NASA has recently made a remarkable discovery, the US based space agency has found our beloved Earth’s closest twin. The new planet has been named Kepler 452b. The new planet, just like the Earth, is till date the smallest planet to be found orbiting in the habitable zone of a G2-type star.
The planet lies in the constellation Cygnus. Also, it is 60 per cent larger than Earth in terms of diameter and is about 1400 light years away. The length of the year is roughly the same as the Earth’s. The size of its orbit is similar to our planet and the same amount of sunlight is also received by this newly discovered planet.
According to NASA, this planet has the capability of holding life. Also, chances are that plants would survive if they were sent there. Kepler 452b is larger than our planet Earth. After the discovery of Kepler 452b, the confirmed number of planets have come to 1030. Earth’s twin planet has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter than our planet.
SETI is sending signals to Kepler, however, there has been no response till now. The star and planet that Kepler 452b is orbiting are nearly 6 billion years old which is 1.5 billion years older than our sun. Other planets have been discovered in the past but Kepler 452b is the first to be orbiting around a star so similar to ours.
Image Credit: mirror.co.uk
