Earth-Size Planet Found that Might Hold Liquid Water, University of Michigan
“In a dim and faraway solar system, astronomers have for the first time discovered a rocky, Earth-sized planet that might hold liquid water — a necessary ingredient for life as we know it.”
New Rocky Planet May Have Liquid Water, SFSU
“San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane and an international team of researchers have announced the discovery of a new rocky planet that could potentially have liquid water on its surface.”
NASA Hosts Media Teleconference to Announce Latest Kepler Discovery
“NASA will host a news teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, April 17, to announce a new discovery made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope. The journal Science has embargoed the findings until the time of the news conference.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

26 replies on “Big Kepler News Today: Earth Sized Planet – Possibly With Liquid Water”

  1. More planets maybe! Or a planet, since they just referred to it as a “discovery”.

    You often hear stuff about what these might be on before they go public. Any scuttlebutt?

    1. The scuttlebutt is NASA is pushing wild speculation about planet discovery as science.

      The only real data they have is dimming starlight. Everything else is theory and speculation.

        1. Oh do enlighten me. Where are the photos of this “discovered” planet 500 light years away? What real data do you have other than dimming starlight as proof of these claims?

          And please address my partial eclipse scenario which negates much of the speculation that follows from the actual data.

          Like I said, more science fiction than science.

          But these NASA boys need to keep the money flowing and stories about theories and speculation don’t get them taxpayer money.

          1. No one saw an atom, or an electron, when they were discovered. No one can see gravity either. Humans cannot see UV or IR light directly. You are just looking foolish. Find another website to troll.

      2. You act as if theory is inconsequential. I don’t think you understand what theory really means. I’d suggest you dig a lot deeper into this “dimming starlight” so that you can learn what the basis is for the measurements and its validation.

  3. Anyway it’s good news. By the rhythm of things, in a few years we will find a new Earth. Close to us.

  4. Yes, it’s going to be very exciting when they measure Nitrogen and Oxygen + H2O on Earth 2.0, just a matter of time. 5years? 10years?

    1. Oxygen does not naturally occur in planetary atmospheres, so it would be a confirmation of plant life.

      1. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. Do a web search on the phrase “abiotic oxygen atmospheres” to see why.

        1. If CO2 Cycles with the planet’s orbit like it does here, that would be smoking gun no?

          1. This is not my field at all, but your question makes me think about volcanism induced by tides, and other periodic but abiotic sources of CO2. If you search on the phrase extrasolar biosignatures, you’ll see there are a lot of papers on what might cause a false positive.

        2. An abiotic high-oxygen atmosphere requires a planet with a very low concentration of gasses other than water vapor in its atmosphere.

  6. This is all pure speculation. No telescope can see a planet outside of our solar system. And this star is 500 light years away.

    What they can see is the dimming of starlight from a distant star which they theorize happens when a planet passes between us and the star. They measure the dimming and extrapolate the size of object necessary to cause that much dimming.They can also determine the frequency of the dimming and estimate an orbit from that information.

    But this calculation ONLY works if the orbital path of the planet
    carries the entire planet between the star and us. What happens if the dimming observed is caused by a partial eclipse of the star by a larger body not in the exact same orbital plane as the observer? All the planetary size and habitable zone calculations go right out the window.

    I wish they would include these facts with any story like this about potential planetary discoveries. The rest is more science fiction than real science.

        1. No one saw an atom or an electron when they were discovered. You are just looking foolish. Find another website to troll.

    2. Rob, you might want to read up on the Doppler Effects, shift in light waves and star wobble to begin with. It’s a lot more than just ‘dimming’ light.

      1. I’d love to have an intelligent conversation on the subject.

        I’ve seen the lecture given by Dr. Natalie Batalha (NASA Ames Res. Ctr.) where they describe the process used by Kepler to search for planetary bodies.

        My 1st problem stems from the concept of an off angle ecliptic plane. If planet around a far off star is not aligned with the observer, you have the possibility that any observed dimming could be caused by a partial eclipse of the starlight, and thus give an an inaccurate reading when determining the mass of the object. We have examples of partial eclipses in our own system so this is hardly beyond the realm of possibility.

        The doppler shift caused by the back and forth tug between objects in a system could be the result of not only observed dimming objects, but unobserved objects not in the same ecliptic plane.

        Our own Pluto has an orbit that is offset from the rest of the planets, and its dimming of our sun could not be observed in the same ecliptic plane as the rest of the planets, but only at 2 points where it crosses the plane. Yet is there any doubt of the back and forth tug, however slight, between our sun and pluto?

        I also noticed that the graphs they made of the dimming light did not conform to what on would expect from a full planetary body transiting the surface. It seems logical that such a transit show a slow decrease in light, then flatline once the full body of the object was blocking the light and then reverse the process upon exiting the field of view. But instead of seeing what should be like a trapeziodal shape for the graph we see a crater. That would imply to me the exact scenario I suggest, that what is being observed is actually a larger body only partially eclipsing the light.

        Again I would love to have an educated discussion on the topic with anyone willing to engage.

        1. You need to take an astronomy course or talk to someone who knows what they are talking about before you post again on this topic. No more trolling.

    3. What happens if the dimming observed is caused by a partial eclipse of the star by a larger body not in the exact same orbital plane as the observer? All the planetary size and habitable zone calculations go right out the window.

      They would probably see that the dimming doesn’t act the same as if the whole planet crossed in front of the star. In the normal case, the light seen would ramp down a bit over a period, and then stay fairly constant at the lower level, and then ramp back up. In the case of a partial eclipse by a bigger object like you say, the light wouldn’t have the constant dimmer period in the middle of the dimming like if it passed fully in front of the star. The light would ramp down and then back up as the amount of the star-face area it covered would always vary.

      Edit: ~3:30 in the video you linked below. Graph would look different without the relatively flat period in the middle if it wasn’t a fully enclosed transit. I suspect the ramp down and ramp up wouldn’t be as steep as well.

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