Discovery of planet Kepler-452b : Earth 2.0 - Anonymous Informer

Earth 2.0: Kepler-452b

Have you ever wonder, there can be another habitable planet like earth. yes, there is a planet like earth, its name is Kepler-452b named after its star Kepler-452, it is also defined as Earth 2.0 and earth's cousin. 

Today we'll see how Kepler-452b is similar to earth. 

Discovery of Kepler-452b

Kepler-452b planet was discovered on July 23, 2015, by the Kepler space telescope sent by NASA on the Kepler Mission which is specifically designed to survey region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in Milky Way galaxy that might have such planets.

Characteristics of Kepler-452b planet

• Kepler-452b is 1,402 light-years away from earth, located in the Cygnus constellation. 
• It is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of G-2 type star.
• It is 60% larger in diameter than Earth, In other words, it is 1.6 times the size of the earth.
• The mass and composition of Kepler-452b are not yet determined, research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.
• Its star is 10% larger and 3.7% massive than our sun with a temperature of 5757 K. 
• It has 385 days in a year with an orbital radius of 1.04AU. 
• It is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun.
• Its surface gravity is twice as earth's. 
• it is estimated that it has more active volcanoes than earth due to its higher density and mass. 
• The cloud on the planet would be thick and misty. 
• It has an equilibrium temperature of 265 K (−8 °C; 17 °F), a little warmer than Earth. 
• Kepler-452b is most likely not tidally locked and has a circular orbit.
• Its host star, Kepler-452, is about 20% more luminous than the Sun. 

Exploration of Kepler-452b

Kepler-452b is 1402 light-years (8.2 × 10^15 miles) away from earth. With current technology, with the fastest current spacecraft, the New Horizons unmanned probe that travels at just 56,628 km/h. At that speed, it would take a spacecraft about 26 million years to reach Kepler-452b from Earth.

Ryan Weed from Positron Dynamics suggests that with a spacecraft accelerating at a constant 1 g up to a velocity of 0.99995 c and due to time dilation we could reach Kepler-452b in 12 years, although from Earth perspective more than 1,400 years would have passed.

Habitability of Kepler-452b

Based on its small radius, Kepler-452b is likely to be rocky. It is not clear if Kepler-452b offers habitable environments. It orbits a G2V-type star, like the Sun, which is 20% more luminous, with nearly the same temperature and mass of our sun. However, the star is 6.5 billion years old, making it 1.9 billion years older than the Sun. At this point in its star's evolution, Kepler-452b is receiving 10% more energy from its parent star than Earth is currently receiving from the Sun. If Kepler-452b is a rocky planet, it may be subject to a runaway greenhouse effect similar to that seen on Venus. However, due to the planet being 60% bigger than Earth, it is likely to have an estimated mass of 5 M, which could allow it to hold on to any oceans it may have for a longer period, preventing Kepler-452b from succumbing to runaway greenhouse effect for another 500 million years. This, in turn, would be accompanied by the carbonate–silicate cycle being "buffered" extending its lifetime due to increased volcanic activity on Kepler-452b. This could allow any potential life on the surface to inhabit the planet for another 500–900 million years before the habitable zone is pushed out of Kepler-452b's orbit.

Disclaimer: Data here is compiled from various sources and by our own research. These data can be approximate and Anonymous Informer does not make any claims about the authenticity of the data.