Kepler 452b is said to sit in the middle of the abiogenesis zone

A planet one-and-a-half times the size of Earth has emerged as the most likely planet outside our solar system to support alien life.

Kepler 452b, which is 1,400 light years away, is in the middle of a zone which scientists say possesses the right conditions for life to be created.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology found it is in the centre of the so-called abiogenesis zone.

This is a region of a solar system where the level of ultraviolet light is right to kickstart the chemical reactions that can lead to early life.

But it is also in a habitable region, a ring of space that is a sufficient distance from a planet's host star so that it is not too hot or too cold to support life - the so-called Goldilocks zone.

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In fact, the planet's positions within the zones are so similar to Earth's that it has been dubbed "Earth's cousin".

Kepler 452b has also been described as a "super-Earth" because its mass is higher than Earth's but much less than the larger planets of the solar system, like Jupiter and Saturn, which are called gas giants.

The star which it orbits, Kepler 452, in the constellation of Cygnus, is about 20% brighter than the sun and some two billion years older.

Kepler 452b is one of numerous planets discovered by the Kepler telescope, an orbiting observatory that was launched by NASA in 2009 to find exoplanets - planets outside out own solar system.

Image: The planet was found by NASA's Kepler telescope

Nearly 4,000 planets have now been discovered orbiting stars other than the sun.

Of these, only about 50 are known to occupy their star's habitable zone but not all are thought to receive the right amount and type of UV to kickstart the origins of life.

It has been estimated there are as many as 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the observable universe.

The scientists who carried out the research, which is published in the journal Science Advances, say that although Kepler 452b is too far away to probe with current technology, the next-generation telescopes, such as NASA's TESS and James Webb Telescopes, should be able to identify many more planets within an abiogenesis zone.

But they say that if there is life on Kepler 452b and other planets the telescopes may find, it may be of a completely different type to that on earth.

Dr Paul Rimmer, a postdoctoral researcher with affiliation to Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and the first author of the paper in which the findings were revealed, said: "It makes sense to look for places that are most like us.

"There's an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient.

"The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient: it's possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist."</s>Kepler-452b, a planet about one-and-a-half times the size of the Earth, is located in the correct position to possess conditions for life to be created, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology found.

“We determined that Kepler-452b is the most likely exoplanet that we know of on which life may have originated because of its star, Kepler-452, and because of its distance from the star,” the study’s lead author, Paul Rimmer, told Euronews.

Kepler-452 is the same type of star as our own sun, and likely produces enough UV light to kickstart a series of chemical reactions that produce the building blocks of life, while the planet is also the correct distance from the star for liquid water to exist stably on its surface, he explained.

Its position within both the “abiogenesis zone” and the “habitable region” are so similar to Earth's that the exoplanet has been dubbed "Earth's cousin".

However, despite their similarities, much remains unknown about the planet, which was discovered in 2015.

“Kepler-452b is bigger than the Earth... This may just mean it's a bigger rock, and otherwise would be much like the Earth. Or it may be a world covered with water. Or maybe it's shrouded in a hydrogen envelope, more like a warm Neptune than Earth,” said Rimmer.

“In these respects it could be a little different or almost completely different from Earth. We don't know.”

Rimmer noted that while Kepler-452b is the most likely exoplanet that we know of on which life may have originated, there may be other closer planets on which the “building blocks of life may have more easily formed” but that haven’t been found yet.

The scientists are now building a simulator to accurately reproduce the light of different stars.

“We plan to test the chemistry with this simulator, to see what sorts of flaring is needed to make life's building blocks,” Rimmer said.</s>A "super-Earth" 1400 light years away has emerged as the exoplanet most likely of any known to support alien life.

Kepler 452b, discovered in 2015, lies in the middle of a newly identified "abiogenesis zone" where the right conditions exist for life to be spawned by starlight and chemistry.

The planet, which has a radius 1.5 times that of Earth, also orbits inside the "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone with temperatures not too hot and not too cold to permit liquid surface water.

