pátek 19. dubna 2013

NASA has discovered the most Earth-like planets yet (io9.com)


"NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a trio of distant planets that look remarkably like our own. Belonging to solar systems located 1,200 and 2,700 light years from Earth, the three Earth-sized worlds have been spotted orbiting in the so-called Goldilocks Zone of their parent stars – the "just-right" range at which liquid water, and life, can exist on a planet's surface. 

NASA's Kepler mission has been hunting for worlds beyond our solar system for a little over four years now, and it's been enormously successful. In that time, it's spotted literally thousands of planetary candidates. Today, three distant worlds –dubbed Kepler-62f, Kepler-62e, and Kepler-69c –have achieved planetary confirmation, while joining an elite cadre of so-called habitable planets. 

Kepler-62f (an artist's depiction of which appears above) and 62e possess radii just 1.4- and 1.6-times that of Earth's, respectively, and orbit a star some 1,200 light years away, along with three other newly discovered planets. Kepler-69c, on the other hand, has a radius 1.7-times that of Earth, and orbits a star around 2,700 light years distant from our own. Together, the three newly discovered worlds have become the second,third, and fourth known bodies to wear the badge of "Earth-like, habitable zone planet."

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