'Most Earth-Like' Exoplanet Gets Major Demotion

audiovideodisco writes "Last month, the team behind NASA's Kepler planet-finding mission announced the discovery of the most Earth-like planetary candidate ever spotted: KOI 326.01, an approximately Earth-sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star. There was much excitement; one astrophysicist even calculated the value of the new planet as exactly $223,099.93. But when an innocent fact-checker's question sent one of the researchers back to look at some figures, she noticed that the star's brightness was listed incorrectly in a reference catalog, throwing the planet's properties into doubt. After jiggering the calculations, the Kepler team now says that KOI 326.01 is neither Earth-sized nor in the habitable zone, and may actually be orbiting a different star. The Kepler researcher says, 'We're seeing the scientific method playing out in real time.' While this news is a bit of a downer, Kepler is just getting going, and it's expected to find many, many more Earth-like planets."

Comments

Re:Real time science indeed

[Archangel Michael]

All bad science begins with "A scientist says it, therefore I believe it". How many people have heard, and repeated the previous "declaration" as "fact" but will remain unaware of this new information? And how many of the ignorant pseudo scientists will continue to believe, even if you present this evidence.

Much of what passes for science is indistinguishable from religion.