The most Earth-like planet discovered so far December 6, 2011 NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler has also discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our own sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don’t yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding truly Earth-like planets. In the absence of atmosphere, the equilibrium temperature would be around -11°C (12°F). If the greenhouse effect caused by the atmosphere is Earth-like, this would correspond to an average surface temperature of approximately 22°C (72°F). Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars. “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’s results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.” Kepler discovers planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets that cross in front, or “transit,” the stars. Kepler requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet. “Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet,” said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center in California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b. “The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season.” The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on candidates the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes, in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early autumn. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets. Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is 2.4 times larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our world. The planet’s host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler. Of the 54 habitable zone planet candidates reported in February 2011, Kepler-22b is the first to be confirmed. This milestone will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The Kepler team is hosting its inaugural science conference at Ames this month, announcing 1,094 new planet candidate discoveries. Since the last catalogue was released in February, the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler has increased by 89 percent and now totals 2,326. Of these, 207 are approximately Earth-sized, 680 are super Earth-sized, 1,181 are Neptune-sized, 203 are Jupiter-sized and 55 are larger than Jupiter. The findings – based on observations conducted from May 2009 to September 2010 – show a dramatic increase in the numbers of smaller-size planet candidates. Kepler observed many large planets in small orbits early in its mission, which were reflected in the February data release. Having had more time to observe three transits of planets with longer orbital periods, the new data suggest that planets one to four times the size of Earth may be abundant in the galaxy. The number of Earth-size and super Earth-size candidates has increased by more than 200 and 140 percent since February, respectively. There are 48 planet candidates in their star’s habitable zone. While this is a decrease from the 54 reported in February, the Kepler team has applied a stricter definition of what constitutes a habitable zone in the new catalogue, to account for the warming effect of atmospheres, which would move the zone away from the star, out to longer orbital periods. “The tremendous growth in the number of Earth-size candidates tells us that we’re honing in on the planets Kepler was designed to detect: those that are not only Earth-size, but also are potentially habitable,” said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at San Jose State University in California. “The more data we collect, the keener our eye for finding the smallest planets out at longer orbital periods.”
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