Have we found a planet like Pandora as shown in the Avatar ? We still do not know yet but NASA has confirmed that its planet hunting spacecraft, Kepler, has discovered the first alien world within the star’s ‘habitable zone’. As NASA puts it, habitable zone is the region where water can exist on the planet’s surface. The spacecraft Kepler has discovered more than 1000 planets of which 10 are earth sized and located near their own star aka the sun. It was launched on March 7, 2009 to conduct a mission to find Earth like planets for 3.5 years. And at last, NASA has found one.
The confirmed alien world which has potential for living, Kepler-22b, orbits a star similar to our sun and is located in the habitable zone. According to NASA, they still do not know yet if the planet has rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. By the picture that has been released, which of course is illustrated, it doesn’t look rocky at all! Its more like a planet full of water. Let’s wait for NASA’s future updates about the planet’s composition.
This is what Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist, had to say about the recent discovery,
This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin. Kepler’s results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.
Kepler-22b is about 2.4 times the radius of the Earth and orbits a star similar to our sun for 290 days. The planet’s star belongs to the same class as our sun called the G-type which is smaller and also cooler. Not as fierce as our sun. Now comes the interesting part. Its location. 600 light years away. How long would it take to travel to Kepler-22b if found habitable ? Well, I did a little bit of research and found out different results. It actually depends upon the speed of the spaceship that you will be travelling on.
1 light year = 9.4605284 × 1015 meters (9454254955488 km )
600 Light years= 5.67631704 × 1018 meters (5672552973292800 km) according to http://www.metric-conversions.org/length/lightyears-to-kilometers.htm
Now if we are to travel at the speed of light, it might take 600 years to reach there. What ever maybe the timespan, when Earth will have no space left for humans to live we either have to find a new planet or kill people to have space. Obviously, the second choice shall never be met. Therefore, NASA needs to make ‘spaceships’ able to travel at such high speeds! Simply upgrade the technology!
This is a great discovery for NASA and a great news for all humans. It really makes us feel sometimes if we would be able to travel to such planets in our lifetime and be able to live in peace. Sadly, that won’t be possible for you and me. 🙁
Cheers to NASA!
How do you feel about the latest discovery ? Do share your thoughts in the comments section 🙂
by Mushfique
It's amazing designed for me to have a web site, which is valuable designed for my know-how. thanks admin
thank for share !
I love the color of this planet, informative post, but in all honesty the name sounds like the name of a dog.
Nice article….amazing information…please do provide the follow up…i bet the Avatar people are hiding there along with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee 😛
i love the sound off that and i hope i will still be here when the first collonist will be going into space
i believe we humans can do that and that we chould go collonise planets
but the only way i gues i could be done is to jump from planet to planet
like we could make entire cuity's on mars then going to other planets to be able to reach those earth like planets
or we could make spacestations so we could jump to it
i think its not that hard to make a spaceship but we need alot of fuel and we should think about what fuel to use
the best thing should be continues fuel that keeps on making (cant explain it right not english sorry)
but i believe if all countries best sientist should work together to make it happen thats is the only way to get to this space travel
so to all sientist i believe in you guys and thanks for this wonderfull news 🙂
Great info Mushfique article is really interesting. I will be waiting for futher updates on this new planet. Keep it up dude!
Thanks Akbar! Do check out NASA's website for more updates!
I feel such a loss that it is so far. A math problem for you wizards the Saturn 5 moon rocket top speed =25053 MPH or 7 miles a second launched from earth. Crunch some numbers and some imagination and see if it gets closer.
It doesn't even get close to the word 'close' 😛 I wonder what would be the mode of transportation ? I guess we would teleport there 😛
Hello Mushfique.. your blog is amazing.. and very helpful… keep up the good work 🙂
Thanks for your comment Sanjana 🙂
sounds really interesting……….if its really true thn i will b eagerly waiting 4 da updates…i will comment further after that……
Do check out NASA's official website to get more updates on Kepler!