KEPLER-1649C: NASA ANNOUNCES HAVING DISCOVERED A POSSIBLE COUSINE OF EARTH!
Does the Earth have a cousin? If the researchers do not confirm it for the moment, NASA has just discovered an exoplanet with characteristics very close to our planet.
MANY SIMILARITIES WITH PLANET EARTH
Indeed, the Kepler telescope, whose mission ended two years ago, made it possible to record a colossal amount of data and to discover exoplanets. The data was first analyzed by software which had also been able to update Kepler-1649b in the Cygnus constellation, as well as another signal, considered a false positive. However, a team of researchers decided to look into all the false positives by reanalyzing the data from the Kepler-1649 system and that's how the signal was confirmed to be a planet.
This one was baptized Kepler-1649c, located 300 light-years from Earth, it has a red dwarf as its central star. The discovered exoplanet has characteristics very close to our planet. Indeed, it is comparable in size to Earth since it is only 1.06 times larger than the blue planet. Regarding the amount of light it receives, it is estimated at 75% of what the Earth receives from the Sun. This therefore implies that its temperature is almost similar to that of our planet. Finally, Kepler-1649c would be in the habitable zone of its solar system, which means that it could support liquid water. Which makes a lot of similarities with our good old Earth.
AN ENVIRONMENT VERY DIFFERENT FROM EARTH
Except that scientists want to be cautious. We must not go too quickly to assert that Kepler-1649c is a cousin of the Earth. The authors of the study point out that the characteristics of its atmosphere are not yet known and could influence its temperature. In addition, the newly discovered exoplanet would be in synchronous rotation, which means that it continuously rotates one of its hemispheres in the direction of the star and leaves the other hemisphere plunged into eternal night. Finally, located 13 million kilometers from its star, its proximity to a red dwarf star which emits radiation very different from a solar-type star and reputed to be eruptive could offer Kepler-1649c a very different environment from that of Earth.
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