Kepler Investigator Says 'Galaxy Is Rich In Earth-Like Planets'

astroengine writes "In a recent presentation, Kepler co-investigator Dimitar Sasselov unexpectedly announced news that the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered scores of candidate Earth-like exoplanets. Not waiting for the official NASA press release to announce the discovery, Sasselov went into some detail at the TEDGlobal talk in Oxford, UK earlier this month. This surprise announcement comes hot on the heels of controversy that erupted last month when the Kepler team said they were withholding data on 400 exoplanet candidates until February 2011. In light of this, Sasselov's unofficial announcement has already caused a stir. Keith Cowing, of NASAWatch.com, has commented on this surprise turn of events, saying it is really annoying 'that the Kepler folks were complaining about releasing information since they wanted more time to analyze it before making any announcements. And then the project's Co-I goes off and spills the beans before an exclusive audience — offshore. We only find out about it when the video gets quietly posted weeks later.' Although Sasselov could have handled the announcement better (and waited until NASA made the official announcement), this has the potential to be one of the biggest astronomical discoveries of our time — so long as these Earth-like 'candidates' are confirmed by further study."

Comments

brought to you by the letter..

[SpinningCone]

can we just start calling them 'M' Class ?

Re:brought to you by the letter..

[mdwh2]

The Star Trek classification system would indeed be far better than the whole "What's a planet" argument definitions we've had (which has been hard enough with just our solar system), and things like Dwarf planets etc. We have classes for stars, so why not planets...

Small slip

[asukasoryu]

Seems like the only info released was a distribution of planet size. Without planet composition, I would describe these as Earth-size, not Earth-like. It's a little early to get excited.

Re:Small slip

[tverbeek]

You can be sure that the mainstream media will fail to make the distinction between "Earth-size" and the more vaguely-defined (but more comprehensive sounding) "Earth-like". These planets are "Earth-like" in the same sense that noxious, caustic, stifling, lung-crushing Venus is "Earth-like"... if that.

what a stupid situation

[chichilalescu]

It's really sad that a discussion about the possible detection of Earth-sized planets around other stars is dressed up in "it's our data and we want to publish first" and stuff like that.
Humanity will, one day, pay dearly the fact that scientists are forced to fight for resources...

Anyway, this is interesting news. If computers were considered "the revenge of the nerds", I'm curious what the next few years will be called.

Re:Only one factor is in question

[delt0r]

If there is no faster then light method of travelling possible, then there are unlikely to be any visitors ever. End of story.

This is quite false. You have left out a entire section of very possible developments.

• Longevity treatments. Whats 100 years when you live for 1000?
• "Cryo sleep" or suspended animation. No reason why it can't work.
• "Generation ships". No reason why a big arse space ship wouldn't be a pleasure to be part of. Even if you don't care about the destination.
• robotic overloads. You don't need AI here.

Note that nuclear fission fragment rockets can get ~5% C. Antimatter much more... sure we aren't doing it now. But there is no physics stopping it. Unlike FLT.

All we are missing is the desire or need to go in the first place.