Are we alone in the universe? This is one of the questions that man often asks himself when looking for other forms of life in space. For the moment the answer is negative but since yesterday there is some more hope. And this hope or illusion has a rather strange name: Kepler 452B, an exoplanet, which according to scientists could be very similar to our planet.
Kepler452B: the characteristics of our Earth's older brother
Kepler 452b is an exoplanet, i.e. a planet not belonging to our solar system and which could closely resemble our planet. At the moment there are no photos of the planet Kepler452B but only numerous reconstructions made by NASA after some measurements. The characteristics of the extrasolar planet are similar to those of the Earth. In fact, Kepler 452B could have a mass very similar to that of the Earth, it orbits its star in 385 days (only 20 more than the Earth) and the distance from its star is about 150 million km, the same that divides the Earth from the Sun. Furthermore, the exoplanet discovered by Kepler is older than our planet by 1,5 billion years and receives 10% more energy from its star than our planet. As for the star around which the planet Kepler452B revolves, scientists have stated that it is a star almost identical to our Sun: 4% larger and 10% brighter.
Will we be able to get a close-up view of the most Earth-like planet ever discovered by man? The answer is negative, at least for now. In fact, NASA scientists explained that Kepler 452B is 1400 light years away from Earth. If there were someone on Kepler 452b with a telescope in hand they would see our Earth as it was 1400 years ago, shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire and on the eve of Muhammad's birth in the Arabian Peninsula. The 1400 light years between the Earth and Kepler 452B are an unbridgeable distance with the technology that man has managed to develop so far. Consider that the distance between the Earth and the dwarf planet Pluto is calculated by scientists in just over 5 light hours and was traveled by the New Horizons probe in 9 years.
