Most Earth-like planet ever discovered could be a cosy home for alien life

[tclambert]

13. Not according to Sen. Inhofe. All that greenhouse stuff is just Al Gore pranking us.

I suppose it depends some on the ingredients of the atmosphere. But I would guess you are right. My quick calculations say Venus gets about 50% more solar radiation than Earth, but the massive insulating properties of the Venusian atmosphere make it even hotter than that would suggest. My guess is Kepler 438b would fall somewhere between Earth and Venus climate-wise. "Cosy" may be the interstellar real estate codeword for "hot as hell."

Oh, further down in the article it says they expect Kepler 438b may have a mean temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, which works out to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit (or 14 furlongs if I got the right conversion factors there). That's Death Valley in July plus a smidge. Not pleasant. In fact, at that temperature it takes about 30-35 minutes to pasteurize milk. So, let's name the planet Pasteur.