Scientists were excited by the recent discovery of around 20 planets that appear likely to be hospitable to life.
Scientists have found an astonishing 20 new planets that could potentially support life, indicating that our universe may be absolutely filled with habitable planets. NASA’s Kepler mission made the discovery as part of its overall effort to find other alien worlds out there, and this new finding suggests they are on the right track.
One of them is particularly fascinating, as it is remarkable similar to Earth. KOI-7923.0 has a year that last 395 days, just a month longer than ours, and it is about 97 percent of the size of the Earth, although a bit on the chilly side because it’s further from its sun and the sun itself isn’t as warm as ours.
Scientists determined in the study that the planets have about a 70 to 80 percent chance of being good candidates for habitable worlds, but it will take more research to confirm that. However, it’s an exciting find that shows how quickly we are discovering what other solar systems look like beyond our own.
According to NASA’s Kepler website: “Since Kepler launched in 2009, 21 planets less than twice the size of Earth have been discovered in their star’s habitable zone–the region in a planetary system where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. These planets are plotted relative to the temperature of their star and with respect to the amount of energy received from their star in their orbit in Earth units. The sizes of the exoplanets indicate the sizes relative to one another. The images of Earth, Venus and Mars are placed on this diagram for reference. The light and dark green shaded regions indicate the conservative and optimistic habitable zone.”