The Kepler announcement came through today, and it's a doozy: scientists have discovered the first potentially habitable planet!
It is QUITE far from earth, 490 light years - which is a measure of distance, not time. A light year simply means the distance light travels in one year, which is just under 6 TRILLION miles - that's 6,000,000,000,000. The sun is 8 light minutes from the earth, so this is 63,000 times farther away than our own sun.
But it's in the habitable zone! Scientists have calculated that liquid water can only exist on planets within a narrow range of orbit - as far as we know, liquid water is necessary for life. And this planet's star is the right age and brightness to make life possible, in addition to the similar gravity that it has.
Do you have any questions? Please participate in the comments, I'd be happy to clarify anything for you...
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