NASA Announces First Earth Twin in Habitable Zone Discovered by Kepler

Junkheap
Any information on the age of the planet's parent star? Is it older or younger than our Sun. I wonder what this planet's rotational period is. Looking at the chart, I'd guess the planet is a little bit chillier than Earth.

This question was asked in the teleconference, which I think is being archived as we speak. I'll post the link to it when it its up. But they said, the star age is unknown but the estimates were between 1.5-8 billion years I believe. So lots of variation.

Rotation is unknown and is likely to be for a long time due to the distance the system is from our own (500 ly).

Regarding temperature, this was also addressed. It's hard to guess based on just this data with no atmospheric characterization however the star it orbits emits a lot of its light in the infrared (heat), so even though it looks to us like it would be chilly just based on that chart, that is likely not the case since it is receiving more of its light as heat and in that wavelength ice becomes an absorber rather than a reflector.

Like i said, i will post up the link to the conference when it is available. Lots of good questions were asked and answered.

Also the SETI Institute will be having a Google Hangout at 6pm ET/3pm Pacific on this discovery, so you can submit your own questions to the scientists who made the discovery here at this link.

I knew this was going to happen.

That secret government space fleet we have has probably already been to that planet and confirmed that it's habitable and safe.

I'll bet you guys a dollar that within the year someone will "invent" a propulsion system that will get us there quickly and open up exploitation of the planets resources.

It will be some interesting times.

By the way, if you are really interested in habitable exoplanets (and possible habitable moons) check out one of my favorite sites, the Planetary Habitability Lab at Arecibo's Habitable Exoplanet Catalog:

phl.upr.edu...

reply to post by SLAYER69


I've thought about that too.

At night, when I'm looking at the stars I wonder if there's someone else on another planet looking at their night sky, seeing our sun as one of their stars.

reply to post by JadeStar


Thanks, going to check that site out.

Always enjoy your threads, JadeStar!

grey580
I knew this was going to happen.

That secret government space fleet we have has probably already been to that planet and confirmed that it's habitable and safe.

I'll bet you guys a dollar that within the year someone will "invent" a propulsion system that will get us there quickly and open up exploitation of the planets resources.

It will be some interesting times.

Why "within the next year"?

If there is a secret space fleet, maybe they have had years and years to find planets like this. If that is true, and they've known about these planets for years, and have already visited them, then why hasn't someone "invented" a propulsion system years ago that could have gotten us to many other planets in order to exploit those planets' resources.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Because this planet is still being exploited, the whole African continent stills needs pillaged. Also the elite will need a place to go after our planet is uninhabitable once their exploits are done. Hell for all we know maybe there is some truth to these theories of Greys and reptillians and the secret space fleet has been transporting human slaves and gold to their home planet.

Blue Shift
The telescope is so good, they actually have a close-up of the planet's surface!

Subway found the planet before NASA? And they say Capitalism is bad for ya.

Soylent Green Is People

grey580
I knew this was going to happen.

That secret government space fleet we have has probably already been to that planet and confirmed that it's habitable and safe.

I'll bet you guys a dollar that within the year someone will "invent" a propulsion system that will get us there quickly and open up exploitation of the planets resources.

It will be some interesting times.

Why "within the next year"?

If there is a secret space fleet, maybe they have had years and years to find planets like this. If that is true, and they've known about these planets for years, and have already visited them, then why hasn't someone "invented" a propulsion system years ago that could have gotten us to many other planets in order to exploit those planets' resources.

I'm not part of the secret space fleet so I don't know what they are planning. (assuming that a secret space fleet even exists. just a hunch on my part.)

However I'll wildly conspiracy theorize that they had to wait for conventional science to come up with a way to detect a planet before they could conveniently come up with a way to get us there.

Here's something interesting.

Kepler 186f was also known as KOI 571.05 before it was confirmed (All Kepler unconfirmed planets have KOI XXnumbers, the confirmed ones become Kepler XX numbered planets)

Here is Kepler 186f on a table of unconfirmed (prior to today) planets with high ESI (Earth Similarity Index) numbers.

