Bigger Earth Found: Kepler-452b Might Be Capable Of Supporting Life

Scientists have found a bigger versions of Earth circling a star that is very similar to our own sun.

A live teleconference explained the discovery Thursday afternoon, hosted by NASA.

“Today we’re announcing the closest twin, so to speak, to Earth 2.0, that we’ve found so far in the data set,” associate admin for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, John Grunsfeld, said.

The planet is called Kepler-452b and the similarities between it and Earth are staggering. Its orbit around the Kepler sun takes 385 days, only 20 days longer than Earth’s, and although its sun is larger than ours, it is far enough away that the planet would get approximately the same amount of light and radiation.

There are some differences, and possible differences, between the planet found and Earth.

First of all, Kepler-452b is bigger than Earth by about 60 percent. Secondly, there’s a bit more gravity. Finally, the atmosphere is hypothesized to be different than Earth’s.

Scientists believe that the atmosphere of Kepler-452b is much thicker than Earth’s. If that’s true, the surface might be too hot for anything living except some extremophiles.

It’s because of these differences that they are calling Kepler-452b “Earth’s bigger, older cousin” instead of its twin.

Despite the possibilities, scientists are still considering the idea that life might already be present on the surface of Earth’s cousin. The star system housing Kepler-452b is roughly 6 billion years old, almost 2 billion years older than ours.

“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Norther California. “It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”

Other planets have been found to be possibly habitable, but Kepler-452b is the most Earth-like of them.

“On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun,” Grunsfeld said during Thursday’s briefing. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.”

Jenkins added, “today, Earth is a little less lonely.”

[ Image courtesy of NASA ]