The agency's Kepler space telescope locates three planets -- in two new planetary systems -- that are the right distance from their suns to make them potentially life-supporting.<\/p>\n
Left to right: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Earth (except for Earth, these are artists' renditions). <\/p>\n
NASA, that wily band of intergalactic peepers, says it's spied three distant planets in two different solar systems that are the proper distance from their suns to make them potentially habitable. <\/p>\n
I can almost hear Elon Musk's pitch for time-shares in the Kepler-62 and Kepler-69 systems already. <\/p>\n
According to a NASA press release: <\/p>\n
The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus. <\/p>\n
The Kepler-62 system has five planets in total, three of which have shorter orbits around their sun, making them hotter and inhospitable. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; super-Earth-size 69c and Kepler-69b, which is more than twice the size of Earth and orbits its star -- which is in the same class as our sun and located in the constellation Cygnus -- every 13 days. <\/p>\n
NASA scientists caution that there's no way to know for sure right now whether these particular planets do host life, but their discovery puts us one step closer to finding a planet like Earth near a star like our sun. <\/p>\n
Recently I attended a panel at South By Southwest on the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble scope set to launch in a few years. NASA telescope scientists there spoke of being able to answer the existential question \"are we alone?\" within a generation. <\/p>\n
\"The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity,\" said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. <\/p>\n
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Read more:<\/p>\n
NASA has found 3 nice, habitable planets for us to choose from<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The agency's Kepler space telescope locates three planets -- in two new planetary systems -- that are the right distance from their suns to make them potentially life-supporting. Left to right: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Earth (except for Earth, these are artists' renditions). NASA, that wily band of intergalactic peepers, says it's spied three distant planets in two different solar systems that are the proper distance from their suns to make them potentially habitable Continue reading