NASA launched the Kepler Space Observatory back on March 7, 2009. The mission was to find Earth like planets that are orbiting stars. The hope was to find a planet like Earth with a star like our sun.
NASA’s Kepler mission has found the first planet that is around Earth’s size in the “habitable zone” around a star. NASA also announced they have found 11 other planets in their “habitable zone”.
Kepler-452b is larger than the Earth. It is 60 percent larger than planet Earth. They have not been able to determine the composition of the planet but it is likely fairly rocky.
452b has a little longer year than our Earth. It has a 385 day year for an orbit instead of the Earth’s 365 day year.
It appears to be a little older than the Earth. 452b seems to be around 6 Billion years old. Scientists estimate the Earth around 4.5 Billion years old.
Kepler-452b is located 1,400 light-years away. It is in the constellation Cygnus.
You can keep up with more on Kepler and the Earth like planets on nasa.gov/kepler.
(Via NASA)
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