NASA's Kepler Mission Coming in 2006

Anonymous Coward writes "NASA Kepler mission should discover 50 terrestrial planets if most of those found are about Earth's size, 185 planets if most are 30 percent larger than Earth and 640 if most are 2.2 times Earth's size. To highlight the difficulty of detecting an Earth-sized planet orbiting a distant star, Borucki, Kepler's principal investigator, points out it would take 10,000 Earths to cover the Sun's disk. But in a 1000x1000 pixel jpeg, that is 100 pixels (large) and there are about 120 million 'astronomical' photocells or rods in the human eye (good pixel density)."

Comments

Re:Human Eye?

[tjgoodwin]

Indeed. The conjunction of the various articles linked to would seem to imply that we don't need the Kepler mission: if you just have a snack at night, and avoid drinking, smoking, and high altitudes you'll soon be spotting Earth-sized planets with your naked eye.

Re:Human Eye?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can always spot atleast one. I just have to look down.