NASA's Kepler Telescope Has Potentially Found 'Another Earth' On The Other Side Of The Milky Way
Brace Yourselves We're About To Find Out If There's Another Earth Out There
Nitya Rajan— The Huffington Post UK
|
We're on brink of some potentially monumental news today as NASA tells us whether the Kepler Telescope has found another Earth.
Yes, that's right -- another planet, just like ours.
The Kepler Telescope mission began in 2009 and has already discovered thousands of planets but NASA, said today's announcement could unveil "something people have dreamed about for thousands of years."
Artist's impression of an Earth-like planet orbiting a star near the end of its life surrounded by a shell of expanding gas
A panel of four experts, including a researcher from the SETI Institute and a professor of astrophysics from Cambridge University will take questions from the audience as well as social media via the hashtag #askNASA.
So far, the search for alien planets has found 4,661 candidate planets and 1,028 planets.
Open Image Modal
Illustrations of the newfound exoplanets pictured next to Earth. Click on the image to enlarge
Last year, NASA announced the discovery of an "Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet."
At the time, Elisa Quintana, research scientist at the SETI Institute said: "We know of just one planet where life exists -- Earth.
"When we search for life outside our solar system we focus on finding planets with characteristics that mimic that of Earth."
The process of discovering planets just like ours is painstakingly complex that require scientists to measure the change in the brightness of distant stars to determine "a planet's orbit, distance from its star and its size."
The journey so far has not been an easy one. In April 2013, just fours years after the Kepler mission began, NASA had to deal with a fault in the spacecraft's stabilising systems, which meant the telescope could not orientate itself to observe stars with sufficient accuracy.
Eight months later, NASA had to give up on fixing the troubled aircraft.
However, the setbacks don't appear to have stemmed the stream of planet-centric discoveries.
In January, another eight planets, including two very earth-like ones, were found.
By "small" astronomers mean planets with less than twice the Earth's diameter. "Most of these planets have a good chance of being rocky, like Earth," said lead scientist Dr Guillermo Torres, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US.
The two most Earth-like planets, known as Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, both orbit red dwarf stars that are smaller and cooler than the Sun. With a diameter just 12% bigger than Earth, Kepler-438b has a 70% chance of being rocky, the scientists have calculated. Kepler-442b is about one-third larger than Earth, and the likelihood of it being rocky is around 60%.
To be in the habitable zone, also known as the "Goldilocks zone", a planet must be not too hot or too cold and receive roughly as much sunlight as Earth. Too much heat from its star, and any water would boil away as steam. Too little, and the water would freeze solid.
"For our calculations we chose to adopt the broadest possible limits that can plausibly lead to suitable conditions for life," Dr Torres added. Kepler-438b receives about 40% more light than the Earth giving it a 70% probability of having a habitable zone orbit. In comparison, baking hot Venus has twice as much.
Artists' Conceptions Of Extrasolar Planets
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Planet(01 of05)
Open Image Modal
In this handout illustration made available on December 5, 2011 by NASA, the Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star is digitally illustrated. For the first time NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed a planet to orbit in a star's habitable zone; the region around a star, where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth, making it the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habit. Clouds could exist in this earth's atmosphere, as the artist's interpretive illustration depicts. (Photo Illustration by Ames/JPL-Caltech/NASA via Getty Images) (credit:Getty)
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Planet(02 of05)
Open Image Modal
In this handout illustration made available on December 5, 2011 by NASA, a diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first 'habitable zone' planet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. The habitable zone is the sweet spot around a star where temperatures are right for water to exist in its liquid form. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth. The diagram displays an artist's rendering of the planet comfortably orbiting within the habitable zone, similar to where Earth circles the sun. Kepler-22b has a yearly orbit of 289 days. The planet is the smallest known to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a sun-like star and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth. (Photo Illustration by Ames/JPL-Caltech/NASA via Getty Images) (credit:Getty)
Extrasolar Planet HD 209458 b, Osiris(03 of05)
Open Image Modal
Artist's conception released by NASA of extrasolar planet HD 209458 b, also known as Osiris, orbiting its star in the constellation Pegasus, some 150 light years from Earth's solar system. Scientists have used an infrared spectrum -- the first ever obtained for an extrasolar planet -- to analyze Osiris' atmosphere, which is said to contain dust but no water. The planet's surface temperature is more than 700 Celsius (1330 Fahrenheit).' (credit:Getty)
Planet & Its Parent Star(04 of05)
Open Image Modal
Picture released 04 October 2006 by the European Space Agency shows an artist's impression of a Jupiter-sized planet passing in front of its parent star. Such events are called transits. When the planet transits the star, the star's apparent brightness drops by a few percent for a short period. Through this technique, astronomers can use the Hubble Space Telescope to search for planets across the galaxy by measuring periodic changes in a star's luminosity. The first class of exoplanets found by this technique are the so-called 'hot Jupiters,' which are so close to their stars they complete an orbit within days, or even hours. A seam of stars at the centre of the Milky Way has shown astronomers that an entirely new class of planets closely orbiting distant suns is waiting to be explored, according to a paper published 04 October 2006. An international team of astronomers, using a camera aboard NASA's Hubble telescope, delved into a zone of the Milky Way known as the 'galactic bulge', thus called because it is rich in stars and in the gas and dust which go to make up stars and planets. The finding opens up a new area of investigation for space scientists probing extrasolar planets - planets that orbit stars other than our own. AFP PHOTO NASA/ESA/K. SAHU (STScI) AND THE SWEEPS SCIENCE TEAM (credit:Getty)
Hot Jupiter(05 of05)
Open Image Modal
Picture released 04 October 2006 by the European Space Agency shows an artist's impression of a unique type of exoplanet discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope. This image presents a purely speculative view of what such a 'hot Jupiter' (word dedicated to planets so close to their stars with such short orbital periods) might look like. A seam of stars at the centre of the Milky Way has shown astronomers that an entirely new class of planets closely orbiting distant suns is waiting to be explored, according to a paper published 04 October 2006. An international team of astronomers, using a camera aboard NASA's Hubble telescope, delved into a zone of the Milky Way known as the 'galactic bulge', thus called because it is rich in stars and in the gas and dust which go to make up stars and planets. The finding opens up a new area of investigation for space scientists probing extrasolar planets - planets that orbit stars other than our own. AFP PHOTO NASA/ESA/K. SAHU (STScI) AND THE SWEEPS SCIENCE TEAM (credit:Getty)