Pillip Huang

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Article of Kepler 452-b

NASA said Thursday that its Kepler spacecraft has spotted "Earth's bigger, older
cousin": the first nearly Earth-size planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star
similar to our own.

Though NASA can't say for sure whether the planet is rocky like ours or has water and
air, it's the closest match yet found.
"Today, Earth is a little less lonely," Kepler researcher Jon Jenkins said.
The planet, Kepler-452b, is about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation
Cygnus. It's about 60% bigger than Earth, NASA says, and is located in its star's
habitable zone -- the region where life-sustaining liquid water is possible on the surface
of a planet.
A visitor there would experience gravity about twice that of Earth's, and planetary
scientists say the odds of it having a rocky surface are "better than even."

While it's a bit farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, its star is brighter, so the
planet gets about the same amount of energy from its star as Earth does from the sun.
And that sunlight would be very similar to Earth's, Jenkins said.

The planet "almost certainly has an atmosphere," Jenkins said, although scientists can't
say what it's made of. But if the assumptions of planetary geologists are correct, he
said, Kepler-452b's atmosphere would probably be thicker than Earth's, and it would
have active volcanoes.

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It takes 385 days for the planet to orbit its star, very similar to Earth's 365-day year,
NASA said. And because it's spent so long orbiting in this zone -- 6 billion years -- it's
had plenty of time to brew life, Jenkins said.

"That's substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and
conditions for life exist on this planet," he said in a statement.

Reaction

I am amazed on how our technology is rising and we are

discovering more things that may help us in the future. But considering this
planets condition, I think if we live in that planet someday, we will be having
a hard time because the gravity there is twice as the Earths gravity.

It made me think about its habitability. They say it is probably

rockier than the Earth. At some point, it has both advantage and
disadvantage. The advantage is we will have less natural disaster like

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typhoon and I think we will not experience the melting of ice really bad
because there is less water. The disadvantage is maybe at some time, we
will have a shortage in supply of water because less water is involve in the
cycle.

I am also wondering on how to travel to that planet. It is

1,400 light-years from Earth which means the distance that the light will
travel in 1,400 years. Image it and it looks like impossible. Will humanity
someday discover technology that will make space traveling easier?