Keppler 22b, The New Planet
Last Monday, NASA confirmed that their Keppler Mission has discovered a habitable new planet. Keppler 22b was discovered in a habitable zone – an area that where the existence of liquid water is possible due to it’s distance from a Sun-like star.
Keppler 22b is 600 light years away from Earth. Scientists have been saying that the newly discovered planet could be Earth’s twin. Not only that, there are rumors that NASA is confident that they might find signs of living.
NASA will be doing more research on Keppler 22b to see if it can be a substitute to Earth. There are 50 candidates (to-date) of new planet as Earth substitute. But with their findings of Keppler 22b’s temperature, it’s looking good.
The several Earth-like characteristics that Keppler 22b are: a 72 degree Fahrenheit temperature and its radius is 2.4 times Earth’s. The planet takes 290 days to completely orbit its star (which is similar to our Sun). That is 75 days less that Earth’s revolution.
Due to it’s time to complete a revolution, NASA took 3 years to finally confirm that it’s a planet. The scientists don’t know yet what the composition of Keppler 22b – if it has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. But one thing is certain, this discovery takes humankind closer to finding another Earth.
Now the question is, will Keppler 22b the substitute for Earth? Will this discovery finally give way to space colonization? And if they do find signs of living there, will this finally confirm that Aliens do exist?
