April 2014
Elisa Quintana, Steve Howell, Tom Barclay, and Jason F. Rowe
Figure 1.
This artist’s concept
depicts Kepler-186f, the
first validated Earthsize planet orbiting
a distant star in the
habitable zone — a
range of distances from
a star where liquid
water might pool on the
surface of an orbiting
planet. Kepler-186f
resides in the Kepler-186
system about 500 lightyears from Earth in the
constellation Cygnus.
The discovery of Kepler186f confirms that
Earth-size planets exist
in the habitable zone of
other stars and signals
a significant step closer
to finding a world
similar to Earth.
Credit: NASA/Ames/JPLCaltech/T. Pyle
Gemini Helps Confirm First
Earth-sized Planet in the
Habitable Zone of a Star
Gemini North observations using the visiting Digital Speckle Survey
Instrument (DSSI) contribute to a monumental discovery — the first
Earth-sized planet orbiting a star in a region that could support life.
The possibility that stars other than our Sun could have habitable worlds has long captured
the imagination of humanity. Now, Gemini Observatory, along with observations with the
W.M. Keck Observatory has helped to take that possibility one step closer to reality.
NASA’s Kepler space telescope — a
mission designed to search for planets in other solar systems — has discovered the first known Earth-sized
planet orbiting a star in the “habitable zone” — a region where liquid
water could exist on the planet’s
surface and possibly support life.
Named Kepler-186f, this new world
is one of five — all less than 50 percent larger than Earth — detected
by Kepler that orbit this host star
that is cooler and smaller than our
Sun. Only Kepler-186f, though, lies
in the star’s habitable zone.
18
GeminiFocus
2014 Year in Review
January 2015