NASA's Kepler, a spacecraft designed to search for other planets that could potentially sustain life, has made a promising discovery.
Source
As the article said, this planet is in a hospitable zone - it's just the right distance away from its sun that life (as we know it) could develop. It may not seem like much, but it brings us one step closer in the search for other lifeforms in the universe.
Whatever we end up finding, if we find anything at all, they better be friendly. If they aren't, they better come prepared; we have Will Smith on standby.
The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.
The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.
"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.
Kepler-22b's radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius).
Source
As the article said, this planet is in a hospitable zone - it's just the right distance away from its sun that life (as we know it) could develop. It may not seem like much, but it brings us one step closer in the search for other lifeforms in the universe.
Whatever we end up finding, if we find anything at all, they better be friendly. If they aren't, they better come prepared; we have Will Smith on standby.