Move Over, Moon And Mars! The Earth's Big Brother, 452b, Promises A Home Away From Home

You may want to keep your copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy close. With the discovery of Earth's big brother, Kepler-452b, we have just inched a few steps closer to having a habitable Earth-like planet in space. 'Cause NASA surely believes 452b to be our long, lost older cousin that might as well play host to an outer-space homecoming party.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, an associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0," he further added.

In other words, scientists believe that big brother 452b may spill some interesting secrets about Earth's evolution. There is "substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet,” confirms Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

As per NASA, the rocky 'super-Earth-size' planet, Kepler-452b is bigger than Earth, and has a 5 per cent larger 385-day cycle. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger. 

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