Space / Astronomy: Kepler Finds Planet in Habitable Zone

Space / Astronomy Get the latest headlines from the Space / Astronomy GuideSite. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Kepler Finds Planet in Habitable Zone Dec 5th 2011, 21:12 The headline over on Yahoo.com earlier this evening read "NASA Finds Planet that can Sustain Life". Uh, not so fast. What NASA found, using its Kepler planet finding satellite, was a planet smack dab in the middle of the habitable zone orbiting a Sun similar to our own. The habitable zone is the region around a star where the temperature would be such as to sustain liquid water on the surface, which is thought to be a necessary component to the creation and evolution of life. This is an important discovery to be sure, as this is the first world with promising size (about 2.4 times the Earth's radius) and orbital characteristics. Previous detections have placed worlds near the edge of the habitable zone, more in line with Mars or Venus in our solar system. Does that mean that this planet is habitable? No. It could be a gas giant, or liquid, or solid. We don't know yet. So don't run out and start pointing antennae toward Kepler-22b expecting to hear messages from aliens. There is a long way to go before we begin to probe the question of life on this newly discovered world. More on Kepler-22b and Habitable Planets: NASA's Press Release on Kepler-22b How Many Habitable Planets are in the Milky Way Galaxy? The Galactic Habitable Zone The Drake Equation How Likely is Life to Exist in our Galaxy? Image Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions