Newly discovered planet 'Kepler-22b' is eerily similar to Earth, NASA finds

Originally posted by mblahnikluver

Originally posted by TheOven
I think we should start shooting missiles at it now.

Just in case

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

Why do you want to shoot missiles at another planet? Not that it would even reach it....

Just in case? How about if there is life there they should worry about us since we like to invade everything and claim it our own. Why not just leave the planet alone?


OP I look forward to finding out more information on this find! The Universe is one huge place, the possibilities are endless!

I believe that was sarcasm - it's funny because the US government's probably already launched the missiles

So if they have found this planet which is like earth and they can see its like earth and its 600 thats 600 light years away,surely they can see if there is life on it by zooming in abit closer.

reply to post by jademegjosh


they can't see it. They know its radius and how long its orbit is though

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
Whoopty doo...

....Has NASA discovered WARP Drive yet ???.....nope !!

May as well be on the other side of the Universe....we will never get there.

All you alien hunters...yes there is life.....BUT...the distances are so vast any form of contact, past or present are out of the question.

Another pointless NASA exercise.

Cosmic..

What a stupid way of looking at things Don't know if you are like this just to be different, but its annoying. We know that we are not going to be able to get there, but the more of these planets they find, then in the near future, we will have a great chance to find out if they have life on some of these planets, which would be amazing, regardless if we can get there or not.

But you think that is a waste of time?

If we all thought like you, then we would still be in the dark ages.

Originally posted by Irish614
Makes you wonder if it's an alternate earth dimension or maybe even Terra Nova haha 600 light years away, so it would take us 600 years to reach it? How did we discover it via telescope?

Seeing as how the speed of light is roughly 186 thousand miles per SECOND, it would take us far more time than 600 years to reach it. 600 light years would imply that light was traveling at a speed of 186 thousand (that's 186000) miles every second for a duration of 600 years here on Earth.

This shows that it takes light 600 years to reach us from the planet Kepler-22b, making it hardly possible to travel there ourselves in 600 years. Even the quickest moving launch from earth was a mere 35,800 mph. 35,800 miles per HOUR holds no ground against 186000 miles per SECOND.

To answer your second question, we found the light through the telescope. Then we measured to light coming from the planet until we had enough data to verify an orbit.

"only" 600 light years?

It boggles my mind to even think about distances that great.

reply to post by Vortiki


Wow that's amazing stuff. Thanks for the reply. Now, I wonder if there is any time in space?

reply to post by merkej23


Whats really kinda errie about this is that there is a movie called "Another Earth" that came out recenty. Now thats a odd coincidnce huh?

Originally posted by Irish614
Makes you wonder if it's an alternate earth dimension or maybe even Terra Nova haha 600 light years away, so it would take us 600 years to reach it? How did we discover it via telescope?

600 years if we could travel at light speed that is.

reply to post by DaRAGE


I concur completely . And honestly not to go off topic, but, sweet mother of god in heaven above, you f*cking signature U2U me, I cannot even...just, please

We do not need to visit to explore.

In a few years time (less than 600 anyway - i would have thought), we will have telescopes powerful enough to image the planet directly.

At that point the light can be analysed (600 years in the past) to determine the the presence (or not) of elements that point to industrial processes, water, etc.

Not sure how long it will take though to have a telescope that powerful?

Link for more info from JPL:

planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov...


and from NASA:

reply to post by UKTruth


Hi UKTruth, the goal is to eventually analyse light from the planets but we will only be able to do that for planets within 100 light years. Kepler is looking at stars between 500 - 3000 light years away so we wont be getting the atmosphere data from those any time soon.

we need to wait for the kepler results to see what sort of mission is needed to detect & analyse other "earths" around stars nearby.