Author Topic: Two billion Earth-like planets dot our Milky Way: Nasa  (Read 421 times)

hubag bohol

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Two billion Earth-like planets dot our Milky Way: Nasa
« on: November 06, 2013, 10:55:10 AM »
Kounteya Sinha, TNN | Nov 6, 2013, 06.36 AM IST


LONDON: On the historic day when India launched its first rocket to Mars to look for the presence of methane, an indicator of life, Nasa has for the first time come to the conclusion that as many as two billion planets in our galaxy may be suitable for life. The nearest, according to astronomers, could be a mere 12 light years away.

Nasa's Kepler spacecraft, now crippled and its four-year mission at an end, has provided enough data to complete its mission objective: to determine potentially habitable planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The findings say our galaxy probably contains at least two billion planets that, like Earth, have liquid water on their surfaces and orbit around their parent stars in the "habitable zone" for life.

Based on a statistical analysis of all the Kepler observations, astronomers from the University of California and University of Hawaii estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.

"What this means is, when you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing," said Erik Petigura from UC Berkeley. However, just because a planet is the size of earth may not mean it is habitable.

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hubag bohol

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Re: Two billion Earth-like planets dot our Milky Way: Nasa
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 10:55:40 AM »
"For Nasa, this number — that every fifth star has a planet somewhat like Earth — is really important, because successor missions to Kepler will try to take an actual picture of a planet, and the size of the telescope they have to build depends on how close the nearest Earth-size planets are," said Andrew Howard from the faculty of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

Howard said: "An abundance of planets orbiting nearby stars simplifies such follow-up missions."

Some may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive.

Others may have rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms. Last week, however, Howard and their colleagues provided hope that many such planets actually are rocky. They reported that one Earth-size planet discovered by Kepler — albeit, a planet with a likely temperature of 2,000 Kelvin, which is far too hot for life as we know it — is the same density as Earth and most likely composed of rock and iron, like Earth.

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