NASA finds the largest and oldest ‘cousin’ of the Earth – FORTUNE

(CNN) – NASA announced Thursday that its Kepler spacecraft has found the “largest and oldest cousin of the Earth”, the first planet of similar size found in a habitable zone, close to a Sun-like star.

Although the agency can not be sure whether the planet is rocky or has water and air, if you can say that’s as close to Earth until moment.

“Today the Earth is less alone,” said Jon Jenkins researcher, part of the Kepler mission.

The planet Kepler-452b is 1,400 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It is 60% larger than our planet and is located in a living area, there may be liquid water on the planet’s surface, NASA said.

A visitor on this planet would experience a double gravity on Earth, and scientists believe that there is a high probability of having a rocky surface.

Although it is farther from its star than the Earth from the Sun, the star is brighter, so the planet gets the same amount of energy that we and everything seems to indicate that light is very similar to the of our planet, Jenkins said.

If the assumptions of planetary geologists are correct, the Kepler-452b should be denser than Earth atmosphere and active volcanoes.

The planet takes 385 to orbit its star, much like the 365-day cycle of the Earth, and how much time has passed moving in this area, about 6,000 million years, he has had enough time to generate life, Jenkins said.

NASA has found other planets in habitable zones, but have not been as large or as close to their stars to have life.

The agency said it is the first time found a planet that is the right size for a rocky surface and in proper orbit around its star to be potentially habitable.

The Kepler mission initiated $ 600 million in 2009 with the goal of researching a portion of the Milky Way in search of habitable planets.

From 64 million miles from Earth revises the light from distant stars to see if a planet has passed in front of them.

Kepler has discovered more than 1,000 planets, a few have been twice smaller than the Earth and in the habitable zones of stars they orbit.