NASA Scientists Spot Cousin of Earth

The astronomers have again spotted a planet potentially habitable like the earth. The so-called earth’s cousin was spotted by Kepler telescope and is named the Kepler-186f. 

Nestled in the Milky Way, Kepler-186f is a part of the five-planet system that orbits around a cool dwarf star. Four of the planets are tucked in close to the star, so they are probably too hot for life. But the fifth planet looked special.

"This planet orbits its star every 130 days," says Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center as quoted by BBC. According to Elisa, at least in our solar system, Earth-sized planets are made of rock and iron and gas, "so we can guess that Kepler-186f, being so close in size to Earth, has a high probability of being rocky also and composed of those sorts of materials."

The team said conditions on the surface would depend on what kind of atmosphere it had, if any. If it was like the Earth, temperatures would not be balmy. However, a lot about this planet is going to remain a mystery, because it is 500 light-years away.

Source : Tempo