Kepler-452b

Kepler-452b (sometimes nicknamed Earth 2) is an exoplanet orbiting the G-class star Kepler-452. It was identified by the Kepler space telescope, and its discovery was announced by NASA on 23 July 2015. It is the first potentially rocky super-Earth planet discovered orbiting within the habitable zone of a star very similar to the Sun. Using the criteria of the Earth Similarity Index, it is the sixth-most Earth-like exoplanet known to date.

The planet is about 1,400 light-years away from the Solar System; at the speed of the New Horizons spacecraft, about 59,000 km/h (37,000 mph), it would take approximately 26 million years to get there.

Properties

Kepler 452b takes 385 Earth days to orbit its star. It is 60% bigger than Earth, and lies within the conservative habitable zone of its parent star.

It has a probable mass five times that of Earth, and its surface gravity is twice Earth's, though calculations of mass for exoplanets are only rough estimates. If it is a terrestrial planet, it is most likely a super-Earth with many active volcanoes due to its higher mass and density. The clouds on the planet would be thick and misty, covering much of the surface as viewed from space. From the surface, its star Kepler-452 would look almost identical to the Sun as viewed from the Earth.