Space tourists now have an ultimate destination point: Kepler-22b. Announced yesterday, as being the first confirmed planet in a “habitable zone,” Kepler-22b is an appropriate enough distance from its star that is conducive to water being present. Kepler-22b’s discovery was made by NASA’s Kepler mission. Keppler-22b is the first of 54 potential habitable planet candidates to be reported by the Kepler mission. 48 potential planets remain to be confirmed, as the others were found to not be habitable.
Kepler-22b’s radius is 2.4 times the size of Earth’s, and it is located 600 light years away from Earth. Kepler-22b’s year is 290 days long. It is 15% closer to its star than we are to the Sun, but Kepler-22b’s star is dimmer, which results in a surface temperature that likely averages 72 Fahrenheit, assuming greenhouse conditions are similar as Earth’s.
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