Kepler 22B - A super-Earth
About the Kepler Mission
NASA’s Kepler mission focused on identifying solar planets by analyzing the sun revolved by the planets. It identified number of planets inside the potential habitable zone of various stars. It was designed to focus only on the Milky Way galaxy region. One of the many planets it identified was Kepler 22B.
More on Kepler Mission
Kepler Mission’s idea and concept is one of the most fascinating one. The idea of finding exoplanets in another system within the galaxy is exciting but what is more impressive is the concept of identifying a planet. To understand, let’s start with our Earth itself.
For another planet or another alien life to identify planets in our system, there is a pattern that can be followed. Each planet in our solar system, revolves around one star, the Sun. Similar concept was used by NASA for Kepler mission. The first part of the project was identifying a large sample of starts and analyzing them for exoplanets that revolved around them.
Kepler mission had certain goals that it wanted to achieve:
Identify planets in the habitable zone of their stars.
Understand the path of the orbits of the planets that it identified.
Understand the structure of the starts that had planets orbiting it.
Unfortunately, the Kepler mission ended on 2013 after the second of four wheels on the spacecraft died. In May 2013, Kepler mission was closed.
On the side here, we see Kepler Missions field of view. This follows the idea of how the Kepler Mission worked. When we view stars or planets from Earth, we look at them through the idea of a transit or it’s movement around the star. From Earth, we can see certain planets’ transit by looking at a tiny black dot in the Sun. This similar concept was used for Kepler Mission to identify other exoplanets by looking at their stars.
In addition, once an exoplanet was identified, its size could be determine by analyzing how long it will take to go around the star. A larger planet will take more time compared to a smaller planet.
About the Kepler 22B
At the early stage of Kepler Mission, the scientists were able to find their first exoplanet within the habitable zone. NASA first announced the finding in December 2011 and identified it to be the first planet in the “habitable zone”.
Notable features
After the initial finding on 2011, NASA conducted several researches about Kepler 22B to identify important information regarding the exoplanet. The topic of the researches included were but not limited to: the structure of the planet, what it is made out of (liquid water, vapor, or rocky surface) and if it had an atmosphere or not.
In 2013, NASA released results that were promising and identified it as one of the most promising habitable exoplanets discovered by the Kepler mission. According to it NASA:
The research provided evidence that the surface of the planet was covered with liquid water and also contained jet stream.
It also seemed to have some form of atmosphere because the satellite was able to detect cloud formations on the planet.
Our earth takes 365 days to revolve around the Sun, Kepler 22B took 290 days to revolve around its star.
These informations provided helpful information and also provided evidence that there is a chance this exoplanet currently sustains some form of life. However, the planet is 620 million years ago.