Almost 4000 planets have now been discovered orbiting stars other than the sun. Of these, only about 50 are known to occupy their star's habitable zone.

However, just one - Kepler 452b - also falls inside the abiogenesis zone.

A planet in the abiogenesis zone is bathed in the right level and type of ultraviolet radiation from its star to kick-start chemical reactions thought to have given birth to life on Earth.

Scientists at Cambridge University coined the term after conducting a series of laboratory experiments mimicking the creation of life's building blocks.

A leading theory for the way life began on Earth is that it emerged from chemical reactions involving hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphite, powered by sunlight.

Duplicating earlier work conducted in 2015, the Cambridge researchers created the precursors of lipids, amino acids and nucleotides - all essential components of living cells.

They then went a step further by comparing the UV light used in the laboratory to that generated by different stars.

Generally the most sun-like stars were found to emit the right sort of light to trigger the formation of life's building blocks on planets.

Kepler 452, in the constellation of Cygnus, is about 20 per cent brighter than the sun and some two billion years older.

The planet 452b has been called "Earth's cousin". Computer simulations suggest it has a thick atmosphere, liquid surface water, and active volcanoes.

Lead scientist Dr Paul Rimmer, from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, said: "This work allows us to narrow down the best places to search for life.

"It brings us just a little bit closer to addressing the question of whether we are alone in the universe."

Most known habitable zone planets orbit close to cool red dwarf stars. Occasional violent flares from the stars could provide the radiation needed to spark the birth of life, but may also destroy genetic material, said the scientists.

The new research is published in the journal Science Advances.

According to recent estimates, there could be as many as 700 million trillion Earth-like planets in the observable universe.</s>The planet, which has a radius 1½ times that of Earth, also orbits inside the “habitable” or “Goldilocks” zone with temperatures not too hot and not too cold to permit liquid surface water. Almost 4,000 planets have now been discovered orbiting stars other than the sun. Of these, only about 50 are known to occupy their star's habitable zone. However, just one - Kepler 452b - also falls inside the abiogenesis zone.

A planet in the abiogenesis zone is bathed in the right level and type of ultraviolet radiation from its star to kick-start chemical reactions thought to have given birth to life on Earth. Scientists at Cambridge University coined the term after conducting a series of laboratory experiments mimicking the creation of life's building blocks. A leading theory for the way life began on Earth is that it emerged from chemical reactions involving hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphite, powered by sunlight. Duplicating earlier work conducted in 2015, the Cambridge researchers created the precursors of lipids, amino acids and nucleotides - all essential components of living cells. They then went a step further by comparing the UV light used in the laboratory to that generated by different stars.

Generally the most sun-like stars were found to emit the right sort of light to trigger the formation of life's building blocks on planets. Kepler 452, in the constellation of Cygnus, is about 20% brighter than the sun and some two billion years older. The planet 452b has been called “Earth's cousin”. Computer simulations suggest it has a thick atmosphere, liquid surface water, and active volcanoes. Lead scientist Dr Paul Rimmer, from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, said: “This work allows us to narrow down the best places to search for life. “It brings us just a little bit closer to addressing the question of whether we are alone in the universe.“ Most known habitable zone planets orbit close to cool red dwarf stars. Occasional violent flares from the stars could provide the radiation needed to spark the birth of life, but may also destroy genetic material, said the scientists.

The new research is published in the journal Science Advances. According to recent estimates, there could be as many as 700 million trillion Earth-like planets in the observable universe. Dr Rimmer said: “I'm not sure how contingent life is, but given that we only have one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most like us. “There's an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient. The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient: it's possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist.“ Next generation space telescopes such as Nasa's Tess and James Webb telescopes may identify many more planets lying within abiogenesis zones, said the scientists.</s>If you ever suspected life on Earth was under the scrutiny of alien beings, this new perspective could solidify your ideas.

Conspiracy theory site UFO Sightings Daily has shared an image which it claims shows otherwise hidden alien artwork on the US one dollar bill.

