E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
An artist's conception shows the rocky planet Kepler-10b
NASA's Kepler spacecraft has detected a rocky planet that's one of the closest analogs to Earth — except for the fact that it's way too close to its sun.
Rocky worlds have been detected around alien stars before, but Kepler-10b is the first of what's expected to be hundreds of Earth-scale planets found by the Kepler mission. It's too hot to sustain life as we know it, but it buoys hopes for finding other Earths and "super-Earths" that may be more habitable.
Natalie Batalha, an astronomer from San Jose State University who is part of the discovery team, said Kepler-10b is a "scorched world." The temperatures on the planet's sun-facing side would be 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius), almost hot enough to melt iron. Temperatures on the dark side would be too chilly for life, and Batalha said there was no chance that the planet could hold onto an atmosphere.
Kepler-10b's diameter is 1.4 times that of Earth, and its mass is 4.6 times Earth's, Batalha said. That makes it one of the smallest worlds ever found in a distant planetary system like our own. But if Kepler-10b were in our own solar system, it would orbit more than 20 times closer to the sun than Mercury — so close that it makes a complete orbit in just a little more than 20 hours.
Geoffrey Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley who is one of the pioneers in the effort to detect planets beyond our solar system, said the discovery "will be marked as among the most profound scientific discoveries in human history." Marcy explained that Kepler-10b served as a "planetary missing link" between the giant planets that dominate the list of more than 500 distant worlds found to date, and the Earth-size worlds that scientists hope to find in the future.
The find was reported today at the American Astronomical Socyty's winter meeting in Seattle, and a research paper on the discovery has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
How the world was found
The $600 million Kepler mission, launched in March 2009, looks for distant planets by staring at a patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. What it's looking for is the faint dimming of starlight that's produced regularly when a planet passes over the bright disk of the star it orbits. Kepler is monitoring 150,000 stars for those telltale signals, and in principle, it should be able to find Earthlike planets in Earthlike orbits around sunlike stars.
Kepler-10b, circling a star 560 light-years from Earth, was one of the mission's first good candidates for an Earth-scale planet. Its signature showed up in data collected while the spacecraft was being commissioned for science operations, just a couple of months after launch. Scientists collected eight months' worth of readings pointing to Kepler-10b's existence, but they needed to confirm that the planet was really there and get a better estimate of its mass and size.
For the planet's mass, they turned to the W.M. Keck Observatory's 10-meter telescope in Hawaii. The Keck telescope detected the right pattern of tiny wobbles in the movement of the parent star — which is similar to the mass and size of the sun but is more than 8 billion years old (as opposed to the 4.6 billion-year age of the sun).
To confirm the planet's size, astronomers had to figure out the width of the parent star. They resorted to analyzing high-frequency oscillations in the star's brightness that are caused by "starquakes." The oscillations can serve as an indication of how big the star is, just as the pitch of a pipe organ's musical note could be used to estimate the size of the pipe making that tone.
Batalha said the size of the star could be determined to an accuracy of 4 to 6 percent. The researchers combined that measurement with the others to confirm the planet's mass and size as well as its density.
"All of our very best capabilities have converged on this one result," she said.
Where Kepler-10b fits
The Kepler team reported that the exoplanet's density is 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter, which is far denser than Earth's 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter. Batalha said the best explanation for that density is that Kepler-10b is a rocky planet like Earth, only bigger. However, Kepler-10b's proximity to its star means that it would look nothing like Earth. The heat might well be blasting away rock, sending flurries of debris into space. She said mountains wouldn't have much chance to rise up, but canyons could be carved into the planet's surface by flowing lava.
Batalha recalled that a century ago, astronomers were looking for a planet that might orbit our own sun within Mercury's orbit, known as Vulcan. "The thing that came to me is, wow, this is our planet Vulcan," she said.
A couple of years ago, a European planet-hunting probe called CoRoT detected a similar "lava planet," which has been designated CoRoT-7b. That planet is thought to be a little larger than Kepler-10b (1.8 times as wide as Earth, vs. 1.4 for Kepler-10b), and Batalha said there were still some uncertainties surrounding CoRoT-7b's size estimate. Uncertainties also surround the reported discovery of an Earth-scale planet known as Gliese 581g.
