NASA is set to announce the major discovery of a new planet by the Kepler Space Telescope

• metta
  
  Posts: 44233
  
  
  Jul 22, 2015 4:02 PM GMT

  NASA is set to announce the major discovery of a new planet by the Kepler Space Telescope
  
  
  http://www.iflscience.com/nasa-announce-major-new-planet-discovery-kepler-tomorrow-and-you-can-watch-it-live
  
  
  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2015-239&rn=news.xml&rst=4660#.Va5Eb-1Ep3A.twitter

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• metta
  
  Posts: 44233
  
  
  Jul 23, 2015 6:56 PM GMT

  NASA finds 'Earth's bigger, older cousin'
  
  The planet, Kepler-452b, is about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It's about 60% bigger than Earth, NASA says, and is located in its star's habitable zone -- the region where life-sustaining liquid water is possible on the surface of a planet.
  
  A visitor there would experience gravity about twice that of Earth's, and planetary scientists say the odds of it having a rocky surface are "better than even."
  
  While it's a bit farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, its star is brighter, so the planet gets about the same amount of energy from its star as Earth does from the sun. And that sunlight would be very similar to Earth's, Jenkins said.
  
  The planet "almost certainly has an atmosphere," Jenkins said, although scientists can't say what it's made of. But if the assumptions of planetary geologists are correct, he said, Kepler-452b's atmosphere would probably be thicker than Earth's, and it would have active volcanoes.
  
  http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/23/us/feat-nasa-kepler-planet-discovery/index.html

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• Lincsbear
  
  Posts: 2613
  
  
  Jul 23, 2015 10:28 PM GMT

  An amazing discovery!
  It will be very interesting to hear of the finer measurements the astronomers will be making of this planet, and if it supports life.
  This could be one of the great discoveries of all time.

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