For the first time since its launch in 2009, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the existence of a planet outside our solar system located firmly in a habitable-zone orbit around its sun, NASA announced on Monday.
The habitable zone is an area around a star in which the temperature on a planet’s surface is just right for water, which is essential to life on Earth, to exist as a liquid. It’s thought that if life exists outside our solar system, the habitable zone represents the best chance to find such life.
The average surface temperature of the planet, dubbed Kepler-22b, might be about 72 degrees, according to researchers, making it likely that if water does exist on the planet, it’s in the form of liquid.
"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.
Kepler-22b is about 600 light years from Earth, is about two-and-a-half times the diameter of our planet, and orbits slightly closer to its sun than we do to ours. So far, Kepler has confirmed the existence of 28 planets outside the solar system, and found evidence of more than 2,300 others.
Below are artists' conceptions, photos, and video of this and some of Kepler's other findings.
Artist conception of Kepler-22b, a planet that orbits in the habitable-zone of its star. Planets such as this are thought to be able to sustain life because water, which is essential to life on Earth, on its surface would exist as a liquid. (NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)
This artist's conception depicts the Kepler-10 star system, which is located about 560 light-years away. The Kepler spacecraft discovered three planets orbiting the star, including Kepler-10b, which with a diameter of 1.4 times Earth's is the smallest known rocky planet outside our solar system, at least as of earlier this year (it's depicted here as a dark spot against the star). The larger planet is Kepler-10c, which is more than twice Earth's size and orbits the star every 45 days. The high surface temperatures on both worlds are far beyond what humans would find comfortable. (NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)
Shown here is the Milky Way region of the sky where the Kepler spacecraft is observing. Kepler is observing more than 150,000 stars. (NASA/Carter Roberts-Eastbay Astronomical Society)
Kepler-11 is a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. At times, two or more planets pass in front of the star at once, as shown in this artist's conception of a simultaneous transit of three planets observed by NASA's Kepler spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2010. (NASA/Tim Pyle)
Kepler-10b is a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that’s more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun. The daytime temperature’s expected to be more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Intense radiation from the star has kept the planet from holding onto an atmosphere. (NASA/Kepler Mission/Dana Berry)
Kepler-10b orbits its star, which is very similar to our own Sun in temperature, mass and size, but about twice as old. It’s one of the brighter stars that Kepler is monitoring and is about 560 light years away. (NASA/Kepler Mission/Dana Berry)
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