Kepler mission announces possibly habitable planets found (18 April)

In summary, Lisa Kaltenegger from Heidelberg MPI discusses the possibility that the planets Kepler-62b and Kepler-62c may be habitable. The star is smaller and much cooler than our sun, so it would probably be reddish color. The planets are most likely rocky, with water, and might be entirely covered with ocean (no dry land). It's not a place one would want to go :-D but it might turn out to be very interesting to study. Kaltenegger is a specialist in exoplanet atmospheres and thinks it will eventually be possible to learn something about the atmospheres surrounding these planets. Spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres is one of the major goals of E
  • #1
marcus
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http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/...-splash-with-possibly-habitable-super-Earth's

Just announced 18 April. "Kepler-mission-makes-big-splash-with-possibly-habitable-super-Earth's".

These are in constellation Lyra. I can't evaluate how definite or reliable this is, but some readers may want to check it out.Here is a YouTube by a scientist at Heidelberg MPI, named Lisa Kaltenegger. It's fairly informative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5rW70-HnhA&feature=player_embedded
The star is smaller and much cooler than our sun, so it would probably be reddish color. The planets are most likely rocky, with water, and might be entirely covered with ocean (no dry land).

It's not a place one would want to go :-D but it might turn out to be very interesting to study. Kaltenegger is a specialist in exoplanet atmospheres. She apparently thinks that it will eventually be possible to learn something about the atmospheres surrounding these planets. That would be a key to determining their temperature,and whether or not they could support life.
 
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  • #2
It's not a place one would want to go :-D
If it would be an option... why not?
She apparently thinks that it will eventually be possible to learn something about the atmospheres surrounding these planets.
Spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres is one of the major goals of E-ELT.
 
  • #3
Thanks for the link. The amount of planets were discovering habitable or not is going up at an exponential rate.
 
  • #4
mfb said:
...
Spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres is one of the major goals of E-ELT.

Mfb mentions the European Extremely Large Telescope, thanks Mfb!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Extremely_Large_Telescope

40 meter diameter reflector, to be placed at 3 km altitude on mountain in Chile.

I would say that 5-minute YouTube by Lisa Kaltenegger represents a strong public argument for supporting the construction of E-ELT (not cheap, will cost about one billion euro)


Around 50 seconds into the first minute, at 0:51, she talks about detecting "signs of life" in the atmosphere of exoplanets. The presence of life would tend to affect the chemical composition of the atmosphere, so if you can do spectroscopy, see absorption lines etc, at a distance, and determine the chemical composition, it may be able to tell you about the presence of life.

The star "Kepler-62" is a K2 Dwarf, temperature would be 4400-4900 kelvin, I guess, based on table VII of this source http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1981A&AS...46..193H , if someone else has a better temperature table for types of stars please post the link.

Nasa has a newsletter about this.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/18apr_habitablezone/
 
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  • #5
Very interesting.It seems they keep finding more and more planets that are in the habitable zone.Anybody else quietly thinking we might even discover signs of extra-terrestrial life in our lifetime?

Without getting too philosophical , would that be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind?
 
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  • #6
Wow. Look at all these planets we can't go to.
*quitely hoping that a better propulsion mechanism is achievable by humankind*
 
  • #7
reenmachine said:
Anybody else quietly thinking we might even discover signs of extra-terrestrial life in our lifetime?
I think we have a reasonable chance for the first time in human history.
Without getting too philosophical , would that be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind?
I see spaceflight and [computers and the internet] are competitors. At least the second one is required for the discovery of extraterrestrial life, however.

marcus said:
E-ELT (not cheap, will cost about one billion euro)
Or ~2 € per inhabitant of the participating states.
 

1. What is the Kepler mission and what does it do?

The Kepler mission is a space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 with the goal of finding and studying exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system) orbiting other stars. It uses the transit method to detect planets, which involves measuring the slight dip in a star's brightness when a planet passes in front of it.

2. How many potentially habitable planets did the Kepler mission announce finding?

The Kepler mission announced finding 4 potentially habitable planets on April 18, 2019. These planets are in the habitable zone of their respective stars, meaning they have the potential to have liquid water on their surface and potentially support life.

3. How far away are these potentially habitable planets?

The 4 potentially habitable planets announced by the Kepler mission are located between 300 and 600 light years away from Earth. This is relatively close in astronomical terms, but still too far for us to reach with current technology.

4. How did the Kepler mission determine that these planets are potentially habitable?

The Kepler mission determined that these planets are potentially habitable based on their size and distance from their respective stars. These planets are all Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, which means they are in the right location to potentially have liquid water on their surface.

5. What is the significance of these potentially habitable planets?

The discovery of these potentially habitable planets by the Kepler mission is significant because it brings us closer to answering the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. These planets have the potential to support life, and studying them could provide valuable insights into the conditions necessary for life to exist on other planets.

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