NASA has found a "new Earth":
A newly discovered planet is eerily similar to Earth and is sitting outside our solar system in what seems to be the ideal place for life, except for one hitch. It’s a bit too big.
The planet is smack in the middle of what astronomers call the Goldilocks zone, that hard to find place that’s not too hot, not too cold, where water, which is essential for life, doesn’t freeze or boil. And it has a shopping mall-like surface temperature of near 72 degrees, scientists say.
The new planet — named Kepler-22b — has key aspects it shares with Earth. It circles a star that could be the twin of our sun and at just about the same distance. The planet’s year of 290 days is even close to ours. It likely has water and rock.
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The planet is 600 light years away. Each light year is 5.9 trillion miles. It would take a space shuttle about 22 million years to get there.
Read the entire article here
PS
Congrulations to NASA. Hopefully NASA did not use James Hansen to measure the "shopping mall-like temperature of near 72". On the other hand, we would all benefit if Hansen from now on would switch to fighting "global warming" on Kepler-22b.
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