NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The Habitable Zone of Another Star

Astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.

[ZuNk]

it's 500 light years away, it'll get 1 million years for our fastest rocket ship to get there ._.

[magicmarker]

What if we are the advanced civilization and people are waiting for us to visit lol.

[artman]

By the way, for those who are curious: here's where water has been found on inner Solar system planets besides Earth:
Mercury: Areas permanently shaded from the Sun (craters near polar region).
Venus: Trace amounts in the atmosphere: (5 parts per million)
Mars: About 2% of surface rock's mass consists of water. In addition, there's water ice mixed with CO₂ ice in polar caps and there are small amounts of water in the atmosphere often forming clouds.

So I assume that Kepler-186f indeed has water.

[crrodriguez]

500 light years.. can't go there..but extremely cool discovery nevertheless. 

[JackDog]

Oh boy oh boy am I excited! I took NASA's artist depiction of Kepler 186f and have it as a background now. Love it

[ytrbro]

incredible, it makes sense that there are "similar" planets and some form of life on those planets and to get to them worm hole travel, wow incredible. Maybe not in my time but it will happen as long as we don't destroy the one we are on before then.

[KAzik]

Questions we should be asking: do they have oil? Do we need to introduce the concept of democracy there?

[crazybadcuber]

This is cool and all, but my question would be to what end? We can't know if there is water on it, life, or anything else about it really. We can't gauge it's atmosphere, it's 500 light years away so it's way too far to look at it. I guess it's cool to know that there are other planets the size of earth in a habitable zone, but with all the stars in all the galaxies, isn't it quite obvious that there would be some of these? Ok, so now we know there IS one at least, but now what?

[supastar]

This is exciting. The Kepler mission is very well concieved.

[Dylan-dwon]

I just read that it orbits a star which has 1/3 of the power of our sun. But, kepler 186f orbits around it 3 times as fast (120 days), so shouldn't that make the temperature the same as here on earth?

[alexjeremy]

"Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here" so lets travel ! 

[artman]

From this distant vantage point, Kepler-186f might be just a dip in a light curve and might not seem of any particular interest but for its inhabitants it's different.

[sniper]

the telescope should send a msg to the planet saying "first" so aliens dont get an idea of living there

[STsixx]

Just adding to the list of things i'll never see in my lifetime lol

[pravinda]

500 light years ? Good luck getting there !

[adrianba]

so nasa is seeing these planets more than 500 years in the past?!
so not in the present?!

[nekochen]

500 light years... that would take approx. 10-15 million years by our current technology to get there.
If somehow, we do invent light-speed travel, that would still take us 500 years ... pretty unrealistic.

[Salmoyk]

Good work NASA  this  discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth. 

[facegamerz]

Wait until people say Back in the 2firsts we were in earth

[MrRickTheKiller]

Another Step for mankind towards a new Future a New TASK!!!