NASA discovers 3 planets with potential to be habitable

PanARMENIAN.Net - NASA’s Kepler mission, which seeks out planets outside of our solar system, has just discovered five new planets around two stars – and three of them have the potential to be habitable, according to Forbes.

The two stars that the Kepler mission has found planets around are currently designated Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. Kepler-62 is about 1,200 light years from Earth, and contains five planets. Of those five, two of them are in the “habitable zone” of the star – meaning that they’re in a distance where liquid water could potentially exist on the surface. Having liquid water on the surface is generally considered to be necessary for life.

The two planets within Kepler-62′s habitable zone are Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f. They are the outermost planets of the star system – the other three lie even closer to the Sun. Kepler-62e has about 60% more mass than the Earth. Kepler-62f appears to have a rocky composition (like our own planet) and is only about 40% bigger than the Earth. That means that Kepler-62f is the smallest known planet to lie in the habitable zone of another star.

Kepler-69, which is about 2,700 light years from Earth, is even more interesting than Kepler-62. That’s because Kepler-69 is a G-type Star – just like our own Sun, although it’s somewhat less massive. There are two planets around Kepler-69. Kepler-69b is extremely close to the star’s surface – it completes its orbit every 13 days. Kepler-69c is more interesting, however. It’s only about 70% more massive than the Earth and lies within a similar orbit to Venus.

The researchers investigating Kepler-69c don’t yet have enough data to say for certain what it’s like. It may be a rocky planet like Earth. However, in the paper where they present their results, the researchers noted that it’s also possible that it “may be a water world and quite unlike any planet in our Solar System.” Most likely, however, the planet appears to be much cooler than Venus, which has an extremely high surface temperature thanks to its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. If that’s true, it’s possible that life could develop there whether it’s a rocky world or an oceanic one.

The discovery of Kepler-69c, the researchers continue, is “a progressive step on the road to detecting the first truly Earth-like planet orbiting a star like our Sun.”