By changing the contrast on an image of the bill the source has revealed what it claims is the image of an "alien overlord" hidden in plain sight.

The reason nobody spotted this sooner?

"Alien art is supposed to be outside the realms of our comprehension, made not on one level like human art, but many levels of understanding, making most too complex for our primitive minds," claims the website.

The dollar bill is even more telling, says the source, as it could also reveal the name of a specific alien overlord named "Me Rica" - taken from the rounded bill where the rest of the lettering in "America" is out of sight.

Of course to get this imagery on the dollar bill suggests these crafty aliens have also got control of the monetary systems that keep the US economy running.

How is this control achieved you ask?

"Powerful telepathy", claims the site, which works over long distances.

Handy for the alien overlord that likes to remain in control without getting up from his hover-bed in the morning.</s>A group of rocky planets outside of the solar system have been picked out as the 'best places' to search for alien life.

The planets, strewn across the Milky Way, have ample UV light at their surface and lie in their host star's habitable zone, meaning they could have water at their surface.

They were identified based on the intensity of light given off by their host star, which scientists have proposed as a new way to find worlds that may harbour life.

They said the newly categorised planets 'bring us closer' to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that the chances for life to develop on rocky a planet are connected to the light given off by its host star.

They claim stars which give off sufficient ultraviolet (UV) light could kick-start life on their orbiting planets in the same way it likely developed on Earth.

At the surface of our planet, UV powers a series of chemical reactions that produce the building blocks of life.

The researchers have identified a range of planets where the UV light from their host star is sufficient to allow these chemical reactions to take place.

A group of these rocky bodies pinpointed by the team also lie within the habitable range where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface.

'This work allows us to narrow down the best places to search for life,' said study co-author Dr Paul Rimmer.

'It brings us just a little bit closer to addressing the question of whether we are alone in the universe.'

The researchers measured how quickly the building blocks of life can form - both under UV light and in the dark - in the same chemical soup it bloomed from on ancient Earth: Hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphite ions in water.

Chemistry in the dark happens slower than under UV light, and the team aimed to find out how much UV it would take before light reactions took over the dark ones.

In the dark, an inert compound developed, and the building blocks of life did not form.

But in the scenario under lights they did.

The team suggest stars around the same temperature as our's emit enough light for the building blocks of life to form on the surface.

Cool stars, on the other hand, do not produce enough light for these lipids, amino acids and nucleotides to turn into living cells.

Of course, it is also possible that if there is life on other planets, that it has or will develop in a totally different way than it did on Earth.

Dr Rimmer said: 'I'm not sure how contingent life is, but given that we only have one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most like us.

'There's an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient. The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient.

'It's possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist.'

According to recent estimates there are as many as 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the observable universe.

Prof Sutherland, of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), said: 'Getting some idea of what fraction have been, or might be, primed for life fascinates me.

'Of course, being primed for life is not everything and we still don't know how likely the origin of life is, even given favourable circumstances - if it's really unlikely then we might be alone, but if not, we may have company.'

Among the known exoplanets which reside in the abiogenesis zone are several planets detected by the Kepler telescope, including Kepler 452b, a planet that has been nicknamed Earth's 'cousin', although it is too far away to probe with current technology.

Nasa has said Kepler-452b - also dubbed 'Earth 2.0' - has a 'substantial opportunity' to host life. If plants were transferred there they would likely survive.

The planet is 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth and is 1,400 light years away in the constellation Cygnus.

It is about 1.5 billion years older than Earth - and could be just as rocky.</s>There are thousands of known exoplanets—planets orbiting stars other than the sun—but only a handful of those are the right size and in the right place to support standing bodies of liquid water. Scientists refer to these planets as being in the "habitable zone," but new research seeks to pinpoint which planets might be truly habitable.



A study published today in the journal Science Advances looks at the conditions that created the very first primitive microbes on Earth. The science team is referring to exoplanets that satisfy these conditions as being in the "abiogenesis zone"—and how much ultraviolet light a planet receives could be just as important for habitability as its position.

