NASA founds first earth-size planets outside solar system
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) founds first Earth-size planets around a sun like star to planets in our own solar system, Earth and Venus. NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system.
NASA founds the following planests Outside Solar System:
- Kepler-20e
- Kepler-20f
Those planets are too close to their star to be in the habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.
Kepler-20e Planet:
Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth.
Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds.
Kepler-20f Planet:
Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.
Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.
The initial goal of the Kepler mission is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone. Kepler-20 system includes three other planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Kepler-20b, the closest planet, Kepler-20c, the third planet, and Kepler-20d, the fifth planet, orbit their star every 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days. All five planets have orbits lying roughly within Mercury’s orbit in our solar system.
The Kepler data are showing us some planetary systems have arrangements of planets very different from that seen in our solar system,” said Jack Lissauer, Planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
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