Notice I highlighted in green at the bottom with Kepler 186f written in red next to it:




What this says is that there are a whole lot better candidate planets in the pipeline waiting to be confirmed or announced

Of course some may be false positives and eliminated entirely but there should at least be a few more announcements like today's this year.

reply to post by JadeStar

I want to see some intelligent radio signals being picked up from this solar system.

Please Jade let us know when SETI gets more involved in this discovery.

THX, great news!

In addition to position within the habitable zone:

Has it got a satellite like the moon?
Has it got a physical process to provide an EM field generation mechanism that protects biological entities from high energy particles?
Has it got plate tectonics?
Does it lie in a position that allows other planets to absorb the brunt of interstellar debris that enters it's solar system?
Is it away from linear trajectories affected by gamma ray bursts?
Is it far enough away from other intelligent civilisations to prevent it being exploited prior to gaining sentience?

If not-it's not an earth twin.

I dont believe in any man made GOD but water/temperature is only one of possibly hundreds of factors that would affect biology on the planet.

We are so lucky that some bits of space came together in the right combination to provide us with the ability to intelligently witness the magnificance of the Universe- our good fortune is verging on some sort of omni-benevolent designer.

Junkheap
Looking at the chart, I'd guess the planet is a little bit chillier than Earth.

Hey there, I just went back and listened to the conference call again, your question was addressed at about 25 minutes in.

Here are some slides which show what I said in my previous answer to you


Kepler 186f Receives more light in the form of heat:


Additionally, based on the flux of the star it should be able to have a liquid ocean:


And support.....

If you missed the conference call here it is archived.

reply to post by JadeStar


I wanna go to keplar "1 8 whatever whatever f" now

zilebeliveunknown
reply to post by JadeStar

 

I want to see some intelligent radio signals being picked up from this solar system.

Please Jade let us know when SETI gets more involved in this discovery.

THX, great news!

edit on 17-4-2014 by zilebeliveunknown because: (no reason given)

You bet. And you'll be happy to know they're already involved and listening for signals.

They listen for signals from all Kepler candidate planets.

Not only that but YOU can help look for such signals in real time with them:

Check it out at www.setilive.org...

Also SETI is hosting a Q&A this afternoon/evening at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific time which will be in a Google Hangout here.

a reply to: JadeStar
Cool, I'm signing in right now with SetiLive.

Excellent.

The Google Hangout has started here: plus.google.com...

originally posted by: JadeStar


From the Planetary Habitability Lab at Arecibo:

Is that a hurricane they have on Kepler? Funny they would stick that in there.

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical

originally posted by: JadeStar


From the Planetary Habitability Lab at Arecibo:

Is that a hurricane they have on Kepler? Funny they would stick that in there.

Indeed it is. There's no reason why Kepler 186f wouldn't have hurricanes if it has a significant atmosphere. Most of the planets in our solar system which have atmospheres have weather and storms.

originally posted by: Jukiodone
In addition to position within the habitable zone:

Has it got a satellite like the moon?

Don't know, but in terms of habitability that probably doesn't matter.

Has it got a physical process to provide an EM field generation mechanism that protects biological entities from high energy particles?

Don't know, but it's large enough that it should.

Has it got plate tectonics?

See above.

Does it lie in a position that allows other planets to absorb the brunt of interstellar debris that enters it's solar system?

Not an issue.

Is it away from linear trajectories affected by gamma ray bursts?

If you mean GRBs from the center of the Galaxy, yes.

Is it far enough away from other intelligent civilisations to prevent it being exploited prior to gaining sentience?

No way of knowing but given the sheer number of planets it's likely that any such intelligent species would have plenty of other planets to exploit if they were able to.

If not-it's not an earth twin.

Earth twin roughly is defined in astronomy as a planet similar in radius and mass to the Earth in a habitable zone of a star.

More specifically it is that definition but with the caveat that the star it orbits is similar to the Sun. That's why this is called an Earth Twin by some and an Earth Cousin by others depending on which definition above that they use.