NASA’s Kepler Mission has found 20 exoplanets which are capable of hosting life. The planets were shortlisted from a trove of 4000 exoplanets which the Kepler mission had earlier put under consideration.
Researchers at San Francisco State University have found these 20 planets to be in the habitable zone of their respective hosts stars. This discovery would allow planet hunters to narrow down their search for habitable planets and alien life to these rocky bodies.
Scientists had earlier chosen 216 planets from the original list of 4000 planets after considering the possibility of finding liquid water.
The list of 20 best candidates were chosen from the list of 216 planets so that when man would become capable of space exploration beyond the solar system, these would be best places to start with.
Habitable zones of planets are identified after considering their proximity to host stars. In the case of a near-star planet, it would experience a rapid ‘runaway Greenhouse effect’ such as in Venus. On the other hand, if the planet is farther away from the home star, liquid water would freeze, like as seen in Mars.
The planets were detected by whether they were in a ‘conservative’ or a more ‘optimistic interpretation’ of the habitable zone. Finally these planets were sorted after considering their sizes: smaller, rocky planets versus larger gas giants.
Scientists are now studying these 20 planets more carefully to find Earth like compositions on the planet.
