Exoplanet discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope in 2015 Kepler-442b is believed to be the only planet more habitable than Earth.according to various studies.
A report published on the La República website states that this planet has twice the mass of Earth and is 30 percent larger than our planet, which is why it is called a super-Earth. as well, It is 1,194 light-years away from Earth.
Compared to our world, Kepler-442b is less than half the distance from its star, cooler than our Sun, so the temperature on the exoplanet must be hot,
Why is it more habitable than Earth?
Experts developed a habitability index for exoplanets in 2015, to evaluate their distance from the host star and its temperature if it was within the so-called habitable zoneWhich allows a planet to have liquid water.
They also consider size to confirm whether it is rocky, the eccentricity of its orbit, which determines whether a planet receives unequal or equal amounts of energy from its star throughout the year, and its albedo. , which is the amount of reflected light. for its surface.
The scientists established that the maximum habitability score would be 1. Everyone was surprised Earth received a score of 0.829 and Kepler-442b scored 0.836, the exoplanet with the highest index.,
Furthermore, in early 2020, a study by researchers at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, concluded that K-type stars, or orange dwarfs, have the best characteristics to host habitable planetary systems.
Sure enough, Kepler-442b’s host star is an orange dwarf, 40 percent smaller than the Sun. All evidence points to a planet with a habitability far superior to our own.