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Kepler Finds Five More Exoplanets

Posted by kdawson on from the nice-places-to-visit-but dept.

Arvisp was one of several readers to send news of five new exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope. In addition to the new "hot Jupiters" — the easiest targets to find — Kepler's early data has turned up some oddities, including something that is too hot to be a planet and too small to be a star. And one of the exoplanets is so fluffy that "it has the density of Styrofoam." The real news is that Kepler works as designed, and the scientists running it are fully confident that it will find Earth-like planets in some star's habitable zone, if they are out there to be found. Here is NASA's press release.

3 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But Why? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, finding habitable planets is cool. But what are they going to do once they've found one? Tick a box? Celebrate humanity?

    Perform spectroscopy experiments to see if the planet has more in common with ours than just mass and relative distance from its star?

    As part of the long, long process of answering one of the most amazing questions in humanity's existence: Are we alone in the universe? Is life unique to our planet, extremely rare, or as common as the stars themselves?

    You might have you own theories one way or the other, but a theory isn't an answer. This is about evidence.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  2. Conservative Approach by Greg+Hullender · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They're being extremely conservative here, double-checking every claimed discovery using grround-based telescopes. That's a very sensible way to begin; they'd hate to announce some planets and then have to retract a few later!

    As they get more verified examples under their belts, I expect they'll get a bit bolder. I certainly hope so, anyway. Earth-sized planets will be hard to double-check (Hubble could do it, but nothing on the ground), and large outer planets can't be double-checked at all, since they just make one pass and the next could be decades away.

    --Greg

  3. Yeah,uh... by flyneye · · Score: 5, Funny

    The one with the density of styrofoam actually is styrofoam. Thats the one I worked so hard on my sophomore year for Mr. Nixs earth science class.
    It turned up missing and I got a D for the quarter. I actually don't need it anymore so you're welcome to use it as a planet or whatever.
    I doubt it will sustain life, but it will hold a hatpin, which I suspended it from.

    --
    *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!