In the Goldilocks zone of our galaxy, N.A.S.A’s Kepler Space Telescope discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. In the Cygnus constellation, Kepler-186f is around 500 light-years away from Earth. The region of space surrounding a star where planetary-mass objects with appropriate atmospheric pressure can maintain liquid water on their surfaces is known as the habitable zone, commonly referred to as the Goldilocks zone.
This is the first Earth-sized planet discovered in another star’s habitable zone, despite the fact that there are thought to be at least 40 billion planets the size of Earth orbiting our Milky Way Galaxy.
In addition to Kepler-186f, the Kepler-186f system contains four more planets that orbit a neighbouring star. This indicates that if the planet’s neighbouring star is similar to our Sun, the possibility of life on this planet increases enormously.
“We know of only one planet on which life may exist – Earth.” “When we seek for life outside our solar system, we focus on finding planets with traits similar to Earth,” said Elisa Quintana, research scientist at N.A.S.A’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and main author of the work published in the journal Science. “Discovering a habitable zone planet the size of Earth is a significant breakthrough.”
Kepler-186f’s nearby star has half the mass and size of our solar system’s Sun and receives only one-third of the energy that we do. Kepler-186f orbits its star every 130 days.
