Kepler finds first 'habitable' planet orbiting distant star

[PPI Brian]

Kepler finds first 'habitable' planet orbiting distant star

It's 600 light years away, twice the size of Earth and has the unassuming name of Kepler-22b. But Nasa says that the planet is the first we've found, apart from our own, that could have liquid water on its surface - in other words, it orbits its star in a habitable zone.

Found by the Kepler project using the Spitzer orbiting telescope in conjunction with ground-based observations, Kepler-22b still has many mysteries. We don't know whether it's rocky like Earth, gaseous like Jupiter or Saturn, or even mostly liquid, but we do know it's the first of more than a thousand candidate exoplanets - those orbiting other stars - that passes the first test for life support.

Others have come close: two other small planets orbiting stars cooler and smaller than our sun have been discovered, right on the edge of their systems' habitable zones, rather like Mars and Venus are on the edge of ours. But Kepler-22b's sun is G-type, very similar to our own Sol if slightly smaller and cooler, and the planetary orbital period is 290 days, again in line with our own.

"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said team leader William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center in California, in a news release. "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."

After some debate, the Kepler team's first definition of a habitable zone was adjusted and tightened up after the first list of 54 possibles was reported as part of a major project update in February 2011. However, longer observation periods have increased the number of potential Earth-sized planets known by more than 200 percent since then, raising expectations that many more will be categorised as potentially life-supporting.

"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, deputy science team leader at San Jose State University, in the release. "The more data we collect, the keener our eye for finding the smallest planets out at longer orbital periods."

[PPI Jason]

I'm simply amazed and excited.

I know I haven't posted many comments on these threads. But that is only because I have had very little to add.

Hawking and the other great minds are right. Life is out there. Statistically speaking it has to be.

Speaking of which, and off topic, but if anyone saw the most recent episode of Decoded I think you saw a great episode. The fact is there are an awful lot of intelligent and reasonable people out there that have had experiences consistent with having observed signs of alien life. I find it very analogous to the many intelligent and reasonable people out there that have had paranormal experiences.

The universe still has some wonderful surprises in store for us. Let's just hope they come in peace.

[PPI Debra]

I think it's amazing too.

I have had to interview many people who have had unusual experiences with they believe is alien biological entities.
The most frustrating thing about all the UFO related research is this: there hasn't been a single "nuts and bolts" piece of evidence. No "holy grail".

And , very much like paranormal research, it's a process of elimination until you reach a few details that can't be explained.

There is definitely other "intelligences" interacting with humans , but can we duplicate it in the lab?

[PPI Karl]

Love it, utterly.  I'm sure this is just the first to have passed all of the subsequently rigorous tests to which the Kepler data is routinely subjected.  I'm sure they'll announce more of these soon.  These are exciting times for exoplanetary science (and, dare I hope, exobiology).