Photos: A look at NASA's discovery of Earth 2.0

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Photos: A look at NASA’s discovery of Earth 2.0

By Lyndsey Gilpin July 27, 2015, 11:57 AM PDT

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Photos: A look at NASA’s discovery of Earth 2.0

Kepler solar system

Image: NASA

Kepler solar system

Kepler-452b orbits a star that is much like the Sun and resides in the Kepler-186 solar system. The planet itself is about “60% larger than Earth, with a surface gravity 2x that of Earth, and a slightly better than even chance of being a rocky planet, with an atmosphere likely thicker than Earth’s, and possibly with active volcanoes,” states NASA. It has a 385 day orbit, which means it’s a distance from its main star that is suitable for the existence of liquid water as well.

Image: NASA

Kepler's habitable zone planets

Image: NASA

Kepler's habitable zone planets

There were 12 planet discoveries in Kepler that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in the habitable zone of their star. In this diagram, the sizes of the planets are represented by the size of the sphere.

Image: NASA

Kepler spacecraft

Image: NASA

Kepler spacecraft

An artist’s rendition of the Kepler spacecraft from 2011. Kepler is NASA’s exoplanet-hunting spacecraft. The data it gathered to find Kepler 452b was collected between 2008 and 2013.

Image: NASA

Another older sun

Image: NASA

Another older sun

Kepler-452b’s star is about 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It has nearly the same temperature and mass as our sun, but this one is 6 billion years old — 1.5 billion years older than ours. This diagram shows the 12 habitable planets in the zone and how much energy they receive from the stars nearest them.

Image: NASA

Kepler-452b vs. Earth

Image: NASA

Kepler-452b vs. Earth

This illustration shows Earth on the left, compared to Kepler-452b on the right. NASA states on its website: “The illustration represents one possible appearance for Kepler-452b — scientists do not know whether the planet has oceans and continents like Earth.”

Image: NASA

The planet-hunting spacecraft

Image: NASA

The planet-hunting spacecraft

This is a more updated view of the Kepler spacecraft from July 20, 2015. The mission profile is called K2, and used publicly available data to find the exoplanets.

Image: NASA

Size of the planets

Image: NASA

Size of the planets

From left: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, the just announced Kepler-452b, Kepler-62f and Kepler-186f, and then Earth.

Image: NASA

By Lyndsey Gilpin

Lyndsey Gilpin is a former Staff Writer for TechRepublic, covering sustainability and entrepreneurship. She's co-author of the book Follow the Geeks.

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