NASA broke a big announcement today in a teleconference: A new Earth-like planet has been discovered with some striking similarities to our own. It orbits its star (which is the same size as our Sun) in 385 days, and sits well within the habitable zone. Its surface is likely rocky. In fact, a whole lot of it lines up to look a lot like Earth.

There are a few differences, of course. For one, its solar system is 6 billion years old, compared to our system's 4.5 billion years. It's also 60 percent bigger than Earth. That means there's a 40 percent chance that it's either a water-world or a gas dwarf rather than a super-Earth. But of all the planets found by Kepler so far, this is the closest analogue to our planet.

The planet, Kepler 452b, is located 1,400 light years away. There may be other planets in the system, but the four-year life span of the data set from Kepler doesn't provide enough time to find others that may be orbiting further out from the star. This is because Kepler looks at stars and notices tiny changes in the light from the star, which indicate a planet passing in front of it. If these changes occur multiple times, it indicates a planet may be present. But if a planet the size and relative location of Jupiter orbited this star roughly at Jupiter's 12 year orbital period, four years would not allow enough time to witness a full transit of such a planet, let alone multiple transits.

NASA

"Except for being 60 percent bigger, it's very similar," Jeff Coughlin, a Kepler research scientist at the SETI Institute, said in an interview prior to the conference. He adds that it receives 10 percent more energy from its parent star, but that the levels were likely the same when it was the age of Earth. Temperatures are different now, but 1.5 billion years ago, it had roughly the same amount of sunlight and likely similar temperatures.

Jon Jenkins, Kepler discovery lead at NASA Ames, noted in the press conference that the gravity is twice as strong. "I suspect that over time we'd adapt to the conditions," he says when asked if humans could survive there. "Certainly it might be very challenging at first."

Coughlin was the lead of the team on a separate announcement from the Kepler catalog. The latest catalog will contain a total of 4,696 planets and planet candidates, up about 600 from the previous catalog. Of those, Kepler 452b is the only confirmed Earth-like planet. But there are 11 intriguing candidates warranting further study.

"We're digging into the noise, so I have to caution that these are candidates, and not all candidates pan out," Coughlin cautions.

One of the unconfirmed planets could end up a real doozy. Located somewhere between 200 to 1,000 light years away, the Sun-like star KOI-7235.01 may have a planet even more similar to Earth in orbital distance and size, at only 20 percent larger than our planet. If confirmed, it would be even more Earth-like than Kepler 452b.

Part of the problem in confirmation is that the newest Kepler data sets come from more refined techniques that can detect planets around even extremely faint stars. This means that confirmation requires more fine tuning to rule out an eclipsing binary star or other cosmic interference.

"When you dig into these really low signals, there's a lot of noise to sort out," Coughlin says.

Unlike the 11 candidates, Kepler 452b is confirmed, with the team measuring at least three transits when the planet crosses across the star. It's too distant to be seen by most conventional ground based instruments. It would be incredibly difficult to see even with the most advanced telescopes, including the 30 Meter Telescope currently under construction. Coughlin says even the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope won't be able to resolve details of the system.

As Coughlin says, we may find something even closer and more Earth-like before we'd even have a chance to travel there with future technologies, so it's not exactly a destination. For now, Kepler 452b may not quite be Earth, but it's pretty close, and as close as Kepler has seen.

"It's not a twin, but we've been selling it as an older, slightly bigger sibling," Coughlin says.

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