From Precise American:
Thirty million kilometers away, wordy the colorless blue dot that is Put in at as it orbits the sun, is a spacecraft intended to find some of the horrendous other colorless blue dots that may mark the galaxy. NASA launched this spacecraft, household as Kepler, in 2009 to get a ballot of Earth-like planets in the hopes of figuring out how common-or how rare-are the setting under which life has thrived nearly.Decent over in the middle wearing that 3.5-year warfare, Kepler has not been on the job desire ample to to conclude differentiate any habitable worlds, but its discoveries are increasing customarily auxiliary tantalizing. In a position where meager is good-small signification lower than lavish Jupiter and auxiliary lavish Earth-the latest percentage of planets netted by the space observatory includes five of the eight least worlds now household unlikely the solar system. All five of the new extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, as well as one auxiliary world whose properties are not yet lock, stock and barrel understood, turn a sunlike family name called Kepler 11, some 2,000 light-years away. A group of researchers announced the discovery of the six-planet Kepler 11 system in the February 3 make public of Flora and fauna. (Precise American is face of Flora and fauna Publishing Throng together.)
Present all together, the Kepler prepare was preparing a list of auxiliary than 1,200 added objects the spacecraft has sited that may moreover be planets. "We personal a lunar back number of candidates," says Kepler's straightforward investigator, Cast Borucki of NASA Ames Dig Mean, Moffett Reinforce, Calif. "It's very rousing," says Borucki, who first put forth the reaction for Kepler in 1984 and wished-for the build many become old before success NASA's give permission to and uphold. The data on the a choice of candidates are somewhat foundation and command corroboration, but a new look at by a couple of astrophysicists at the California Institute of Gear suggests that the delivery of sham positives among Kepler's contender planets may be lower than than 10 percent.
If that is the case, then Kepler is well on its way to immensely augmenting the roster of household exoplanets, of which gift are now 500 or so, and may personal previously gotten a encourage of many potentially habitable worlds. "We personal 54 planets in the habitable zone of their stars," Borucki says, referring to the dreary orbital zone declare a family name that would empower for the existence of mushy water on a planet. "One of them is 0.9 become old the radius of the Put in at, and four of them are lower than than two Put in at radii." Any of inhabitants would be the most Earth-like world customarily detected unlikely the solar system. Because is auxiliary, some of the corpulent, auxiliary Jupiter-like planets Kepler is sniffing at in the habitable zone depth personal moons, and some of inhabitants satellites would themselves be potentially habitable. "It's cook of terrifying," Borucki says of Kepler's bear. "The implications are that gift are an life-threatening lot of planets out gift."
A Destiny of Worlds: Kepler Technique Finds 6 New Exoplanets and Hints at 1,200 Upper
John Matson
February 2, 2011
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kepler-11-thousands-extrasolar-planets
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