In the 17th century, Kepler was a German astronomer. He gained fame for his first description of the laws of planetary motion. Since 2009, Kepler especially a kind of telescope NASA. Kepler hovers, like Hubble in space. So the telescope can make observations without our atmosphere spanner in the throws. The satellite is located in orbit around the sun and flies chasing our earth so that the failure of observational work is minimal.
No pictures
Unlike Hubble, we should not count on Keppler for beautiful pictures. NASA used the telescope to search for so-called exoplanets: planets that do not orbit around the sun, but another star. There are billions and Kepler discovered them already. Yesterday, however, astronomers saw a celestial body that it is very interesting: it looks like two drops of water on our earth
That is, for clarity, two astronomical drops and astronomers warn the superlatives do not.. It is not so that Keppler took a picture of a kind earth with water, trees and clouds. The beautiful images you see everywhere on the Internet emerge are nothing more than fanciful interpretations of artists.
Even the road
Kepler-452b, as the planet is named full of imagination, revolves around a star in the Cygnus system and is about 1,400 light years away. To illustrate: the New Horizons spacecraft was on his departure from orbiting the earth the highest speed ever: 58 536 km / h. At that rate it would do so just under 26 million years to reach the planet. A nice close-up should not immediately expect in other words.
Light reveals all
NASA used so no photos to discover what there planets revolve around other stars. Light is the key here: Kepler is sensitive enough to look at a star and the brightness to bring it in card. Passes a planet between the star and the telescope, the brightness goes back a bit. By, among other things, the intervals of lower brightness and the amount of drops them to take account astronomers can determine what planet it orbits the star.
That discovery combine the scientists already gathered knowledge about the formation of planets. They discovered in the case of Kepler-452b that the planet is about 60 percent larger than the Earth. 452b rotates in 385 days around its sun. That sun NASA classifies as a type G2, the same type as our sun. The star, Keppler-452 (without the ‘b’), is 10 percent larger and 20 percent brighter than the sun, making 452b will be slightly warmer.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Also standing the planet at the right distance from its star in the so-called Goldilocks zone. In that zone, the temperature in theory, similar to the fairy tale, not too hot and not too cold. Size and distance point to explain that Kepler-452b is likely to have a rocky copy, in all likelihood, an atmosphere.
Despite the distance from our earth looks, therefore, that the planet all store has to be some kind of large earth 2.0. A similar planet around a similar star at a similar distance will, after all, forms in a similar way. Keppler-452b is older: NASA estimates that the planet has six billion candles blown out, 1.5 billion more than our sun
Extraterrestrial Radio 1
That increases according to the astronomers. the chance of life. Keppler-452b runs after all, considerably more laps in the habitable zone around its star, making life has had much more time to develop. Of course, these are pure speculation, but it can at least do no harm to run once a radio telescope in the direction of the new discovery.
What should we remember? Keppler-452b is the first planet with an Earth-like format at a proper distance from a sun-like star and that is promising. How the planet really looks, what the surface is and where the atmosphere is all we know. Meanwhile, all scientists confirmed the existence of a total of 1,030 exoplanets 452b which is the most interesting
Precursors
Since 2011, you still read three times over the discovery of Earth-like planets. Kepler-20 was discovered in December of that year but is too close to the sun to have liquid water. The same month discovered 22b is in the right zone but is too large and thus in all probability no solid surface. Kepler-186F was discovered in April 2014 and has all the right qualities, but the sun of that planet is cold and small M-type dwarf. 452b is the first exoplanet that tap all the boxes.
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