NASA discovers second Earth, says may be suitable for life

London, Dec 6: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) declared that they have discovered a most Earth-like planet close enough to the sun which might be suitable for living. The Planet called Kepler-22b, was found 600 light-years away in the "habitable zone" - the region around a star where liquid water could persist.

The Kepler-22b earth like planet was found by NASA's Kepler space telescope, confirmed NASA scientists. The telescope launched on Mar 7, 2009, aims to discover Earth like planets and has a minimum expected mission lifetime of 3.5 years. Meanwhile, the Kepler space telescope has discovered 2,326 potential Earth-like planets.

According to NASA scientists, the Kepler-22b is situated in the middle of the habitable zone, which is the region around a star where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to dwell. The Planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth.

"If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius)," said William Borucki of NASA"s Ames Research Center before adding, "It"s another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth"s twin."

Meanwhile, scientists revealed that Kepler requires at least three more transits to verify a signal as a planet.

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