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Kepler Confirms Exoplanet Inside Star's Habitable Zone
astroengine writes "Plenty of 'candidate' exoplanets exist, but for the first time, Kepler has confirmed the existence of an exoplanet orbiting its Sun-like star right in the middle of its 'habitable zone.' Kepler-22b is 2.4 times the radius of Earth and orbits its star every 290 days. 'This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin,' said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 'Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.'"
I'm no expert on this but I've got an awesome app on my iPhone called Exoplanet. It's always got new planets like this one before I even read about them.
The host star is KIC10593626
It's mass is 0.97 solar masses
It's radius is 0.98 solar radii
It's 587.1ly away
Stellar Metallicity is 0.000[Fe/H]
Spectral type is G5
Magnitude (V) 0.000
Right ascension is 19h 17m 70s
Declination is +47* 52' 90"
Hope that helps you, And please tell me if you think this would be visible through a telescope. There's a dark sky preserve near here with a 20" telescope that I've been meaning to visit