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NASA Discovers First Non-Earth Habitable Planet

Oryx

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    NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

    The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.
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    Source

    This telescope is also scheduled to be shut down in November of 2012, but they are now filing for an extension to find farther planets that orbit more slowly. I find this really exciting though, even though it's so far away. I was imagining a giant space station built to be self-sustainable for 10-15 generations just going off on its way towards Kepler, haha.

    Do you find value in these results, enough to keep the funding for the telescope? Does this have any impact on us at all? Should we even bother looking farther away? Thoughts.
     
    Esper

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    • The more we can learn about other planets and stars the more we can learn about our own planet and star. It might not be immediately practical information, but it's inspiring and I bet in 10 years we'll have a lot of new astrophysicists and other scientists in the world who decided to join their fields because they learned about all these new planets we were finding when they were younger and felt inspired.

    Plus, you know, possibility of life-as-we-know-it existing somewhere else in the universe would be mind blowing.
     

    Sweet Candace

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    • Toujours said:


    Source

    This telescope is also scheduled to be shut down in November of 2012, but they are now filing for an extension to find farther planets that orbit more slowly. I find this really exciting though, even though it's so far away. I was imagining a giant space station built to be self-sustainable for 10-15 generations just going off on its way towards Kepler, haha.

    Do you find value in these results, enough to keep the funding for the telescope? Does this have any impact on us at all? Should we even bother looking farther away? Thoughts.
    Click to expand...

    I think if the telescope continues to find "habitable planets" in the universe and finds life on other planets, then NASA should continue to fund it.

    Because if we can find life on another planet, no matter how far away it is, it'll finally solve the age-old question; are we alone in this universe?
     
    Ray Maverick

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    The thoughts of Maya for the end of the world could actually be the start of a new age for humanity, instead for its destruction.

    Yeah, I'm implying Kepler would be our second home.
     

    Oryx

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    Ray Maverick said:
    The thoughts of Maya for the end of the world could actually be the start of a new age for humanity, instead for its destruction.

    Yeah, I'm implying Kepler would be our second home.
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    Do you think that one year from now we'd have the ship ready to travel across the universe in a self-sustainable way for 10-15 generations though?
     

    The 100 Mega Shock

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    That's also assuming it's not a planet made entirely out of liquid, or gas, or one with a gravity so strong as to be inhospitable to human life.

    Then we invent a way to reach the speed of light, collect the means to supply and fuel a 600 light year trip and spend at least 600 years sending people there and hope nothing at all goes wrong when you're trusting the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the people you originally selected to go on this little trip to keep doing their mission.
     

    lx_theo

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    It has a habitable (to humans, mind you) temperature and distance from its sun. Beyond that, we have no idea.
     

    Shiny Celebi

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    Other than the distance from the Sun, theres no way of knowong if it actually would support life, even correct distance from the sun dosent equal life, more exploration is needed.
     

    Blade_of_darkness

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    Shiny Celebi said:
    Other than the distance from the Sun, theres no way of knowong if it actually would support life, even correct distance from the sun dosent equal life, more exploration is needed.
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    You're absolutely right about this one. They need to know if the atmosphere of that planet not only has the capability of supporting, as well as protecting it from cosmic projectiles, i.e. meteors, as well as if that planet has enough fresh water. As long as a planet meets those three conditions, it will most likely support some form of life.
     
    Yoshikko

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    I knew aliens existed. YALL COME RUNNIN BACK TO ME NOW DON'T YOU
     
    Ray Maverick

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    Toujours said:
    Do you think that one year from now we'd have the ship ready to travel across the universe in a self-sustainable way for 10-15 generations though?
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    That's what I thought too, but maybe it's just symbolical, you know?

    .. Another assumption on the Maya subject is that they couldn't (or were simply bored, lol) to make more calendars for the years later than 2012.
     
    Zeffy

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    Ha, we were just talking about this during school earlier today. xD

    What we talked about is that this could be the mind-blowing discovery that might reveal the truth about other beings in the universe. But heck, by the time they start to travel through there we would all be dead and Earth would be all out of "juice", according to statistics. Unless traveling in the speed of light (or very very very nearly to the speed of light) was invented 10 years from now...
     

    XEL

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    Maybe we can repeat what Christopher Columbus did :) Just fly on over and say, "Hey, yeah, we live here now. Move."

    On a serious note, NASA also said since we found another planet capable of supporting life, and that we've sent a probe out there, don't be too shocked if in another two or three years, we see a probe in the sky, belonging to some alien race.
     

    TRIFORCE89

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    • Scarf said:
    The more we can learn about other planets and stars the more we can learn about our own planet and star. It might not be immediately practical information, but it's inspiring and I bet in 10 years we'll have a lot of new astrophysicists and other scientists in the world who decided to join their fields because they learned about all these new planets we were finding when they were younger and felt inspired.
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    ^ Basically this. And... yeah.

    Not to mention the new things that would be invented to study this, that would then find a practical use in some manner for the rest of us
     

    .:CoralSoda:.

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    It's always interesting to hear about stuff like this, but it just makes me yearn to live longer so I can see what the future will be. I'd love to see humans going off to live in space stations and other planets while I'm alive, even though I know it's highly unlikely :|.
     

    Trance and Moss

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    It is about 600 light years away from Earth, so right now we can only observe from a distance. Many other potentially habitable planets will be discovered over the next few years too. Very exciting times.
     

    Speedster

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    • I'm happy to see NASA is still working on finding new planets. This is a step forward. I have always been a great fan of astronomy. I remember when the planet of Gliese 581g was discovered. I was intrigued at how they said that you would have a 37 day year or how you would be able to see the nearby planets during the day. If I was able to travel to a new planet one day I'd be happy to see that there are still things people have yet to discovered that I could be remembered for.
     
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