Berkeley's Marcy said the Kepler find would likely "go into textbooks" around the world, due in part to the innovations that were used to nail down the planet's vital statistics. But there's more to come: Batalha said that there might be yet another planet in the Kepler-10 system with an orbital period of 45 days. Those observations still had to be confirmed, she emphasized.
She also noted that the Kepler mission has turned up more than 300 other yet-to-be-confirmed planet candidate, with most of them thought to be smaller than Neptune. More revelations are likely to come to light in February, when the next big batch of Kepler data is due to be released. Although Kepler-10b may be a milestone, it's by no means the end of the road for planet-hunters.
"The discovery of Kepler 10-b is a significant milestone in the search for planets similar to our own," Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said today in a news release. "Although this planet is not in the habitable zone, the exciting find showcases the kinds of discoveries made possible by the mission and the promise of many more to come."
More about the planet quest:
- Interactive: The search for other worlds
- Looking for alien Earths? Here they come
- Rare exoplanet has twin 'Star Wars' sunset
Correction: Ugh, did I really say two hours per orbit? I meant 20 hours, or 0.84 Earth days. These conversions always get me in trouble. Sorry about that.
Update for 3:35 p.m. ET Jan. 11: Kepler researcher Natalie Batalha told me that the research paper on this discovery lists the Kepler-10 star's age as 11.9 billion years, plus or minus 4 billion years. Some reports have gone with the 11.9 billion-year figure, but Batalha prefers to say that the star is "more than 8 billion years old," and so that's what I'm going with.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" our Facebook page, or by following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@boyle).
Leave a Comment:
Orbits in less than a day. Shouldn't that be close to the stellar atmosphere? Just thinking that with solar winds (stellar winds?) that it should be losing it's orbit and should crash and burn at some point.
@TonyInDallas,
They infer most of it from the planet's orbital period. It really whizzes around very fast. They can see it because it is so close to its sun and occults it, periodically blocking out a tiny bit of starlight. When it's really close, the system's plane is not as important because as much as 30 degrees of planar inclination can still result in some occultation.
But It is beginning to look like the various masses and sizes fall out pretty much as they do in our planetary system. So far we only get to see the gas giants because they are so big and whizzers that are very close to the sun because they occult often enough to be spotted. The ones in a more Earth-like orbit and size are too small to be seen currently and unless the system's plane is exactly aimed at Earth, they do not occult.
And the more things tend to fall out like they do in out solar system, the more likely that there are extremely Earth-like planets that have both liquid water and an atmosphere. And the more Earth-like planets, the more the chance for life in some form. And the more life in some form the higher the chance that there is intelligent life at this time in the planet's evolution.
I initially wrote two hours per orbit, which is incredibly fast. It's actually 20 hours... in my haste to convert I added an extra zero to the decimal places and didn't take time out for a reality check. Sorry about the error.
On the other hand, an argument can be made for light pressure pushing it outward over long periods...
Yes Tony, it will, but with a mass as large as it has, it will take quite a while.
Come on, Alan! I'm trying to keep myself calm as we approach the next Kepler data release, and here you go getting me all wound up and excited again!
Seriously though, I've read that there is a Kepler public data release on January 15th. This release is for the 400 low-radii candidates (withheld from the 1.04.2010 release) that needed further research. Do I have that right? If that is correct, I would think that these candidates with "low-radii" would be particularly intriguing to those of us who hope Kepler will identify true Earth-like, habitable candidates (probably within subsequent data releases).
Also, does anyone know when the next big public release of Kepler data is scheduled? The results released on 1.4.2010 were for short-period planet candidates. I'm itching for the "1 orbit ~ 1 Earth year" data set.
Oops! From the article: The next big batch of data is set for release in February. I'd still like to know what types of candidates will be included in that release.
