N2NH
04-18-2013, 04:40 PM
Not too hot, and not too cold. Much like Earth. One is like Alaska, the other is like Hawaii.
In the Goldilocks game of looking for other planets like ours, the new discoveries, called Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f are just right. And they are fraternal twins. They circle the same star, an orange dwarf, and are next to each other - closer together than Earth and its neighbor Mars.The planets are slightly wider than Earth, but not too big. Kepler-62-e is a bit toasty, like a Hawaiian world and Kepler-62-f is a bit nippy, more Alaskan, Borucki said.
"This is the first one where I'm thinking `Huh, Kepler-62-f really might have life on it'," said study co-author David Charbonneau of Harvard. "This is a very important barrier that's been crossed. Why wouldn't it have life?"
Both planets are tantalizing. The dozens of researchers who co-authored the study disagree on which one is better suited to life. Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Germany likes Kepler-62-3 more because it's closer to the star and is warmer. She said it is probably "like Washington in May."
Pennsylvania State University professor James Kasting, who wasn't part of the research, called the findings "a big discovery."
NASA Sees Distant Planets that Seem Ideal for Life (http://www.wunderground.com/news/distant-planets-discovered-20130418)
In the Goldilocks game of looking for other planets like ours, the new discoveries, called Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f are just right. And they are fraternal twins. They circle the same star, an orange dwarf, and are next to each other - closer together than Earth and its neighbor Mars.The planets are slightly wider than Earth, but not too big. Kepler-62-e is a bit toasty, like a Hawaiian world and Kepler-62-f is a bit nippy, more Alaskan, Borucki said.
"This is the first one where I'm thinking `Huh, Kepler-62-f really might have life on it'," said study co-author David Charbonneau of Harvard. "This is a very important barrier that's been crossed. Why wouldn't it have life?"
Both planets are tantalizing. The dozens of researchers who co-authored the study disagree on which one is better suited to life. Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Germany likes Kepler-62-3 more because it's closer to the star and is warmer. She said it is probably "like Washington in May."
Pennsylvania State University professor James Kasting, who wasn't part of the research, called the findings "a big discovery."
NASA Sees Distant Planets that Seem Ideal for Life (http://www.wunderground.com/news/distant-planets-discovered-20130418)