The Kepler Mission of NASA has found a planet which is very similar to Earth in the “habitable zone”, with its parent star similar to Sun. The planet is named as Kepler 452b and with this the count of confirmed planets has gone up to 1030.
Below is the tweet from NASA:
Earth’s bigger, older cousin! @NASAKepler discovers new distant planet that's near-Earth-size: http://t.co/kEdzbbFEqE pic.twitter.com/hoog1ZsdNs
— NASA (@NASA) July 23, 2015
NASA doesn’t have any information whether air and water are present on the planet, however it is the most similar planet to Earth that has been discovered till date.
This mission has introduced 11 different new and small habitable zone aspirant planets and it has made an achievement in the process of finding a planet which is just like Earth.
NASA said in its press release, “The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet — of a G2-type star, like our sun.”
John Grunsfeld, from agency’s headquarters Washington, who is the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said, “On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun.”
John Jenkins, from California who is the Kepler data analysis lead at Nasa’s Ames Research Center said, “It’s a real privilege to deliver this news to you today. There’s a new kid on the block that’s just moved in next door.”
Although the diameter of Kepler-452b is 60% larger than the diameter of Earth but it is similar in terms of temperature and the distance between it and its parent star is almost equivalent to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.