Scientists have discovered and confirmed the most Earth-like planet yet using the Kepler Space Telescope, offering hope of life elsewhere and of a future for the handicapped spacecraft.
Boulder-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. built Kepler for NASA and still runs its operations in space, with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
This newly found planet, named Kepler-186f, was discovered orbiting its star in the habitable zone, also known as the Goldilocks zone, where it’s neither too hot nor too cold for life.
Whereas other Goldilocks planet discoveries were at least 40 percent larger than Earth, Kepler-186f is within 10 percent of Earth’s size.
“We know Earth is special because it had the right distance (to its star) and size,” said Elisa Quintana, research scientist at the SETI Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “Kepler-186f is now the closest planet in size to Earth in the habitable zone of another star.”
The researchers say planets similar in size to Earth are likely to be rocky. “It’s likely that Kepler-186f is also composed of some portion of iron, rock and ice,” Quintana said.
Scientists call Kepler-186f, which is 500 light-years away, a “cousin” planet to Earth since it rotates around a different category of star that is dimmer and cooler than Earth’s sun.
Planet-hunting Kepler launched in 2009 and has identified more than 3,800 possible planets, 966 of them confirmed.
But after Kepler completed its primary mission phase last spring, the second of four wheels that control the directional aim of the high-powered telescope malfunctioned
. This rendered Kepler static, but left its powerful capabilities intact.
Kepler team members and other researchers have devised a plan — now called K2, or Kepler Two-Wheel — that outlines many other scientific uses for the spacecraft. The proposal is asking NASA to allocate $32 million to K2 for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
Thursday’s announcement by the Kepler team could bolster the chances of the proposal to the space agency winning approval.
“The senior review committee is looking at all the missions up there and deciding which to continue funding,” Ball’s Kepler program manager John Troeltzsch said.
The characteristics of Kepler-186f, namely the category of star it orbits, make the discovery significant, he said.
“It’s good news for K2 and I also think its good for Kepler,” he said. “Kepler is proving again that it can see very small signals.”
Kristen Leigh Painter: 303-954-1638, kpainter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kristenpainter
