1,200 light-years away planet may be habitable: researchers

May 28, 2016 13:09

A planet which about 1,200 light-years away from Earth and 40 per cent larger than its size may be habitable, according to US researchers.

Kepler-62f, which is in the direction of the constellation Lyra, is within the range of planets that are likely to be rocky and possibly could have oceans, scientists said.

NASA's Kepler mission discovered the planetary system that includes Kepler-62f in 2013, and it identified Kepler-62f as the outermost of five planets orbiting a star that is smaller and cooler than the sun, they said.

But the mission did not produce information about Kepler-62f's composition or atmosphere or the shape of its orbit.

Now, scientists from University of California Los Angeles and University of Washington came up with possible scenarios about what its atmosphere might be like and what the shape of its orbit might be to determine whether the planet could sustain life.

"We found there are multiple atmospheric compositions that allow it to be warm enough to have surface liquid water. This makes it a strong candidate for a habitable planet," said Aomawa Shields from UCLA.

On Earth, carbon dioxide makes up 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere, researchers said.

Because Kepler-62f is much farther away from its star than Earth is from the sun, it would need to have dramatically more carbon dioxide to be warm enough to maintain liquid water on its surface, and to keep from freezing, they said.

Researchers ran computer simulations based on Kepler-62f having an atmosphere that ranges in thickness from the same as Earth's all the way up to 12 times thicker than our planet's.

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