh to the star ( which would be too hot and the water would be vapor ) yet not too far away ( where it would be too cold and the piddle would be ice ) . Habitability requires a “ Goldilocks Zone ” where condition are just correct .
" We have it off of just one planet where life survive – land . When we search for life outside our solar organisation we focus on finding planets with characteristics that mimic that of Earth , " said Elisa Quintana , top generator of the report . " detect a habitable zone satellite comparable to Earth in size is a major step forward . "
Co - writer Thomas Barclay added : " Being in the habitable geographical zone does not intend we have it away this planet is habitable . The temperature on the planet is powerfully dependent on what kind of atm the planet has . Kepler-186f can be thought of as an Earth - cousin rather than an Earth - twin . It has many property that resemble Earth . "
set thecompositionof major planet out in the habitable zone is n’t as easygoing as those who are unbelievably close to the star , because there is n’t as much radiation syndrome from the parent star usable to limit what is or is n’t getting absorb . While previous finding have indicated that Kepler-186f is a rocky planet , further psychoanalysis must be done before any authoritative conclusions can be made .
Have questions for the scientists ? postulate them using # Kepler186f onTwitter , Facebook , orG+ .
chastening 2025-05-04 1:30 post-mortem examination PDT : An other reading of this article stated the planet was 40 % larger than Earth . That was a typographical error ; Kepler-186f is 10 % expectant than Earth . Apologies for any confusion that erroneous belief may have do
