Monday, December 5, 2011

Planet similiar to earth confirmed

The popularity of imaginings of things with green heads, of life in far off universes, or travel at light speed is evident in our pop-culture and media. A new planet showing signs of similarity with our own planet has recently been confirmed, the planet Kepler 22-b.

So far it is the closet planet to earth with so many similarities.   This planet is also in range of a star similar to our own.  Through the Kepler telescope a team of astronomers have been able to identify about 2,326 possibly earth-like planets.  Over the holidays Kepler 22-b was confirmed as an earth-like candidate.


Kepler b-22 is about 15% closer to its sun making its year shorter at 290 days.  The star's light however is around 25% less than our own, leaving the planet at a mild 22 degrees Celsius.

The team expects to identify many more earth-like candidates in the future. 

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