"At the moment we don't fully understand all the conditions needed for life to arise on a planet, so we don't have a full definition of the abiogenesis zone," Samantha Thompson, a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and co-author of the new paper, told Popular Mechanics in an email. "The requirement on sufficient amounts of UV light and some basic molecules that we would expect to find on the early Earth gets us half the amino acids that we are familiar with, but we still have a large piece of the puzzle to solve."

The right amount of UV light is critical to kick off the sort of chemical reactions that lead to self-reproducing life. To measure the ideal conditions for life to form, the researchers filled a vat with hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphite. They then applied ultraviolet radiation at varying levels to see what would happen (much like the famous Miller-Urey experiment).

The team compared "light" and "dark" chemistry, where dark chemistry relied on infrared radiation and other heat sources more so than ultraviolet light. Hydrogen compounds left in the dark tended to create inert compounds, while those subjected to ultraviolet light created the chemical building blocks for lipids, proteins, and RNA—the stuff of life.

“There is chemistry that happens in the dark: it’s slower than the chemistry that happens in the light, but it’s there,” Didier Queloz, an astrophysics professor at the Cavendish Laboratory and co-author of the study, said in a press release. “We wanted to see how much light it would take for the light chemistry to win out over the dark chemistry.”

The team arrived at the conclusion that K-dwarf stars, a type of star a little smaller than the sun, are the smallest type of star that can produce enough ultraviolet energy. Unfortunately, of the 17-ish exoplanets believed to be in an Earth-like habitable zone, only four are around K-type or larger stars. The rest are around M-dwarfs, or red dwarfs. These are the smallest stars and, though they have a long life span, most of their light is emitted in infrared.

However, the study does give red dwarfs a small fighting chance. While they're the smallest stars, they produce some of the biggest flares in relation to their size. Those flares, in turn, may provide enough UV energy to catalyze life-building reactions, but they need to hit their planets with at least 50 percent of the energy the planets might receive around a larger star.

"M-dwarfs only emit enough UV during intense flare events, and these would need to repeat at a sufficient frequency to maintain those chemical reactions," Thompson says. "It will require further study, but it is entirely possible that the intensity and duration of flares required to allow life to arise on an M-dwarf planet will also be enough to strip away its atmosphere, meaning that life may start to arise but then be killed off unless the star becomes less active whilst there is still some atmosphere remaining."



In the end, the study finds three of those four planets to be ideal. There's Kepler-452b, which is in a 385 day orbit around a sun-like star. There are also Kepler-62e and -62f, the former of which is in the hotter edge of its star's habitable zone. Generally speaking, Venus and Mars are within the habitable zone of Earth, but neither is particularly particularly friendly for life at this point. Kepler-442b, a super-Earth, is just outside the "abiogenesis zone," and the TRAPPIST-1 planets, barring sufficient flares, may be far less likely, according to the paper. 



Right now, we know of only one place that has ever had life: Earth. The conditions set forth by the study are biased by this, a point that the authors acknowledge in the paper:



"The search for biosignatures on planets around quiet M-dwarfs remains worthwhile, in some senses even more now than before our investigation. If definitive biosignatures were discovered within the atmospheres of multiple rocky planets around quiet ultracool dwarfs, at the very least, then such findings would suggest that the mechanism by which Earth-like life could originate is not universal."

Figuring out which planets are actually habitable is a question for future telescopes. We'll need enough data on these comparatively tiny worlds (we haven't taken a direct picture of these planets, but rather a picture of the way they blot out a small portion of their stars' light) to figure out what's in their atmospheres—something at the very margins of today's telescopes.

So is there alien life in the universe? We hope so, but it may be much rarer than we thought or hoped for.</s>A notorious UFO hunter has claimed that the US dollar bill is hiding a picture of an ‘alien overlord’.

Scott C. Waring claimed an image on the same side of the banknotes as the infamous pyramid and all-seeing eye actually shows the face of the extraterrestrial rulers of Planet Earth.