If this is what scientist say is close than I am even more convinced God created only one earth. Even if you had an identical planet to Earth in the identical position from an identical star there are still millions of factors needed before life could exist. A couple biggies Axis tip to protect earth from solar radiation, Big bro Jupiter to catch asteroids
"Millions of factors", doubtful. I'm not opposed to a rare-Earth hypothesis necessarily, but we're not looking for an exact replica of Earth, just conditions for life. If the conditions make life possible, life will find a way to flourish, just ask the arsenic microbes in California. Or you can just ask your god (lower case G), I'm sure he has all the answers you'll ever need.
even with 'millions' of factors, remember the "bagadazillions" of probabilities that there is one like ours.
i.e., billions of galaxies (so far) in SIGHT, and billions of stars in each one, and recently updated by a factor of 4 according to one story on here.
Really, RDH? Every time a science story indicates we are closer to finding an earth-like planet, you see it as evidence that this is THE ONE?
Doncha think that's a bit of a backwards look at things?
[discovery of Kepler-10b] "will be marked as among the most profound scientific discoveries in human history."
maybe...maybe not. totally world-view dependent. If the universe is a self-assembled, purposeless, "lucky artifact" of nature I would agree. This could end up supporting the "see...we told you...nothing special about earth" argument. If on the other hand, there is design and purpose behind the universe and the life in it, this discovery ends up being as trivial as...say...the fact that amino acids exist.
I have to agree with you. scientists baffle me sometimes, shouldn't they know that the position of the earth, everything about where we are in this universe, everything that the earth is, is in fact what sustains life. to find another planet like this one or even one that can sustain us is impossible, it will be lacking in a number of things if it is not THE EARTH. I'm sure they know this but they carry on this wild goose chase. I'm just interested because i admire the beauty of these creations but not for one second am i blind to think there's another planet like or similar to earth and that we'll get to live there someday. It's just a waste of people's money really. I sorely believe in a creator, those who don't should ask themselves why we "we evolved" which we didn't, on the earth and not mars etc.
I'm honestly a little split on this. I believe in one God and that He created our earth and man in His image, however when were we ever told that He gave us the WHOLE story? The discoveries of these scientist are truly amazing and it's spectacular how the data can be analyzed to conclude the existence of a planet and its details. But I believe what these scientist are discovering are all of Gods creations, and I'm not certain that God ever revealed the full extent of His work beyond our world. I could be off base here, as I'm not well versed in detailed biblical studies. However, is it possible God created planets similar to ours? Obviously this is a can of worms no priest would ever want to open, but I think the question has merit. If He did, I don't think it's coincidence that these worlds are several light years away and that physics limits our capabilities of traveling vast distances in space within reasonable, human friendly, time frames.
@ CreigC, nice on pointing out you don't feel the need to capitalize. Classy move.
I am also a believer but I see all of the discoveries that science brings as evidence of a greater history of the universe than my faith nor man's science can articulate on their own. My faith is not diminished by science nor is my great interest in scientific discovery diminshed by my faith. There is obviously a lot of grey matter that is still out there waiting to be explained.
Problem is...
Kepler-10b, circling a star 560 light-years from Earth...
We can chat about this until the cows come home but it won't make any difference...not now, not 100 yrs from now, not 1,000 yrs from now. We cannot tell if they have a moon, tilt, water, atmosphere...very important for life as we know it...but above all else...THEY'RE TOO DAMN FAR AWAY!!! Even the closest star is TOO DAMN FAR AWAY!!!
I'm not for pulling all funding for this kind of thing but I prefer my tax dollars go towards things that affect us on this planet. We barely know squat about the oceans. Let's pour money (pardon the punn) into it...
Manned interplanetary missions may be possible in the next 20-50 yrs, albeit extremely difficult and dangerous...but interstellar? No way possible. I believe Einstein proved that one...
Don't get me wrong, I like the show but I also believe folks have watched too much "Star Trek"...
Sorry...should of proofed better.
barely know squat
Like a double-negative, I suppose. Should have said..."barely know anything" or "know squat"
Ah the hubris of man, that a god must be created to have created him. I am of the opinion that we could not be the only planet that sustains life. There are simply too many chances for it to happen elsewhere.
