Thursday, July 23, 2015

NASA Discovers Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Sun-Like Star

NASA scientists have discovered a planet so similar to Earth that it's being called Earth's "older, bigger cousin" and even "Earth 2.0".  The planet, designated Kepler-452b, orbits a star that is slightly larger than our sun, and in the same spectral class, at a distance 5% greater than the distance between Earth and the sun, with an orbital period of 385 (Earth) days.  Kepler-452b is classified as a "Super Earth" because its radius is 1.6 times that of Earth.  NASA believes that the planet is rocky, which would give it a surface gravity of about twice that of Earth, and that the planet and its star are 6 billion years old, and thus 1.5 billion years older than our solar system.  The Kepler 452 system is located about 1400 lightyears away.

Read more at BBC News, the Daily Mail, NBC News and Yahoo Tech.

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