Has Nasa found a new Earth? Astronomer discovers first same-sized planet
The hunt for alien life has been given a boost after scientists discovered a habitable planet almost the same size as Earth. Astronomer Thomas Barclay from Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California made the discovery using data collected by the Kepler space telescope. The unnamed planet was found orbiting an unidentified star in its so-called Goldilocks zone – a region around the star that emits just enough energy, light and temperature for liquid surface water to appear. Mr Barclay made the announcement during the Search for Life Beyond the Solar System conference in Arizona. Using the Kepler images, Mr Barclay said he believes he has found a new star system consisting of five planets orbiting an M1 dwarf star. M dwarfs are stars that are much smaller and dimmer than Earth’s sun, and aren’t bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. Also known as red dwarfs, these stars make up around 70 per cent of all the stars in the galaxy and range in size. By comparison, our sun is called a G dwarf, and these type of dwarfs account for only 5 per cent of stars in the universe. The outermost planet in Barclay’s five-planet system is said to be 1.1 times the size of Earth and is called a goldilocks planet because it orbits within the M1 dwarf’s habitable zone.
Although other Earth-like planets have been discovered previously, Barclay’s unnamed goldilocks planet is believed to be the closest in size to our own. Nasa’s Kepler mission launched in 2009 with the sole purpose of hunting for Earth-like planets. It discovered a planetary system last April that featured Earth-size planets in an ‘habitable zone. ’Dubbed Kepler-62 system, it has five planets in total called 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. Kepler-62f is about 1.4 times the size of Earth, while Kepler-62e is estimated to be 1.6 times larger. Both planets are thought to be rocky, or made mostly of ice, and until now were believed to be the most likely to be Earth ‘doubles’. No other details about Mr Barclay’s discovery have been announced and the official findings are due to be released later this year. Nasa’s Kepler space telescope has detected almost 3,000 candidate planets outside our solar system – a fifth of which are believed to be ‘super-Earths’ between 1.25 and twice the size of the Earth.
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http://www.techodrom.com/etc/nasa-found-new-earth-astronomer-discovers-first-sized-planet/
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there is a good bit of discussion about quantum theory and the background about it, what it's implications are for the universe, and I have to say, I've really found my interest is waxing in science fiction and stories taking place on other planets, lol. 