I hope in the future when the human race starts inhabiting these worlds that only the reasonable and logical people are allowed to call them home. We don't need to export our sick religious beliefs to a new world, we see what it does here and we cannot allow it to fester.
WELL said my friend, VERY well said.
Religion is part of the problem. It is meant to be this thing that unites all of us but for some reason it hasn't and its not religion's fault, it's people. If you think the world would be a better place to live without religion though i suggest you look at so some figures or research khmer rouge or the widely known nazi regime. There is one simple fact which is that human beings think they know everything, they can solve everything but all they can seem to bring about is havoc and war etc. Not to bust you bubble but if and i say if because i'm sure it won't be the case but if a planet is found that can supposedly sustain us, i dare the leaders of that expedition to do without religion and see what happens, you'll find out what it's like to live in a world where people don't have a moral compass. atleast now people's compasses sort of point north.
The Giant Invisible Flying Spagetti Monster said "it is so".......
And to think, people have never been slain in the name of religion...
I'll say this, if you think you need an invisible authority figure to keep your "moral compass" in check then you're part of the problem.
And to think, people have never been slain in the name of atheism either...
It's a two way street.
But counter-examples mean nothing. Creating a spotlight fallacy about religion based on the Crusades and such is completely illogical. As is your blatant example of hasty generalization, composition, and (as it relates to this article), a straw man and a red herring.
Hmm...and I thought atheists and logic/reason went hand in hand.
You keep on blaming religion on all the problems of the world but Loughner was an atheist. I'm not saying there aren't a lot of religious nut balls out there, I'm just saying that they don't need religion to be crazy.
Oh, you misunderstand me, I suppose I should have clarified. My post was in response to:
Which at that point, my post merely points out the fallacy in that statement.
I notice you both sidestepped the second part of my post, which is far more important.
May HE bless you with his noodley appendage.
Ramen
I do think humans need God to keep their moral compass. have you read lord of the flies, if not i think you should, if you look past the obvious, you'll see that human beings can't successfully govern themselves without something going wrong. If there was no law against murder the majority of people would give in to their daily urges without thought atleast now you think about what you have to loose, is it worth it, before you go out and kill that co-worker that's got on your nerves for the past 5 years etc. I won't go too much into but two main points why i made that first statement, 1. humans NEED a leader(s) hence why we have governments, it helps to maintain a sense of order as pose to chaos that would ensue without police or judges etc. 2. Human leader(s) can't successfully unite mankind just religion has failed to do. I don't need to explain this if you want to refute this just name one just one leader in the last 50 or even 100 years whose managed to unite mankind or i'll make it easy unite an entire country, by that i mean no wars, corruption, class distinction (rich/poor) etc. I believe only God can bring such a thing about but hey be my guest and test this out like i said before on whichever planet you find, it'll be just like lord of the flies i can promise you that
Alan, you seem very knowledgeable about all this stuff that i love so much on here. i've never known your credentials. if you have the time and energy could you post them for me? thanks!
never mind Alan. i just found what i was looking for right under my nose. (left nostril to be specific) lol
DOH!!!
another correction ... ?
11.9 Billion years old as opposed to our sun's 4 and one half.
Hmm, no, I can change it to "more than 8 billion years," but I don't know where you're getting the 11.9 billion years (other than Wikipedia).
Now I have it figured out... The research paper on the results says that the star's age is estimated at 11.9 billion years, plus or minus 4 billion years. That's a large error range (and the star really can't be older than 13.7 billion years or so), but to play it safe, the researchers have been saying that the star is more than 8 billion years old. I've tried to clarify this up in the item itself.
Alan,
Thanks for an enjoyable article; I enjoy reading anything about the ongoing revelations we are finding in our universe. God has allowed us an incredible universe in which to live, and it's fun and fascinating to watch as we discover more about it all the time.
So you finally found planet Vulcan.
Was Spock home?
Good news article, but a little down hearting! But no cigar, without a planet like Earth! So, that just leaves over a TRILLION SYSTEMS to check! Maybe, if we stick a better telescope out away from Earth or move HUBBLE farther out in its orbit, that just might speed the cosmic search up a bit! Listen to the wind, listen to the sound of the last trumpet, then the people disappear! These are the things which shall be here after!
