NASA scientists have discovered a planet so similar to Earth that it's being called Earth's "older, bigger cousin" and even "Earth 2.0". The planet, designated Kepler-452b, orbits a star that is slightly larger than our sun, and in the same spectral class, at a distance 5% greater than the distance between Earth and the sun, with an orbital period of 385 (Earth) days. Kepler-452b is classified as a "Super Earth" because its radius is 1.6 times that of Earth. NASA believes that the planet is rocky, which would give it a surface gravity of about twice that of Earth, and that the planet and its star are 6 billion years old, and thus 1.5 billion years older than our solar system. The Kepler 452 system is located about 1400 lightyears away.
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