# Earth-like planet Kepler-22b may hold life



## btarunr (Dec 6, 2011)

> The most Earth-like planet ever discovered is circling a star 600 light years away, a key finding in an ongoing quest to learn if life exists beyond Earth, scientists said on Monday.
> The planet, called Kepler-22b, joins a list of more than 500 planets found to orbit stars beyond our solar system. It is the smallest and the best positioned to have liquid water on its surface -- among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth.
> 
> "We are homing in on the true Earth-sized, habitable planets," said San Jose State University astronomer Natalie Batalha, deputy science team lead for NASA's Kepler Space Telescope that discovered the star.
> ...



http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-space-planet-idUSTRE7B42CV20111206


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## Damn_Smooth (Dec 6, 2011)

So when does this launch? Oh wait.... this has nothing to do with Nvidia does it?

Are they advanced enough to run Crysis?


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## Spaceman Spiff (Dec 6, 2011)

^ hehehe

Good find though. Cool stuff.


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## N-Gen (Dec 6, 2011)

But will it blend?


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## qubit (Dec 6, 2011)

Oh sh!t they've found my home planet! 

bta, what did you go and tell everybody for!!


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## theJesus (Dec 6, 2011)

qubit said:


> Oh sh!t they've found my home planet!
> 
> bta, what did you go and tell everybody for!!


So can you travel faster than the speed of light or are you just >600 years old?


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## btarunr (Dec 6, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> But will it blend?



No. Toss a Blentec Total Blender into its atmosphere, and the blender will blend by the time it hits the surface.


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## radrok (Dec 6, 2011)

Damn_Smooth said:


> So when does this launch? Oh wait.... this has nothing to do with Nvidia does it?
> 
> Are they advanced enough to run Crysis?



I suppose on their planet AMD is on par with Intel


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## Drone (Dec 6, 2011)

Another Kepler planet? Nice. The other one was* invisible*




> To date, its mass and surface composition remain unknown. If it has an Earth-like density (5.515 g/cm3) then it would mass 13.8 Earths while its surface gravity would be 2.4 times Earth's. If it has water like density (1 g/cm3) then it would mass 2.5 Earths and have a surface gravity of 0.43 times Earth's.



I wouldn't like to live where gravity is x2.4 stronger.


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## radrok (Dec 6, 2011)

You may just need to get used to it but I admit that would be nothing short of uncomfortable


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## D4S4 (Dec 6, 2011)

Drone said:


> I wouldn't like to live where gravity is x2.4 stronger.



i would for a year or two until i get accustomed, then get back to earth and fly when i jump.


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## Drone (Dec 6, 2011)

You can't just "get used to" it. Without bionics, exoskeletons and other gimmicks it'd be really hard. When the gravity is x2.4 it's a big number. Let's take Jupiter. _A helluva big thing_.



> Jupiter's volume is that of about 1,321 Earths, yet the planet is only 318 times as massive.



So Jupiter is 318 times heavier than Earth while Jovian surface gravity is 2.5 times stronger than Earth's gravity, hence its gravitational acceleration is about 25 m/s2. Same thing would be for Kepler-22b.


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## Laurijan (Dec 6, 2011)

The exoplanet Gliese 581 is 20 light years away 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581


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## N-Gen (Dec 6, 2011)

btarunr said:


> No. Toss a Blentec Total Blender into its atmosphere, and the blender will blend by the time it hits the surface.



I knew there couldn't be a perfect blender!


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## Benetanegia (Dec 6, 2011)

Drone said:


> I wouldn't like to live where gravity is x2.4 stronger.



WHAAAAT!!

There's no mention of mass. Gravity could actually be 5.76 times lower* than that on Earth, if mass was exactly the same, which granted, is not likely. Anyway without knowing the mass there's absolutely no way to tell the gravity.

* Remember that gravity is proportional to the product of the two masses and *inversely proportional to the square of the distance*.

Regarding Jupiter: its mass is 318 times the Earth, but it's radius is ~11 times bigger, that's why its surface gravity is ~2.5 times bigger. 318/11^2 = 2.6 <-- Math is not compltely correct since I rounded up too many numbers, but you get the idea.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Dec 6, 2011)

theJesus said:


> So can you travel faster than the speed of light or are you just >600 years old?



Two points.  

The first is that at relativistic speeds the aging process is slowed, in the frame of the "stationary" Earth perspective.  As such, he could have experienced less than a few years of travel, but be >600 years old.  Silly relativity.

The second, the name is qubit.  Maybe he entangled two bodies on a quantum level, transferred his conscience, then dissolved the entanglement.  Not really travel perse, but definitely long distance fun.


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## Drone (Dec 6, 2011)

Benetanegia said:


> Anyway without knowing the mass there's absolutely no way to tell the gravity



There is. Gravity bends time and space. By measuring time inside and outside the gravitational field it's possible to calculate it.


