How About...Earth-size Planets Beyond Our Solar System

Kepler Telescope

Well ladies and gentlemen, here I present you, what I would call the year's greatest discovery.

Scientists from NASA, with the help of ground-based telescopes and other space telescopes, have been able to spot earth-size planets, that are far beyond our solar system. 

This discovery has been made thanks to Kepler Mission. According to their findings, the two exo-planets are named:

Kepler-20f  which according to a NASA's Artist Concept, would look like this: 

and

Kepler-20e would look something similar to this:

both planets belong to the system called Kepler-20, located at constellation Lyra, at approximately 1,000 light-years

Here is a comparison of these planet's size, for you to have a better idea of what I'm talking about:

As you can see, compared to Earth and Venus, there are slightly noticeable differences. In rough data, we could say that for example Kepler-20e is only .87 times the radius of the Earth, meaning, it is smaller than Venus. On the other hand, Kepler-20f is bigger than Earth, 1.03 times its radius.

Now, if we get deeper into more details of these two planets, we know that Kepler-20e orbits its star every 6.1 days (Earth-days) while Kepler-20f takes 19.6 days.  

Do you know the implications of such short orbits? Think about it. How long does it take our planet to go around (orbit) our sun? Any idea? 

Yep, 365 days approximately. Now, compared to Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, that's way more time than what they both together, take to orbit their sun.

Lets see,  Earth takes 59.83 times more, to go around the sun, than Kepler-20e and 18.62 times more than Kepler-20f. 

Yes, I totally agree, too many numbers, but now what's up with that?

Well, Earth takes that amount of time to complete an entire orbit, because of the distance at which it is located away from the sun. Which is 150 million km away, which happens to be, at the same time, just the right distance for life to be prone at earth.

What happens if "we" get nearer to the Sun? Temperature increases, and believe me, we've had enough with global warming...

What happens if "we" get more far away? Well we could begin getting some real comfy and cozy clothes, because winter is going to become our next ice age.

And now, that we go back to data dealing with Kepler-20, we now understand that, according to NASA'S discoveries

"Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass."

This is how their orbits look like :

Orbits (Scaled)

Scientists are excited, because they say it's just a matter of time, of finding a planet that would fully meet the requirements for life to occur.

One last curious detail about this Kepler-20 system. This system contains three other planets that also orbit the same star. They have very short-orbit periods too, but, do you know what's even more amazing than that?

Well, according to their findings, Kepler-20 has a very strange and never seen arrangement. As we have been taught in school, relatively small-rocky planets are closer to the sun, and larger-gaseous planets are farther away, right? 

Well, you're not going to believe this, this system's arrangement is an alternating system. Meaning there is a large planet, then a small, large, small...

Quite curious don't you think?

How about... the idea of how this system's arrangement could change our firm  knowledge, studies, theories, and explanations about how we think or have been told, our universe and solar system was born?

Would you imagine what all these would mean to science and astrophysicists?

God...help us.

Here's a very good video, from NASA

enjoy!

Thanks to my Readers, and NASA.

I.