Scientists identify 20 potentially habitable planets
Q. Scientists have identified how many potentially habitable Earth like rocky planets from 4000 exoplanets discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission till date?- Published on 05 Aug 16a. 20
b. 21
c. 24
d. 25
ANSWER: 20
Scientists have identified 20 potentially habitable Earth like rocky planets from the trove of 4000 exoplanets discovered by NASA’s Kepler Mission till date.
- New research outlines 216 Kepler planets located within the habitable zone- area around a star where the planet’s surface can hold liquid water.
- From these, 20 were identified as the best candidates to be habitable rocky planets like earth.
- This is the complete catalogue of all Kepler discoveries in the habitable zone of their host stars.
- This means one can focus on the planets and perform follow up studies to learn if they are indeed habitable
- Boundaries of the habitable zone are critical in that if the planet is too close to its star, it will experience a runaway green house gas effect like Venus. In case it is too far, any water will freeze
