Earth 2.0 was found

 Earth 2.0 was found

NASA said it has discovered the first planet that is similar in size to Earth in a “habitable zone” around a sunlike star.

“This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0,” John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a news release Thursday.The planet is named Kepler-452b.

Here’s what we know so far about this Earth 2.0:

• It’s 60% larger than Earth.
• It’s most likely rocky, meaning it has a solid surface as opposed to nothing but a gaseous atmosphere, like Jupiter.
• It’s about 1,400 light years from Earth.
• It orbits its star every 385 days, very similar to Earth’s orbital length.
• The planet and star it’s orbiting are about 6 billion years old — 1.5 billion years older than our sun.
  
  
  
  
  

Although NASA does not know if there is life on Kepler 452b, Jon Jenkins, the Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said during the announcement:

“It’s simply awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star, which is longer than the age of the Earth,” Jenkins said. “That’s considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on the surface … should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life on this planet [exist].”

NASA used a planet-hunting space telescope, called Kepler, to find Kepler 452b. And scientists are more excited than ever about this new planet’s potential.

“This is about the closest [to our Earth], so far,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for Science Mission Directorate in Washington. He added that this is just the beginning of exciting Earth-like planetary discoveries from Kepler.

In addition to the discovery of Kepler 452b, the scientists announced 11 more newly found Earth-size planets.

Right now, Earth 2.0 is receiving about 10% more energy than Earth currently does.

In another 1.5 billion years Earth will receive 10% more sun than it does now, which means that Kepler 452b is a future look at what Earth could become.

Jeff Coughlin, the Kepler research scientist at SETI Institute, cautioned that 11 of these new planets are only candidates for exoplanets at the moment. They need to be further observed by other telescopes before scientists give official confirmation.

“There are some scenarios that can trick us,” Coughlin said. “We need ground-based observations to really confirm that these are actual planets.”

But at least one planet has been confirmed: Kepler 452b. This new discovery suggests that our home planet isn’t alone in the Milky Way galaxy.

“We can say that near earth-sized planets in the habitable zone around G stars are common throughout our galaxy,” Jenkins said.

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