Kepler-62e Research Paper

NASA discovered a system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven rocky planets could have water which is a key to life and three of them are firmly located in the habitable zone. This system is about 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth. Because of locating outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, name of telescope in Chile. Researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system and then discovered more to seven by several ground-based telescopes. Moreover, NASA used data from Spitzer to measure the sizes of the seven planets and estimates the masses and density of six of them. The data indicated that they are likely to be rocky and could have liquid water on their surfaces but the mass of the seventh has not been estimated yet. Scientists assumed it could be an icy like snowball world. The temperature of TRAPPIST-1 star is cooler than our sun,

The possibility of life beyond Earth is a tantalizing idea long prompting our species to wonder if there are other worlds where life exists. As space technology advances, the chances of finding life on other planets are now greater than ever. With new technologies such as satellites and solar panels, scientists are able to expand their exploration farther into our solar system. In 1995, an astronomer named Michel Mayor together with Didier Queloz discovered 51 Pegasi b. This was truly an incredible discovery that rocked the science community. Pledges b, a wobbling star the size of our sun, was slowly approaching, and according to Mayor’s

A red dwarf star’s HZ, for example, would be much closer to the star itself compared with that of our sun. It is also important to determine the planet’s size and mass, which is imperative in deciding whether it can sustain an atmosphere. Maintaining an atmosphere is essential for life to exist and small a planet with a small gravitational force at its surface may not be capable of retaining one. The Kepler transit data can only measure planet masses, diameters, orbital periods, and parent star types and although this information is useful for determining habitable zones, further data is required to determine true habitability. The latter can be done by studying the composition of the exoplanet’s atmosphere.

Exobiology is the science that is concerned with the search for life in outer space; it may be called as astrobiology as well. The search for life in outer space has consumed the imagination of the humankind for long time ago. Nowadays, humankind has made a progress and found major discoveries in the quest for life existence in the universe and outer space because of the advancement of the technology. However, in the past, exobiology was considered as a science without a subject, where the people and other scientists laughed at and ridiculed the famous scientist and biologist Joshua Lederberg when he originated the term exobiology. Some people argue that life exists elsewhere in the universe, however, others believe that life only exist on Earth. A new study reveals that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has 100 billion or so stars, where 17 billion of them are Earth-size alien planets, and probably many more. The huge size of the galaxy increases the probability of life existence in the outer space. Are we alone in the universe? This question has captured the imaginations of scientist, theologians, and astrobiologists. However, they don’t know the answer yet. Understanding the complete definition of life and how life originated, and determining the techniques used for searching for life existence in outer space and evidences found can help to answer the question of “Are we alone in the universe?”

As a member that is part of the UC’s Lick Observatory “Planet Hunter Team, I have found a possible planetary system that may contain a planet. From my further research, I discovered that the planet may support life, such as bacteria and plants. After confirming with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute about intelligent life, I eventually decided to want to discuss intelligent life through a scientific process. I will use the Drake Equation to give us the possibility that intelligent life can emit signals to reveal any existence. The equation is given as N= R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L. The calculations of each variables will help me understand what is being contributed into calculating the chance of any signals being detected and the calculated result will determined the conclusion of intelligent life existing. Nevertheless, this is just an estimation for the possibility of any life as the Drake Equation may or may not be as reliable as we may expect it to be.

Lee Billings' article in Scientific American, "Do 3 Habitable Super-Earths Really Orbit a Nearby Star?", reports on the possible discovery of additional planets by multiple sources. The planets in question orbit the Gliese 667 C star, and were detected by a team of astronomers composed of Gulliem Anglada-Escuede of Germany's Gottingen and by Hertfordshire's Mikko Tuomi, as well as by Philip Gregory in Canada. Both of these respective researchers utilized data from the HARPS spectrograph to study 7 planets orbiting the star, three of which may be able to sustain life. The researchers used HARPS data with statistical processes to discern the fact that the planets produced a "wobble" (Billings) on the star, which indicated that they could be actual planets.

The thought that intelligent beings may exist somewhere in the universe other than the earth seems to fascinate certain people; therefore, for more than fifty-five years astronomers have listened for an indication of life from outer space. However, “E T” has been as silent as a tomb.

