Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Earth's Twin - blog 4

James Fang - 4th
NASA revealed the first discovery of an Earth-sized, prospectively habitable world in the universe on April 17 by the Kepler telescope. The planet, named Kepler 186-f, is an exciting development in the search for extraterrestrial life and potentially space-colonization.
Such a planet has been extremely difficult to find due to the vast number of conditions that must all be met for life as we know it on our planet to exist. We are therefore looking for an Earth doppelganger in the vast universe.
For the temperature on the surface to be habitable, the world must be the right distance from its star, the goldilocks zone - not too hot and not too cold. This is required for the existence of liquid water which in turn allows for biological life. Next, in order to protect planetary organisms from the harmful radiation of the star, the exoplanet must have a protective atmosphere. Another prerequisite, more geared towards human colonization of space, is the similar size of the exoplanet to that of Earth’s in order for ideal gravity as well as planetary composition (ie. solid rock instead of gaseous surfaces of larger planets or liquid surfaces of smaller planets).  
Kepler 186-f has all the hints of meeting these requirements, but being over 490 light years away, the planet cannot be thoroughly investigated by current space technology. It appears to orbit a dwarf star and is at the far edge of the preferred goldilocks zone. This is important because: 1) the fact that the star is a dwarf star means the star is in its older years, suggesting that 186-f has been around longer than Earth has, which means any life on it would have had potentially billions of years to develop (perhaps, we may find advanced, intelligent life-forms) and 2) regardless of atmosphere or not, the distance from the star and the smaller amount of energy emanating from a dwarf star would protect life on the planet from harmful radiation. The size of the planet, having a diameter of 8,700 miles, is only 10% bigger than Earth’s at 7,918 miles. This suggests that surface is rocky and suitable for lifeforms like those found on our planet.
Bay Area Environmental Research Institute's Thomas S. Barclay said, "It's a progression. ... This is a very, very exciting milestone discovery. It has a much higher probability of being habitable. This planet really reminds us of Earth."
Future developments in space technology may help us confirm the composition of Kepler 186-f, but the discovery of such an exoplanet has broken our idea that Earth is alone in the universe. Further investigation may even reveal that we, as intelligent lifeforms, may also not be as alone as we think.

For more information:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/87881/nasa-discovers-the-best-evidence-yet-that-life-exists-outside-our-solar-system

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/space-earth-size-planet/

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