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## digibucc (Dec 6, 2011)

Drone said:


> There is. Gravity bends time and space. By measuring time inside and outside the gravitational field it's possible to calculate it.


do it then, smart ass 



lilhasselhoffer said:


> The second, the name is qubit. *...* he entangled two bodies on a quantum level, transferred his conscience, then dissolved the entanglement.  Not really travel perse, but definitely long distance fun.


well, duh


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## Drone (Dec 6, 2011)

digibucc said:


> do it then, smart ass



 well some scientists say that it's even possible to calculate gravity without the Gravitational Constant


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## Benetanegia (Dec 6, 2011)

Drone said:


> There is. Gravity bends time and space. By measuring time inside and outside the gravitational field it's possible to calculate it.



That was an elegant way out of a bad situation. gj


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## twilyth (Dec 8, 2011)

Drone said:


> You can't just "get used to" it. Without bionics, exoskeletons and other gimmicks it'd be really hard. When the gravity is x2.4 it's a big number. Let's take Jupiter. _A helluva big thing_.
> 
> 
> 
> So Jupiter is 318 times heavier than Earth while Jovian surface gravity is 2.5 times stronger than Earth's gravity, hence its gravitational acceleration is about 25 m/s2. Same thing would be for Kepler-22b.


Why wouldn't 2.4x the gravity be the same as weighing 2.4x more?


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## micropage7 (Dec 8, 2011)

and we have another place to go after we have spaceship and hit startrek era


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## Drone (Dec 8, 2011)

twilyth said:


> Why wouldn't 2.4x the gravity be the same as weighing 2.4x more?



Aye, it's the same.



> The weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. It is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g. F=mg



*Stronger gravity = bigger weight = faster g*



> In everyday practical usage, including commercial usage, the term "weight" is commonly used to mean mass, which scientifically is an entirely different concept. On the surface of the Earth, the acceleration due to gravity (the "strength of gravity") is approximately constant; this means that the ratio of the weight force of a motionless object on the surface of the Earth to its mass is almost independent of its location, so that an object's weight force can stand as a proxy for its mass, and vice versa.



So *if* Kepler 22-b's g = Earth's g x 2.4 then human wouldn't feel "comfortable" there. Because all human body / "physics" (blood pressure, organs' positions etc) is designed for our local g. On that planet everything would fall x2.4 faster. Aka that planet has a different "game engine" lol. TBH I dunno do professional astronauts get trained for stronger gravity or only for microgravity.


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## Recus (Dec 8, 2011)

Another reason to get Nvidia's Kepler.


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## Inceptor (Dec 9, 2011)

It's in the habitable zone, yes.  It's bigger than Earth, yes.
But mass is not known, density is not known, so gravity could be more or less than ours.
It's a 'super-earth' so it could possibly end up being a mini-neptune, not just a rocky planet with some water.  Or it could be completely covered with water/ice.

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=20867


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## Drone (Dec 20, 2011)

Update: Another two Kepler planets found: 20e and 20f

*Kepler finds first earth-size planets beyond our solar system*



> NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.











> The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is slightly larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds. Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.



http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-kepler-earth-size-planets-solar.html


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## Drone (Jan 12, 2012)

Update: NASA’s Kepler Mission, astronomers announced the discovery of two new planets that orbit two stars.





> Using data from NASA's Kepler mission, a team that includes a University of Florida astronomer has discovered two new planets orbiting double star systems. The newly confirmed planets, called *Kepler-34b* and *Kepler-35b*




http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-astronomers-planets-orbiting-suns.html



> Kepler-35 planet system, in which a Saturn-size planet orbits a pair of stars. The larger star is similar to the size of the Sun, while the smaller star is 79% of the Sun's radius. The stars orbit and eclipse each other every 21 days, but the eclipses do not occur exactly periodically. This variation in the times of the eclipses motivated the search for the planet, which was discovered to transit the stars as it orbits the pair every 131 days. Analogous events led to the discovery of the planet Kepler-34. The discovery of these two new systems establishes a new class of 'circumbinary' planets, and suggests there are many millions of such giant planets in our Galaxy.


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## DannibusX (Jan 12, 2012)

The Kepler Mission is paying divedends.  Love it.


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## Drone (Jan 27, 2012)

Update:

*Kepler announces 11 planetary systems hosting 26 planets*

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-kepler-planetary-hosting-planets.html

Just wow ....



> NASA's Kepler mission has discovered *11 new planetary systems* hosting *26 confirmed planets*. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, its host star.



Yeah it's confirmed ... there's a lot of them !


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## ViperXTR (Jan 27, 2012)

any planets with capable beings to compete in the real "Miss Universe"? >_>


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## RejZoR (Jan 27, 2012)

So, 600 lightyears away. If we fire a probe there with a half of speed of light, it would take 1200 years. It's a shame we'll not know what it really is in our lifetime...


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## KainXS (Jan 27, 2012)

remember that science is limited by understanding, just because we can't get past the speed of light dosen't mean our childrens childrens children won't.


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