Kepler,
NASA’s planet hunting mission, has bagged its first “Goldilocks”
planet, one that sits in the habitable zone of its star. Nicknamed the
Christmas planet, it is the most Earth-like world discovered yet. The
planet, more properly known as Kepler 22-b, was revealed yesterday via a
press conference at NASA Ames Research Center. It is one of thousands
of planets discovered outside our solar system via the Kepler space
telescope – and the first one that is in the middle of what astronomers
call the “Goldilocks zone” – not too hot, not too cold, just right for
life. It is called the Christmas Planet because it took three snapshots
for the telescope to determine Kepler 22-b was really there, and the
snapshots had to happen 290 days apart, the length of 22-b’s year. The
last of the three encounters happened during the 2010 holiday season,
just hours before the NASA telescope came down with a technical glitch.
“It’s a great gift,” said William Borucki, the telescope’s principal
investigator, who came up with the seasonal name. “We were very
fortunate to find it.” The Christmas Planet is some 600 light years
away. Astronomers have yet to determine whether the planet is rocky,
liquid or gaseous. It’s about twice the size of Earth, and the average
surface temperature is a balmy 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
