NASA Scientists discover ‘Second Earth’ outside the Solar System, is Life possible?

It is cognisance of the fact that there are billions of galaxies in the vast universe. However, according to scientists’ theory, Earth is the only place where life exists and this is why it makes this planet a class apart from most other planets in the universe.

Meanwhile, a group of NASA scientists discovered a planet which is quite similar to Earth. Yes, no kidding. The scientists have discovered a new Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting far away outside the solar system which is around 300 lightyears away from Earth.

Credits: NASA

Scientists have named the planet Kepler-1649c. The planet is the most similar to Earth in its size including the surface temperature. It is only 1.6 times larger than our home and it received 75 percent of starlight from the sun which indicates that the temperature on the planet will not be much different from ours.

Nonetheless, the significant difference is that unlike Earth, the newly discovered planet orbits a red dwarf and NASA scientists hint that this kind of star is known for a sudden outburst and hence it could make much difficult for life to live on the planet.

As per Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, “This intriguing, distant world gives us even greater hope that a second Earth lies among the stars, waiting to be found.”

He further added, “The data gathered by missions like Kepler and our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will continue to yield amazing discoveries as the science community refines its abilities to look for promising planets year after year.”

According to Andrew Vanderburg, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and also lead author of the study, “Out of all the mislabeled planets we’ve recovered, this one’s particularly exciting – not just because it’s in the habitable zone and Earth-size, but because of how it might interact with this neighbouring planet. If we hadn’t looked over the algorithm’s work by hand, we would have missed it.”