Amazing trip to Kepler, the twin of the earth
Kepler-452b was the first planet of a similar size to Earth found in the habitable zone
of its star, the star that this planet orbit is very similar to the sun, so it is highly
likely that this planet contains water and even living things.
Will this planet be the future home of the human race?
Let’s find out!
In 2015 NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the existence of the first Earth-sized planet
in the "habitable zone" around a Sun-like star.
This was designated Kepler-452b.
In the year of the twentieth anniversary of the discovery that showed that other suns
harbor planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer space telescope discovered a planet and a
star that closely resemble Earth and our Sun.
This exciting result brings us closer to finding an Earth 2.0 where the human race can live.
Kepler-452b has a diameter 60 percent larger than Earth and is considered a "super-Earth"
type planet.
While their mass and composition have yet to be determined, previous research suggests
that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.
While Kepler-452b is bigger than Earth, its 385-day orbit around its star is only 5 percent
longer than our planet's.
The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star than Earth from the sun.
The planet Kepler-452b orbits the star Kepler-452, is about 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion
years older than our sun, has the same temperature, is 20 percent brighter, and has a diameter
10 percent larger.
We can think of Kepler-452b as an older and larger cousin of Earth, providing an opportunity
to understand and reflect on Earth's evolving environment.
It is impressive that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its
star, considering that it took only a few million years for the first living beings
to emerge on Earth.
In case on this planet, there are all the ingredients and conditions necessary for life
like those on Earth, the chances of it having a life are very high.
To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the
team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory
at Austin, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Mt.
Hopkins, Arizona, and the W.M.
Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
These measurements were essential for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature
of Kepler-452b, refine the size and brightness of its host star, and better determine the
planet's size and orbit.
The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, it is not
the closest star system, but it is the closest thing to ours that has been found to date.
In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the Kepler team has increased the number of new
exoplanet candidates from their analysis of observations made between May 2009 and May
2013, bringing the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696.
The other candidates require observations and follow-up analysis to verify that they
are real planets.
Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one and twice that of Earth and orbit
in their star's habitable zone.
Of these, nine orbit stars are similar to our sun in size and temperature.
So far, we have fully automated the process of identifying planet candidates, which means
that it is finally possible to evaluate every transit signal across the Kepler dataset quickly
and uniformly.
This gives astronomers a statistically robust population of planet candidates to accurately
determine the number of minors, possibly rocky, Earth-like planets in our galaxy, the Milky
Way.
THE WEIRDNESS OF NORMAL During the Kepler space telescope mission,
something that caught the attention of astronomers was that they had found an enormous number
of compact multiple planetary systems.
Before Kepler's launch, we knew very little about star systems, and most thought that
the rest of the solar systems in the galaxy should be similar to our own; nothing could
be further from the truth.
When Kepler began collecting information, no one predicted that something like the Kepler-11
star system would be detected, which contains five planets and most of them in orbits more
minor than the orbit of Mercury and the outermost of which would fall into the orbit of Venus.
Or the system Kepler 186f was announced in April 2014: an exoplanet with a Terrestrial
radius of 1.2 in the habitable zone of a small star only half the size and mass of the Sun.
All the planets in that system, including Kepler 186f, which is the outermost, are in
a closer orbit than Mercury is.
It was astonishing how many planets were in those star systems, especially planets compacted
into tiny regions.
Everything indicates that nature loves to build planetary systems and that there are
processes within these planetary systems that force the planets to migrate inward.
Many of these systems are dynamically packaged and coupled so that their orbits influence
others.
Our solar system, by comparison, seems to be a weirdo in the sense that the planets
are pretty scattered.
Because of this, it is tough to detect all the planets in a system like ours.
It would take many years and the fortuitous alignment of all orbits.
So we must understand where our solar system is located in the context of everything else.
Although our solar system is normal for us, it is stranger when we compare it to the rest
of the universe's solar systems.
Because of this, none of the methodologies we have to find planets would allow us to
very safely find other solar systems precisely like ours since ours is especially rare.
COULD KEPLER 452B BE THE FUTURE HOME OF HUMANITY?
Kepler 452 b may represent an end in more ways than one, being an outcome of the Kepler
mission and any biosphere that the distant world may harbor.
The planet's host star is estimated to be 1.5 billion years older than our sun, and
the planet itself receives 10 percent more starlight than our world.
Because Sun-like stars gradually increase in luminosity as they age, this could mean
that Kepler 452 b is an old world that slowly fades away, once thrived alive, but now withers
under the intense light of its star.
If the planet has only one land mass, any life there could be near its end; the world
would be on the verge of a runaway greenhouse effect, with gravity too weak to prevent life-giving
water from boiling due to rising surface temperatures.
Something similar to what happens in our sidereal neighbor Venus, on this planet, temperatures
always remain above 847°F (453°C) because it is covered by a dense atmosphere of carbon
dioxide, and its clouds are sulfuric acid.
This causes a lasting greenhouse effect that traps heat and heats the planet permanently.
Astronomer Douglas Caldwell of the SETI project says Kepler 452b is more likely to be about
five times more massive than Earth, giving it enough gravity to retain its water and
maintain a flourishing biosphere.
The planet "could have a thick atmosphere with a lot of water, either in the atmosphere,
in the oceans, or both," Caldwell says.
"Given the larger size and the longer core cooling time, we believe there would probably
still be volcanism and therefore high probabilities of developing living things.
All of that together would give any robust biosphere on the planet another 500 million
years of life, about the same amount of time our planet may have before it starts losing
its oceans when the sun starts to die as well.
Of course, these are all speculations based on our current data.
Astronomers remain skeptical; it is not possible to claim or deny that there is life in Kepler
452b or that this may be the future home of humanity; the only sure thing is that so far,
this is the most Earth-like planet we have found and it is worth studying since understanding
this world better, we will know better what will happen to the Earth in the future to
come.
Do you think Kepler 452b could have water and living things?
Let us know your opinion in the comments of this video.