Earth-like planet discovered next to our solar system

A newly-discovered planet outside our solar system may be the closest celestial body in location and size to Earth, European astronomers have said.
It is the type of planet they've been searching for across the Milky Way galaxy and they found it circling a star right next door – 25 trillion miles away. But the Earth like planet is so hot its surface may be like molten lava. Life cannot survive the 2,200 degree heat of the planet, so close to its star that it circles it every few days.

The astronomers who found it say it's likely there are other planets circling the same star, a little farther away where it may be cool enough for water and life. And those planets might fit the not-too-hot, not-too-cold description sometimes call the Goldilocks Zone.

"If there are any inhabitants there, they're made of asbestos," joked Seth Shostak (He is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and the 2004 winner of the Klumpke-Roberts Award awarded by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy).

The Telegraph - 17 Oct 2012


We can find earth size/mass planets (indeed there are detections now of sub-Earth sized objects) but it is true that this is close to the limits of either transit or radial velocity techniques – especially if the planets are orbiting Sun-mass stars or at Earth orbital radii. Some of the challenges involve the fact that stars are ‘noisy’ – they’re not the perfect back light for these methods to work optimally and we’re hitting that wall.

Earth analogs (Earth equivalent) planets is an old improvement on “Earth-like”.

This post was edited by The_Man_versus_the_State on Feb 17 2013 02:12pm

KOI-172.02 is rather earthlike

But you shouldn't forget that KOI-172.02 (Kepler Object of Interest) is at approximately 1040 light years from Earth.
And wee don't have any spectral analysis yet, it could just as easily be like Venus.

This post was edited by The_Man_versus_the_State on Feb 17 2013 02:38pm

...

I am for the idea of finding new places where us as humans might live in future, but transportation, water and food, resources, climate and other factors are making it very difficult to happen.
Will read information more about KOI-172.02 and get back with news.

distance is the real killer (which I guess is part of transportation)

This post was edited by Azrad on Feb 17 2013 04:12pm

Aliens.

Did ancient aliens even lift?

Yea, and sometimes I think its all but a big matrix tbh

someone please answer me: why would we need to find other places to live again? no matter what we do to our planet, it would be easier to terraform than mars, venus or most likely anything within 1000 light years. traveling to said planet could take generations.

oh and if you havent seen ancient aliens debunked yet it is worth a watch:



This post was edited by juliusjuice on Mar 11 2013 11:36am