Earth-like planet is found around Sun-like star

Star may contain liquid water on its surface.
NASA has announced new data from the Kepler spacecraft on Monday (12/5).


U.S. space agency (NASA) announced on Monday (5) discovered the first planet similar in size to the Earth which revolves around a star like the Sun The planet is 600 light-years distance and was detected by Kepler spacecraft, launched in 2009 with the aim of discovering new "Earths" in space.


Another feature of the star is that it is at a distance from the star that could allow the development of liquid water and atmosphere, ideal conditions for the emergence of life as we know it. When a planet is under these conditions, it is said that he is in a "habitable zone" (also the common term "goldilocks").


The planet was named Kepler 22b. Their discovery is reported in the journal "Astrophysical Journal", a major scientific publications on astronomy.


In February, NASA astronomers had announced a list of 54 stars that could be habitable. Of these, only Kepler 22b was confirmed as a planet. The star has a radius 2.4 times larger than Earth and rotates around its star in 290 days. Scientists still can not say the planet is rocky or gaseous.



Illustration shows what the planet Kepler 22b. (Credit: Ames / JPL-Caltech / NASA)




Data from Kepler


The new balance of Kepler revealed the existence of 1,094 new planet candidates. Of these, 10 were in the "habitable zone" of the stars they orbit. Future observations should confirm that these bodies are planets or not.


Currently, only 600 stars are confirmed as planets by astronomers. The Kepler spacecraft is currently the main unveiled new worlds. The instrument scans the surrounding area of 150 000 stars, all located in a strip in the sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.


To confirm that Kepler 22b was actually a planet, the probe had to check the signal coming from that region at least three times. The star it orbits is a little cooler than our Sun.


Since the last review in February, the number of candidate planets grew 89% and now reaches 2326. Of these, 207 have a size similar to Earth's 680 is larger than our planet, and 1181 are as big as Neptune. The list is completed by 203 stars with the same size as Jupiter and only 55 larger than the biggest star in the Solar System (after the Sun).


Other recent discoveries in astronomy point to the existence of places in space with conditions similar to those of our planet and may even contain life, such as Jupiter's moon Europa.


The yellow traces on the surface of Europa may indicate the presence of bacteria, the ice-covered world may have liquid water, energy, and organic compounds - all three of the ingredients necessary for life to survive, its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. Strong evidence that there is an ocean beneath the ice surface that will house life as well as early life on earth that would have begun in the oceans.

                                                      Europa.

Another discovery points to a planet with sufficient conditions to host life. The star with only three times Earth's mass was detected at 20 light years away from our Sun, orbiting a star in the constellation Libra known as Gliese 581, a red dwarf. Astronomers at the University of California and the Carnegie Institution of Washington say that the planet is the first to have real potential to support life.

The discovery was announced on Wednesday (29) by the National Science Foundation in the United States. The star called Gliese 581g, is in a region in which astronomers think that a planet may have liquid water to form oceans, rivers and lakes. On site, the distance from the star would allow an environment with a mild climate, neither too cold nor too hot.

A ilustração mostra um formato possível para o exoplaneta que orbita a estrela Gliese 581, a apenas 20 anos-luz de distância da Terra. (Crédito: AP / Zina Deretsky / National Foundation of Science)

The planet's orbit around the star Gliese 581 is just over one month on Earth, with the possible stations year lasting only days.

It is the first planet discovered in the "habitable zone" of the star. In 2007, another planet, located near the same star was cataloged, also with the potential to contain life.

Scientists also estimate that the average surface temperature varies from 31 to 12 degrees Celsius. The team also says that the planet orbits with one side always faces the star, similar to how the Moon always shows one face to Earth.

For astronomers, the planet can "sustain life", which means it has the potential to meet conditions of life. Living things can not necessarily be similar to humans.

According to Steven Vogt, coordinator of the study which included 11 years working in the Observatory W. M. Keck, located in Hawaii, the discovery is an indication that there may be many other similar bodies in the universe.

Results will be published in Astrophysical Journal, but are available online at arXiv.org. By September, 490 planets have been discovered outside our solar system.

Via G1.