NASA's Kepler Mission Finds Earth-size Planet Candidates in Habitable Zone, Six Planet System

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.

Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system. Located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth, Kepler-11 is the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered. All six of its confirmed planets have orbits smaller than Venus, and five of the six have orbits smaller than Mercury's.

For more information about the Kepler Mission, please visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• nasa
• ames
• kepler
• mission
• space
• telescope
• exoplanet
• habitable
• zone
• observatory
• galaxy
• universe
• planetary
• candidate
• Earth
• liquid
• water
• borucki
• lissauer

[EverettM1984]

Do we have an update on those 5 earth-like candidates? Maybe from the Spitzer space telescope?

[nasaames]

@EverettM1984...the Spitzer space telescope is an infrared telescope and cannot be used to spot such small objects (an Earth-sized planet) at extreme distances. The primary method of confirming these candidates is to use Earth-based telescopes to measure radial velocity, the small changes in a star's wobble as a planets orbits around it. The team is now doing those measurements. I don't know any additional status, but I think the team will be holding more news conferences later this summer.

[Onlera33]

wow!! 54 habitable zone candidates! that's awesome!

once we DO perfect rapid space travel, we'll have plenty of potential destinations lined up ^^

[HerdoRalden]

I knew this day would come!  I am very excited to see what more this discovery has to offfer.

[amir5011]

my wish is to live another system like solar system ....could possible more to discover earth like planet which is fit to live for humans

[xmonstar420x]

whyz u gotta be a window shoppa?!?!?!

[NightBazaar]

It's remarkable that the number of planets (whether habitable or not) orbiting other stars continues to steadily grow larger. The galaxy is an amazing place.

[NJBZX]

ok let's ask green lantern to send all of us there!

[RedLifeBenfica]

Title is wrong, its not Earthsize no more, its 2.5 the size of Earth, with a temperature of 22 celcius, hotter than england at least.

[imdownlikethat]

You know what we should do? Instead of texting messages, we should send pictures into the galaxy, because maybe other worlds don't understand our language. I just sure hope we get something in my lifetime.

[TrickyEmu]

@Onlera33 By the time we can travel to those stars we will have mapped out all objects in the galaxy. Our descendants will be thankful for NASA's dedicated work.

[TheSmashPot]

Unlocking the secrets of the universe will be victoriuos