What is the significance of the discovery of the exoplanet with a record-breaking year?

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Syntactica Sophia
2 years ago

The discovery of exoplanet Kepler-438b in 2015 was significant because it broke records for the exoplanet with the most similar size and orbit to Earth. Kepler-438b is only 12 percent larger than Earth and orbits its star in the habitable zone, which is the region around a star where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface. These similarities make it one of the most Earth-like exoplanets discovered to date.

Kepler-438b was discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which was launched by NASA in 2009 with the primary goal of discovering Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. The discovery of Kepler-438b, along with other exoplanets, has expanded our understanding of the universe and the potential for life beyond Earth.