kepler planet 452b Earth 2.0 older cousin Exoplanets

      New and revealing news have been released few days ago, which could give us an answer to the long debated question: Are we alone in the Universe ? These news have raised a lot of questions, but also are like a fresh new start for scientists to continue the pursuit of finding new habitable planets.
      This enthusiastic discovery ,we could say that comes as a gift for the 20th anniversary since the launch of Kepler Telescope. The 23rd July 2015 is the day when one of the most important discoveries in the past few years is revealed. The scientists from NASA , Kepler Science Team, to be more precise, announced that they have discovered, using the now famous Kepler telescope, a new exoplanet. This discovery along with its information revealed lead scientists to conclusions such as calling this planet Earth's older cousin .
        Let’s see if these facts are solid enough to make this affirmation. First of all the name of the famous exoplanet recently discovered is Kepler 452-b,named after the the Kepler telescope which discovered it. It’s also known by the pseudonym Earth 2.0,due to the similarities NASA scientists claim to have discovered between our worlds. This planet is placed outside our solar system into a habitable zone, meaning that this planet is not too close to its sun ,Kepler 452, to be burned out, but also not too far from it preventing from freezing.
     This so called Earth 2.0 has a 6 billion years old star to orbit around. This star ,Kepler 452, is a bit older than our own sun, 1.5 million years older to be exact. This G2V-type star is located in the Cygnus Constellation, belonging to the Milky Way Galaxy, same as our Solar System. The distance Earth 2.0 orbits its sun is about the same distance as our own Earth. The main difference between our suns is that Kepler-452 is 20 percent more luminous than our sun ,and although there are some similarities between them, this percentage could lead to various possibilities which we should take into consideration .One of the consequence of Earth's 2.0 sun luminosity percentage is that kepler-452b is receiving 10 percent more light than we receive from our sun. Nasa scientists said that the chance of being rocky planet is between 49 to 62 percent and this might mean a high possibility of finding active volcanoes .they also claim that Kepler-452b has an atmosphere .These two suppositions, more light and the high possibility of being a rocky planet, could lead us to the conclusion of some form of life made out plants. Plants generate oxygen, here's why there could be an atmosphere ,and on the other hand this may be a subject to runaway greenhouse effect. Earth 2.0 being a rocky planet could mean that it might have water on it, but in smaller proportions than the rocks on it, and ,the higher sun activity could cause the planet to heat up and loose its oceans-and along with this the possibility of finding forms of life. The bright side of this scenario is revealed by the scientists again, which claim that this won't occur for another 500 million years from now. Kepler 452b is the smallest planet in its solar system ,but the 60 percent makes it a lot bigger than Earth. To make a more specific comparison between our planets, Earth 2.0 has 5 times our own planet's mass. This fact has a direct influence regarding the surface gravity, bringing it to almost twice our own gravity. This might not be a deal breaker for us moving there, but some changes might occur to our fragile bodies, meaning the extra gravity will make us lose some weight ,but we as a specie might adapt living there. Another important fact which must be taken into consideration when we compare our two planets is
the temperature ,which range is between -8 to 18 degrees Celsius. This range of temperature, besides being a lot similar with temperatures on Earth, might also mean that we could already be finding life forms out there waiting for us to discover them. Some other good comparison between our planets is the necessary time to have a full trip around its sun ,while kepler-452b has a 384.84 days year in comparison to our earth which needs 365 days for a full year ,that brings us to a 5% longer time of orbiting around its sun for Earth 2.0.

The bright side of this fact is that you have an extra 20 days for longer vacation . The bottom line is that we shouldn't get too enthusiastic with this planet and the possibility of us getting there because the main impediment for us to get there is the distance between our worlds ,which is 1400 light years away. For example the fastest spacecraft ,New Horizons, will take approximately 25,8 million years to reach it. In case you are planning to take a trip there in the nearby future ,do not be too hasty and wait until we will be able to use the warp drive technology.