NEW YORK: The astronomers of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have uncovered a potentially habitable Earth-sized exoplanet.
According to details, the new planet, named Kepler-1649c, is 300 light-years away from the earth. Out of more than 2,600 exoplanets spotted by NASA’s Kepler space, the newly discovered planet is the most similar in size and temperature to our own planet Earth.
Exoplanets are those found orbiting stars outside of our solar system and scientists have recently uncovered the planet in archival data collected by Kepler.
The detailed study states that the planet is 1.06 times larger than Earth and receives about 75 percent of the light that our planet gets from the sun. This discovery suggests that the surface temperature of the exoplanet could be similar to Earth.
The Kepler-1649cis located within the habitable zone of its star which means that it is present at just the right distance where liquid water can exist on the surface indicating that it can support life.
Kepler-1649c is much closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. It takes 19.5 earth days to complete an orbit around its star. This also means that the planet could be lashed by radiation flares from the environment, threatening any potential life but no flares have been noticed so far.
The researchers believe that there could be a third planet in the system, although they have not spotted it yet. The reason they think another one exists is because of the first and second planets have an orbital resonance; their orbits line up in a stable ratio.
For every nine times Kepler-1649c orbits its star, the closest planet completes four orbits. A planet could exist between the two.
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