Exo Planet related questions

Report on an interesting exoplanet discovery that has taken place within the last two years and which has implications for the field of astrobiology. Be sure to summarize what is particularly significant about this discovery.

As the Kepler space telescope has been sent on its second or K2 mission of finding planets outside our solar systems almost 150,000 stars that are in our galaxy has been found. Moreover, the telescope uses transit model to find out about the exoplanets that are part of the solar system of those stars. This method used the dip in brightness when a planet crosses the star in the view of the telescope. So this is one method that relies on probability heavily.  Almost 4000 planets are found by the scientists till date and the 1000^th one just has been confirmed by the telescope in the 2016 January.

Among these planets there are some that are part of other solar systems that are vastly different than our sun. Although due to various reasons these planets exhibit the same characteristics as earth. The climate and structure and the materials are similar to the earth although the sizes of them vastly differ. These planets are far away some of them more than 1100 light-years away so there is no question of verifying if there is really similar life forms on the planets. So the astrobiology mostly depend on the simulation on whether these planets could sustain life or not. There are also 550 candidates of planets among which six are similar to earth in size and are in the habitable zones of the relevant solar systems. The discovered and confirmed planets also have the planets similar to earth and consistent rotation so that the climate of the planets are habitable (Nationalgeographic.com, 2016).

Two of the newly discovered planets Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b that are less than 1.5 time the size of earth. Among them the Kepler 438b is 475 light-years away and is 12% bigger than earth. And Kepler 442 b is 1100 light-years away and 33% bigger than earth. They are part of a solar system that have a sun much less hot than the earth’s sun so the habitable zones are much closer to the sun and for that reason the different planets are much faster while rotating their stars as they are closer to them and the orbit is smaller (NASA, 2016).

With each new discovery there are even more small planets that might host a similar suitable condition for life to thrive on the planet are found.   There is 90 % chance of the planet having water which is essential for life to exist and it has to be in liquid from. And the planets are made by rocky substance which is another essential factor. The most significant thing to note about this discovery is the small planets that are in the habitable zone in the solar system are also possibly able to sustain life. It is found that the planets number in the habitable zones of the stars are high and soon it will be discovered if the planets are able to sustain life or not.