It's just 40 percent larger than Earth, and its makeup would suggest there's a good chance it's a potentially habitable world. Too bad Kepler-62f is 1,200 light years from home.

Back in 2013, this world was one of five planets the Kepler Space Telescope spotted in orbit of Kepler-62, a star smaller and cooler than the sun. Kepler-62f is the outermost of the quintent. But back then, scientists didn't get any information about its orbit or its composition.

That changed with a new study out in Astrobiology led by Aomawa Shields of UCLA. Basically: Because it's so hard to get real readings from a world so far away, Shields and a team of astronomers ran a litany of computer simulations that outlines what Kepler-62f could be like based on its distance from its star, its orbit, its size, and so on. A bunch of those simulations offered up a world where liquid water exists, making this faraway planet a decent candidate for habitability. Or, as Shields puts it in the press release, "We found there are multiple atmospheric compositions that allow it to be warm enough to have surface liquid water. This makes it a strong candidate for a habitable planet."

Since this planet is farther from its star than we are from the sun (and its star is dimmer), it would need a much higher concentration of carbon dioxide than Earth has in order to stay warm enough for liquid water. Good news: the simulations suggested the world could have at least as much as our planet and potentially much, much more. Even if it had only an Earth level of CO2, there are possible orbits in which the planet could see temperatures above freezing some of the time, Shields says.

These are just estimations with a wide range of error, sure. But to Shields, the important part of such a study is that it can highlight worlds like Kepler-62f that would be strong candidates for future studies done by more powerful telescopes, ones that could capture the chemical fingerprint of a far-off exoplanet and really tell us what's there.

Source: Physorg/UCLA

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