MOFFET FIELD, California, Dec 6 —The most Earth-like planet ever discovered is circling a star 600 light years away, a key finding in an ongoing quest to learn if life exists beyond Earth, scientists said yesterday.
The planet, called Kepler-22b, joins a list of more than 500 planets found to orbit stars
beyond our solar system. It is the smallest and the best positioned to have liquid water on its surface —among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth.
“We are homing in on the true Earth-sized, habitable planets,” said San Jose State University astronomer Natalie Batalha, deputy science team lead for NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope that discovered the star.
It is indeed a fallacy that scientists believe finding a liquid water surface planet will somehow prove the existence of life beyond planet Earth.