Since the very beginning of exoplanet discovery, astronomers have been seeking to find an earth-like habitable planet. This search especially rose in importance in the 21st century when we were faced with intensifying problems of resource scarcity and environmental deterioration which directly influence our being on earth. In order to investigate regions in the Milky Way to discover Earth-sized exoplanets in and approximate to a habitable zone, NASA sent Kepler, a Discovery-class mission spacecraft to identify planets in the Habitable Zone of main sequence stars and to generate a better estimate of how many stars in the Milky Way have such planets (Overbye,

For many centuries astronomers have asked themselves a simple three worded question “Are we alone?” This simple question has become a controversy all around the globe. Why? Because we want to be able to communicate with other life forms (aliens). However, in order for us to find life in another planet we first have to find planets that have the possibility to support life, nevertheless that question wasn’t answerable until 2009. In 2009 NASA launched a telescope that was going to search for planets. This telescope was known as the Kepler Space Telescope who’s job was to detect earth like planets orbiting a star.

Earth-sized planets are every common, and early data suggest that such planets are also common in habitable zones. It seems reasonable to suppose that a significant fraction of all stars have at least one habitable planet, which means there should be many billions of habitable planets in our galaxy. The flife presents more difficulty, because we do not yet have any reliable way to estimate the fraction of habitable planets on which life actually arose. However the rapid appearance of life on Earth and the fact that laboratory experiments suggest possible ways in which life could have arisen both make it seem that life should be likely on habitable worlds. in that case, we might expect most or all habitable planets to also have life, making the fraction of flife close to

Many scientist used telescopes to look at the planets and turned up the brightness. It helped showing how far the planet was and to show there are planets between the star and earth. Scientist started looking for pulsating stars and using them to find different planets. To find smaller planets scientist used NASA’s Kepler telescope. The telescope was very helpful for NASA and it proved that there are smaller planets. They figured out that some stars have planets. NASA’s help was very successful and they found different planets by the

In summary, according to the Kepler data about the Kepler 438b and 442b's distance from parent star Lyra, their size and their duration to orbit their parent star, Phillips validated that very likely both exoplanets are very Earth-like and probability of them to be habitable is

Johannes Kepler was born on the 27 of December in the year 1571, in the town of Weil der Stadt, in the Holy Roman Empire, of German Nationality. He was born to Heinrich Kepler, a mercenary, and Katharina Guldenmann, an inn-keeper’s daughter who was also an herbalist. He had two brothers and one sister. The Kepler family was well off but inertly grew poor. Johannes himself wasn’t in too good of a shape either. He was born prematurely and was claimed to have been weak and fragile. Johannes, however, had a brilliant, healthy, mind. He was very skilled in mathematics and grew to love astronomy from a young age. It is noted that he observed the Great Comet of 1577

The next important thing to note is the type of star Proxima B is orbiting. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf. Red dwarf stars do not produce much energy when compared to a star like the Sun. This allows Proxima B to be very close to its star. Its average distance from Proxima Centauri is 5 million miles. This is small compared to the 93 million miles Earth is from the Sun, but even at this small distance from its host star, it is still in the habitable zone. The habitable zone is a range of orbits that a planet could have where you could reasonably expect it to be a suitable temperature to have liquid water. This makes Proxima B a great candidate for searching for evidence of life out in the universe and will surely

However it is easy to calculate the properties of these planets from the transit. The length of time between transits determines how far the planet is orbiting from its host star and the amount of luminosity drop indicates the planet's size. The transit method is also able to calculate the presence of very small planets with advanced telescopes like Kepler. The size of the star is already known, so in proportion to the stars size the planets transit interval can be used to calculate its position in the solar system. If the star is large and transits are relatively close intervals we know the star is close to its host star, meaning that the planet is too hot to be able to host liquid water. If the planet is located in a rough zone between the ‘too hot’ and the ‘too cold’ to host liquid water. This is called the habitable zone3. The significance of this is that if there is liquid water present on a planet, it has the possibility for life to exist there. However , as scientists discover more and more extremophiles (life forms living in extreme environments) what constitutes as ‘habitable’ is changing 4. Midocean Ridge life forms, life without any form of sunlight, use geothermal vent emissions to create food for themselves in a process called ‘chemosynthesis’. Before the discovery of this was thought impossible for life to exist in such harsh conditions. Planets may not have to be as ‘Earthlike’ as