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NASA's Kepler Telescope Launched Successfully

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-that-gravity dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "At precisely 10:49 p.m. EST, NASA's 'Kepler' telescope was successfully kicked off into space, embarking on a mission that the agency says 'may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.' The telescope will search the nearby region of our galaxy for the first time looking for Earth-size planets, which orbit stars at distances where temperatures permit liquid water to endure on their surface — a region often referred to as the 'habitable' zone."

5 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Not only has it launched... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...but it's generating it's own power and is communicating. From http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/mar/HQ_09-052_Kepler_launches.html

    Engineers acquired a signal from Kepler at 12:11 a.m. Saturday, after it separated from its spent third-stage rocket and entered its final sun-centered orbit, trailing 950 miles behind Earth. The spacecraft is generating its own power from its solar panels.

  2. Re:That's pretty cool. by edisrafeht · · Score: 4, Informative

    If it really is near-light-speed, then to the traveler, only a small amount of time has passed:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Time_dilation_and_space_flight

  3. Intersting Orbit by dangle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Instead of a low Earth orbit like Hubble, Kepler is going to use an "Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit with a period of 372.5 days.": http://kepler.nasa.gov/sci/design/orbit.html

  4. Re:That's pretty cool. by meringuoid · · Score: 3, Informative
    When in human history has encountering a more advanced civilisation ever been good for a less advanced civilisation?

    Japan didn't do too badly; once they realised how backward they were they acted quickly to catch up, taking less than ninety years from the Black Ships to Pearl Harbour. A case could perhaps be made for India, whose existence as a unified state rather than countless squabbling principalities is largely a result of the Raj. And awful though the Conquistadors were, the Aztec Empire was a brutal tyranny that enslaved all its neighbours, who were very glad indeed to see the back of Montezuma.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  5. They are after statistics by mangu · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know this is obvious to most people but the "habitable zone" is awfully generous. It's hard to gauge the exact amount of heat given off by a star from as far away as we are. Plus, the atmosphere content is extremely important.

    If you RTFA you'll see they are after statistics, not detailed data. They want to estimate the number of planets that have approximately the same characteristics as Earth.

    The Kepler will keep monitoring the same 100000 stars during five years. The number of planets detected around those stars will give a rough idea on how likely it is to find earth-like planets.