TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Kepler space observatory has discovered a planet that is (nominally) very similar to our own:

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.

Kepler-22b’s radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius). 

The “and sunny” part may be a bit of writer’s license, but hey: it’s a planet 600 light-years away whose radius is just 2.4 times our own and may have temperatures in the 70s.

What’s particularly amazing is that these discoveries will only become more frequent as time goes on. While it doesn’t confirm life beyond our planet by any stretch, it does show that the conditions which exist here are not at all rare.

Of course, Earth does have other factors which have contributed to life evolving—namely, a moon which keeps its axis relatively stable over time (and thus limits climate shifts which would occur otherwise), an active magnetic field which protects Earth’s atmosphere from solar wind, and a large gas giant planet which sucks up many asteroids that could wipe out life on Earth—that may not be present in other systems, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have equivalent protections, or that life hasn’t evolved around these issues.

Odds are we are not alone in the universe, and that is incredibly exciting.