Astronomy is one of my main hobbies, love star gazing, love science. Great article. Thank you. I also really enjoy the CGI that allows us to see a representation of these objects. Great stuff! Much better, then a simple description or a painting. Which was the case when I first became interested in this stuff. Now we get real-time representations that really shows the objects to the fullest. Almost like being there.
Heres to the future!
wow, looking for earth like planets, why? It will be thousands of years before we could ever have the technology to go there. And be sides, even if we find another earthlike planet, we would only exploit it and do to it what we are doing to this planet. So why waist the time and tax money? WE realy should worrie about this planet first, and the life here, because our time is running short. With all the things going on on this planet you would think that our problems should come first. As it stands the only people that will benifit from space exploration will be big buisnesses, not the whole of Humanity..
As a hugh fan of exploring space, I find info like this facinating and wondrous. But as a race I fear we just aren't ready for such things as traveling to other worlds. Perhaps we should try to put our own world in order before we worry about traveling to other worlds...
Just a thought...
doncat & warthog213:
I agree that our days of star flight may be far off but without human wonder and the need to figure everything out and the intrinsic desire to explore and discover where would we be as a people. Human ingenuity has led to many new technologies that have revolutionized they way we live and do things. Who knows when someone will develope a technology that will lead to space flight and colonization.
There is an immediate need to get our house in order here on Earth but we cannot stifle scientific experimentation anymore than could/should we stifle artistic experimentation.
Thou I am curious about exoplanets, I have to agree that the money spent searching for them can be used for better purposes. Even if we found another Earth-like planet..we'd never be able to get there. That's all I have to say
Really interesting too bad its not habitable for life being too close to the sun ,but it look's really interesting in the picture hears hoping they'll find more planets like it soon must agree humans just aren't ready for space travell yet they can't manage thier own lifes and responsibilites no less the whole of spaces...
Even with billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, with gadzillions of possibilities of there being an Earth-like planet, the Probability still cannot exceed 1 (one)! And that is the best possible result we can hope for. Please, keep looking, it is so very important!
Its extremely important, unless you think the Earth can continue to sustain our population growth. It will not, no matter how much recycling we do, no matter how many green efforts we put forth to reduce emissions, no matter how many new ways we come up with to create food with smaller amounts of water, the simple fact is the Earths resources are limited and the human population will continue to increase exponentially. Unless we invest in finding new worlds and the technology to get us there we will suffer greatly in the years to come.
I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that it's going to be Option B.
I am enthused at the discovery of other earth-like planets. It is highly probable, if not inevitable that we should find a sustainable planet like our own. Earth simply can't be "it". The expanses of the universe provide to many possibilities that cant be ignored for similar life processes such as on earth. The bigger the area, the bigger the possibilities of finding another place someone or something else calls home.
just like my home i dont want ant intrders so why would you think IF we find another planet that we would be welcomed to destroy it like we are doing to our own
The video says the planet's star is 11.9 billion years old, but the article says 8 billion years. The writer should check their facts.
Aha, that's the source for this 11.9 billion year figure. Will double-check on that. The 8 billion year figure was repeatedly referenced during the presentation.
I checked back with Natalie and have clarified the age estimate at the end of the posting. Thanks for keeping me honest.
How fast does something have to be going to get 560 light years from Earth in less than two years?
500 billion mph
2,939,312,686,591.804 MPH
Choose an answer:
#1 Impossible, nothing can go faster than the speed of light - accelerate all you like, you max out at the speed of light. It will take 560 years.
#2 Just under warp 5.5 on the TNG scale if you are on the Enterprise D.
600 million wasted dollars. who cares if there is another earth-like planet we should be spending that money here on the present earth we are living on.
And just where do you suppose the money was spent, if not on the Earth? Did they load the cash into the nosecone and launch it into space?
