Comment 2 by Floyd - Exciting - what a great time to be living on this Earth. Our national newspaper ran a short article on this today which said the planet had land and water. But according to the scientists, we don't know what it's made of yet. Typical shoddy journalism.

While this sort of discovery is good progress in finding and classifying exoplanets, sloppy reporting will no doubt mislead many.

@OP - The actual temperature on Kepler-22b hinges on whether the planet has an atmosphere, which, like a blanket, would warm the surface. Even without an atmosphere, Borucki said, the planet would likely be warm enough to host liquid water on its surface.

This statement does not make sense. Without the pressure of an atmosphere to restrain it, water would boil at this temperature and start to create an atmosphere.

Instead, the temperature on the newly announced planet Kepler-22b could be just right for life — about 72 degrees, a perfect spring day on Earth.

Indeed the science is so badly presented that it does not specify if it is 72°F or 72°C. If it is a "perfect spring day", it presumably means 72°F, but I would not rely on a report from someone who could not see the need to specify the temperature scale quoted!