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An artist’s impression of a sunrise on Kepler 62f. The two outer planet of the Kepler 62 system may lie in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface. Last week, lost amidst the tragedy and drama unfolding in Boston, Mass., science reminded us once again of the infinite smallness of human events taking place here on planet Earth. Astronomers sifting through data collected by the Kepler Space Observatory – a telescope lofted into orbit in March 2009 with the mission of detecting Earth-like planets circling far-away suns – announced the discovery of two planets, both a bit bigger than our own, orbiting a star 1,200 light-years away in the northern constellation Lyra. If the scientists’ calculations are correct, both worlds are within their star’s habitable zone – the orbital area around a star where mathematical models predict water, in its liquid form, can be found. Since liquid water is the key ingredient for life as we know it here on Earth, these two worlds, part of a five-planet system now designated as Kepler 62, are the best candidates so far detected by science to possess complex life outside our own solar system. (Photo by NASA)
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