On his blog, UFO Sightings Daily, Waring wrote: ‘Aliens have placed secret messages in our own currency. Some say you have to draw the alien, but thats not true. If you just add contrast (shadow) to the original, it will turn into the alien head.

‘Alien art is suppose to be outside the realms of our comprehension, made not on one level like human art, but many levels of understanding, making most too complex for our primitive minds.

‘Are there alien overlords that control Americans minds and bodies to do their bidding? Well, there are aliens on Earth and some do have powerful telepathy that can travel long distances, so I would say yes, it is possible and this classic one dollar US bill is evidence that alien has infiltrated the US government and may have permanent control.’

Sadly, Waring believes the intellect of our alien rulers is so great that resistance is quite literally futile.

He added: ‘How could a mere human fight such powerful intelligence? No human can. We are at their mercy. We are a primitive species still controlled by our primitive decision making and instincts.

‘There are secret signs all around us, that aliens have been controlling our destiny, controlling the direction humanity is taking for their own benefits. With the visible letters MERICA at the top, may mean Me Rica, the name of a specific alien overlord.’

Waring recently claimed that the ‘penis area of an alien body on Mars’ is hiding a strange secret.</s>The Alien films have been endlessly spoofed in popular culture, and with its bevy of cinematic references, The Simpsons has proven to be particularly fertile ground for clever tributes to the cult horror/sci-fi series. On the 37th anniversary of Ridley Scott's 1979 original, here's a brief history of the show's loving homages to the cult franchise. Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.

The first instance of The Simpsons' Alien spoofery came during Season 5, when, during a segment of the uber-violent Itchy and Scratchy Show, Itchy is shown bursting from Scratchy's stomach in the style of H.R. Giger's baby xenomorph.

After Santa's Little Helper escapes into the air ducts of Springfield Elementary, Groundskeeper Willie is sent in after him, leading to a direct spoof of the sequence in Alien that sees Dallas navigating the ventilation shafts of the Nostromo with the help of Lambert's Atari-esque motion tracker.

In the famous final segment of “ToH VI,” Homer enters a three-dimensional world that approximates the cutting-edge animation of the mid 1990s. While the segment is technically a parody of the Twilight Zone episode “Little Girl Lost,” the title's format “Homer^3” (in addition to being a math gag) is a direct homage to the “cubed” title of David Fincher's 1992 threequel Alien 3, according to crew members featured on the audio commentary for the episode's home video release (via A.V. Club).

During a shootout with the Springfield Police during a bank robbery, Snake Jailbird and a number of other criminals use guns clearly modeled off the M41A pulse rifles brandished by Ripley and Hicks in James Cameron's Aliens.

During a montage of famous kissing scenes from various films, the iconic scene from Alien 3 in which the xenomorph has Ripley up against a wall in the infirmary gets a revisionist ending when the alien's inner jaw smooches the bad-ass heroine on the cheek.

In the opening scene of “ToH XXI,” an alien embryo can be spotted in Professor Frink's stomach as he walks in front of his X-ray machine.

During the episode's opening scene, Bart's standard-issue astronaut ensemble is revealed to be much more when Maggie bursts from his chest in a xenomorph costume.

During a fundraiser hosted by Mr. Burns, a flying Blinky fish appears sporting the razor-sharp inner jaw of a xenomorph.

During “ToH XXIV's” opening title sequence, a fully-grown xenomorph can briefly be assembling in a field alongside other classic monsters.</s>Are we alone in the universe? This question has been with us for thousands of years, but it is only now that science is on the cusp of providing a real answer. We now know of dozens of rocky planets orbiting stars other than our sun where, for all we know, life might exist. And soon, with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, we will have the first chance to peer into the atmospheres of some of these worlds.

But what should we look for? In our new study, published in Science Advances, we identify combinations of planetary temperature and light conditions sufficient to give rise to the building blocks of life.

We started with what we know. On Earth, photosynthesis – the process through which plants make energy – has transformed our atmosphere from one rich in carbon dioxide to one rich in molecular oxygen. That’s because plants transform carbon dioxide and water into sugars and oxygen using sunlight.

