Most Earthlike planets yet seen bring Kepler closer to its holy grail | Atom & Cosmos |... - 0 views
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five-planet system around a star called Kepler-62, some 1,200 light-years away in the constellation Lyra
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Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are far more accommodating. They are 1.6 and 1.4 times the diameter of Earth
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if 62e is a rocky planet, it’s almost certainly tidally locked with its star, with one half of its surface always illuminated and the other perpetually dark
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harder because those planets have relatively long orbits and barely cast a shadow as they pass across the faces of their suns
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One of the planets is 1.7 times the size of Earth and teeters on the inner edge of the habitable zone
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Next-generation missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which NASA approved earlier this month for launch in 2017, will take on the task of finding nearer planets that astronomers can study in depth