From Metro News Astronomers say the planet may hold water on its surface and is the best candidate yet of a habitable planet in the ongoing search for an Earth twin (Picture: AP/NASA)
A planet bearing strikingly similar characteristics to Earth and potentially capable of supporting life has been discovered in the Milky Way.
Dubbed ‘Earth 2.0’, Kepler-186f is the closest match to our own planet ever discovered and renews hopes that life in outer space may be a reality.
Slightly bigger and colder than Earth, the planet is said to be in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ because it sits at just the right distance from its star where temperatures allow water, and therefore potentially life, to exist.
‘Kepler-186f is the first validated, Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star,’ said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and Nasa’s Ames Research Center.
‘It has the right size and is at the right distance to have properties similar to our home planet.’
Dr Quintana is the lead author of a scientific paper detailing the planet’s discovery, 500 light years from Earth, in this week’s issue of the Science journal.
The group of scientists have been keeping watch over 150,000 stars in the universe looking out for slight drops in brightness when a planet passed in front, according to theNew York Times.
Further analysis of the planet will now take place to determine whether indeed it does hold water.
Over 2,000 planets outside our ownsolarsystem have been found in the last 20 years but Kepler is particularly good news because the star it orbits is similar to 70 per cent of those in the Milky Way and therefore finding other similar planets is now a real possibility.
ESA Spacecraft to be woken for Big Mission Report by Independent Newspaper
A spacecraft will begin one of the most daring missions ever attempted on Monday - landing on a comet which is hurtling through space at 24,600 mph.
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta craft has been chasing down the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for a decade since launching in 2004.
As it is impossible for it to achieve the speed needed alone, the spacecraft has completed three flybys of Earth and one of Mars to build up pace using the planets' gravitational pulls.
Operating on solar energy alone, the spacecraft was placed into a deep sleep in mid-2011 in order to conserve energy as it cruised far away from the Sun’s gaze and out towards the orbit of Jupiter. It has been out of contact with Earth ever since.
At 10am on Monday, what the ESA is calling the ‘most important alarm clock in the solar system’ will sound to awaken the vessel. It will then take up to six hours for the vessel’s star trackers to warm up - only then can it attempt to reconnect with mission control on Darmstadt, Germany.
Due to Rosetta’s vast distance from Earth – just over 807 million kilometres – it will take 45 minutes for the signal to reach home, meaning controllers will be tentatively listening out for the signal between 17:30 and 18:30 GMT.
It is hoped that the Rosetta will finally catch up with the comet in August when it will spending a couple of months studying and mapping the 2.5 mile wide ball of ice and dust, before dropping a small robot on its surface to gather samples and take pictures.
European Space Agency project scientist Matt Taylor compared the mission to the film 'Armageddon’ - in which Bruce Willis’s character lands lands on an asteroid to to prevent it from destroying Earth.
“We look at comets as being a time capsule, they are relics from the beginning of the solar system,” added Mr Taylor, speaking to The Sunday Telegraph. “We felt we had to go to one.”
Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager, added: “We’re very excited to have this important milestone in sight, but we’ll be anxious to assess the health of the spacecraft after Rosetta has spent nearly 10 years in space.”
UFO sighting of USAF officers. I do find it a struggle to think these men are making it up. I'm sceptical and believe there can be logical mistakes, but there seem to be so many. These men are high ranking intelligent men. Why would they make such a thing up? Why would they not search for a logical explanation? They seem to be very rational men to hold positions of such responsibility. All this is very creepy, compelling and baffling.
