Super-Earth - a planet one and a half times the size of the one we live on - has become the most likely candidate for sustaining life. There is only one problem: Kepler 452b is located outside our solar system - at a huge distance of 1400 light-years from us.
Discovered in 2015, the planet is located in the middle of a recently discovered "zone of abiogenesis" that supports the conditions for the creation of life, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council. This region of the solar system maintains a perfect blend of ultraviolet light and chemical reactions to initiate early life.
Kepler 452b is also in the habitable ring of space called the Goldilocks zone due to its distance from its parent star, so the planet isn't too hot or too cold. All this astromagic is combined with a uniform temperature that allows liquid water to form on the surface.
Kepler 452b's location is so similar to our own planet that it was given the title of Earth's sister.
The exoplanet belongs to the super-earth class, since its mass is 1.5 times that of the earth. At the same time, Kepler 452b is much smaller than other titans in the solar systems, such as Saturn and Jupiter.
The planet was spotted by NASA's powerful Kepler Telescope, which has detected thousands of so-called exoplanets (planets outside our solar system that orbit other stars) since its launch in 2009. However, of all these candidates, only Kepler 452b is located in a convenient location in the habitable zone of its star and the zone of abiogenesis.
The star in the constellation Cygnus, around which it orbits, is almost 20% brighter than the Sun and about two billion years older. Mission scientists say that while Kepler 452b is too far away to be studied with probes, next-generation telescopes (like TESS or James Webb) will be able to find more Earth-like planets in the abiogenesis zone.
But the researchers add that if there is life on these exoplanets, it is radically different from Earth. “I don’t know how possible life is there, but given that we have only one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most similar to our planet,” says the study's lead author. Paul Rimmer. - There is an important difference between what is necessary and what is sufficient. Building blocks are necessary, but they may not be enough: they can mix for billions of years, but nothing happens. But, at the very least, it is worth paying attention to the planets where all the necessary conditions for the origin of life exist."
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