The answer to that is, yes, thats basicly what they do.....they invest billions on dollars in space program, and shoot it in to space.
lets say that we find a planet with life on it will it do us any good ?
bingo, you said it, we could find a duplicate to this earth and perfect in every way but bottom line is 'we aint goin there'
at least till the aliens hand over their ftl speed drive blueprints
As recently as about 10 years ago scientists were looking for the first planet around another star. Now they have discovered hundreds. Chances are that most if not all stars have a planetary system. First they discovered very large planets, then smaller and smaller ones. As equipment and methods improve, they will find many Earthlike planets. Does this mean that we can travel to them or that they might have "intelligent" life on them.
1. Travel to them? Not likely. Even if you could travel at half the speed of light, a journey would be measured in hundreds of years. Who signs up for that kind of journey, knowing that even your great-great-great grandchildren wouldn't see the end? And, when someone got there, they could find all of the planets in that system (even the earthlike ones) uninhabitable.
2. "Intelligent" life? Again, not likely. We have to recognize that the human species is an aberation. Many species of life are "intelligent", the primates, whales, etc. Humans are a technological species. We have evolved in such a way as to be able to manipulate our environment in ways that are beneficial (and detrimental) to us. Many planets probably contain life, but the chance of finding one with creatures such as ourselves make the odds of winning the powerball lottery look like a lead-pipe cinch. Remember that the physical characteristics that enable us to be technological creatures come from our tree-dwelling ancestors. (Binocular vision, opposable thumb, and large brain)
3. Consider the time factor. If an alien being had come to our planet looking for "intelligent" life anytime but in the past few thousand years, it (he, she?) would not have found humans as anything but a curious hunter-gatherer species. At any of the previous 4 billion years nothing resembling humans existed. Same would be true on any other life-bearing planet. (Might that alien find humans a hundred or a thousand years from now?)
4. As far as a deity creating life on only one planet in a universe as unbelievably gigantic as it appears to be, those odds are too great for my limiting imagination to conceive.
5 If you are still reading, thank you for interest.
Great article but we will always have one earth and sun. God only created human beings, one sun and earth. Earth is the only place human beings can live concerning another planet that is conditoned for human living. Its very annoying that NASA is looking for another place to live. So NASA and rich people can run to the other planet if the earth is nuked....Thats the major reason for there journies into space. They don't believe in God....Space is full dangerous particals, unbarable temperatures, radiation, gavity etc....Hello!!! Humans can't live on any other planet besides earth. None of the other planets are stable enough for human life....Its ridiculous....They are wasting time and money on things that are irrelevant while people are losing jobs and hungry. How long has NASA been looking for aliens? Aliens donot exist elsewhere. There are no mysteries or hidden information about the design of earth and space. God was perfect in his creation. Stop it NASA!
Ms Yola;
We are not looking for another place to live. I can not conceive of any way that we could get there, no matter how rich one may be. The laws of physics as we understand them preclude any travel. Perhaps, several thousand years from now, someone may make a discovery that would enable such journeys - but that is NOT our motivation.
We are looking for other Earths, not for a place to live, but so we may understand our own planet better.
Wow - you paint with a very broad brush. NASA is an organization with 1000's of people. We have a multitude of beliefs, just as does the rest of the country. NASA's missions are given to us by the Congress; would you care to claim that Congress doesn't believe in God?
For myself, when I am at the observatory I am at a temple. I am looking at the wonders of God's creations.
Why would you presume that I am an atheist?
It is easier to operate in space than it is to send a sub to the bottom of the ocean. And yet, we explore the oceans. Would you stop all sea exploration, too? Water can be dangerous (your ship may sink and you could drown), the pressure at depth is unbearable.
NASA is not looking for aliens. There are private organizations that do that work, and they do so entirely with private donations. You may wish to take that up with them.
No? We know everything we will ever know about the Universe? Wow. Really, just "wow".
Alan,
Thanks for the update. The Kepler mission is an amazing accomplishment, and most interesting to follow.
I had the good fortune to be working at Ball Aerospace in the early 1990s, 'fixing' the Hubble (COSTAR). It's been a pleasure to watch them continue the tradition with Keppler. Looking forward to February's findings.
Yea for COSTAR! Now in a place of pride in the Smithsonian.