The presence of molecular oxygen may therefore indicate the presence of life, especially if it is observed alongside methane (plants and bacteria can produce methane). If we found carbon dioxide and methane along with the complete absence of carbon monoxide, this may also be a sign of life on other planets. This is because, as far as we know, there are ways that life can release lots of methane in a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere without also making lots of carbon monoxide.

There may be other possibilities, too – scientists are looking through all possible small molecules to identify biosignatures that we haven’t thought of yet.

But even if we knew exactly what to look for, where should we look? It is impossible to scan the entire cosmos for life. We have to look at individual systems, a handful at a time.

To be able to host life, an exoplanet needs to be the right distance from a star for liquid water to stably exist on its surface. The zone in which this criterion is satisfied is called the “habitable zone”. If we took a vial of life and dumped it on the surface of a planet in this zone, it could survive. So these planets are a good place to start looking.

However, this does not address the question of whether life could arise there on its own. Life as we know it requires a variety of molecular structures that perform various functions within the cell. These include DNA, RNA, proteins and cell membranes, which are made up of relatively simple building blocks (lipids, nucleotides and amino acids). For a long time it was a mystery where those building blocks came from, but recently there have been major breakthroughs in determining how they arose on the surface of the early Earth.

For example, shining ultraviolet light on hydrogen cyanide (a chemical compound that exists in nature) in water, along with an negatively charged ion (an atom that has lost electrons) such as bisulfite, leads to simple sugars.

Hydrogen cyanide is abundant in the “protoplanetary disks” which form solar systems and in comets, and can be formed on a planet’s surface by impact. The bisulfite on Earth probably developed from sulphur dioxide from volcanoes being absorbed into water – something that could also happen on exoplanets.

In certain environments, with the right conditions, hydrogen cyanide and a negatively charged ion can lead to the formation of many of life’s building blocks selectively and at large concentrations. But the reactions depend on having the right amount of UV light. In the absence of light, these same molecules – hydrogen cyanide and bisulfite – slowly react to form products that do not lead to the building blocks of life.

The speed of these reactions in the light and in the dark can both be measured in the lab – and that’s what we did in our new study. Comparing these speeds allowed us to delineate an “abiogenesis zone” (abiogenesis means “origin of life”) – the region at the right distance from a star for chemistry in the light to outcompete the chemistry in the dark.

For stars like our sun, the abiogenesis zone overlaps with the habitable zone. But for cooler stars, the story is more complicated. When cool stars are inactive, the abiogenesis zone is too close to the star to overlap with the habitable zone. But cool stars can also be very active, producing large and frequent flares. Are these flares sufficient to drive the chemistry that leads to life’s building blocks? It may be possible, but much more work needs to be done to confidently identify planets around them as suitable for life.

We cross referenced our results with a catalogue of known exoplanets that are classified to be in the habitable zone to identify those that are primed for life. We found two candidates. Kepler-452b is the smallest exoplanet we know that resides definitively located in both the habitable and abiogenesis zones. Exoplanet Kepler-62e may also be in the abiogenesis zone, but it is not as likely to be rocky.

Sadly both of these exoplanets are too far away for the James Webb telescope to investigate. While we didn’t find any exoplanets nearby in both the habitable and abiogenesis zones, we are discovering such worlds at breathtaking speed – with several thousands discovered already. So it may not be long until we do. For example, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has a chance of finding more systems like Kepler-452b that are closer to home. Until then, we could also use the method to probe moons around giant gas planets within habitable zones to find out if they are primed for life.

Although this is exciting, it should be noted that it is very difficult to solve a problem on the basis of a single data point. Right now, Earth is the only data point we have for life. In the future, if we find multiple examples of life, concepts like the abiogenesis zone can be used to test the predictions of different origin of life theories and gain new insight about how life started on Earth and whether it could have started any other way. But of course it will be amazing enough simply to discover life somewhere outside our solar system.
Kepler-452b emerges as an exoplanet that might support alien life.