Kepler

Nasa’s Kepler Spacecraft Narrows The Search For Goldilocks Planet

March 30, 2012

Light reflected from a planet carries the 'fingerprint' of its atmospheric composition.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive “super-Earths” and “hot Jupiters,” and a miniature solar system. The variety of planets circling distant suns is as wonderful as it is surprising. As the numbers mount, it seems to be just a matter of time before Kepler finds what astronomers are really looking for: an Earth-like planet orbiting its star in the “Goldilocks zone”—that is, at just the right distance for liquid water and life. “I believe Kepler will find a ‘Goldilocks planet’ within the next two years,” says...

New Exo-Planet Found In Habitable Zone 22 Light Years Away

February 3, 2012

By Michael Muracco

An artist's conception of the alien planet GJ 667Cc

A team of scientists from Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of California, Santa Cruz using data from the Kepler space telescope have identified a planet 22 light-years away that could possibly harbor life. The planets star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements.This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed. The international team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler annoced their dicovery yesterday. The team used public data from...

Scientist Find Three Exo-Planets Smaller Than Earth

January 11, 2012

By Michael Muracco

A team of astronomers led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system. The alien worlds, detected using publicly available data from NASA’s Kepler mission, are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the diameter of Earth, respectively; the smallest one is roughly Mars-size. The three exoplanets orbit a red dwarf star known as KOI-961, which is just one-sixth the size of our sun and is located 120 light-years away, in the Constellation Cygnus. The red dwarf, called KOI-961, was first flagged as a potential planetary system...

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope Discovers First Earth Sized Exo-Planets

December 20, 2011

By Michael Muracco

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.

NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun. The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is slightly larger...

SETI Searchs Kepler Telescopes Top Earth-Like Planet Discoveries

September 29, 2011

By Michael Muracco

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, the largest steerable radio telescope in the world, is observing 86 planetary systems that may contain Earth-like planets in hopes of detecting signals from intelligent civilizations.

Astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, are aiming a radio telescope at the most Earth-like worlds discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Kepler has recently identified 1,235 possible planets around stars in our galaxy. The search began on Saturday, May 8, when the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope – the largest steerable radio telescope in the world – dedicated an hour to eight stars with possible planets. Once UC Berkeley astronomers acquire 24 hours of data on a total of 86 Earth-like planets, they’ll initiate a coarse analysis and then, in about two months, ask an estimated...

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers A Planet Orbiting Two Stars

September 15, 2011

By Michael Muracco

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers A Planet Orbiting Two Stars

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth. Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by...

US Astronomers Launch New Search For Alien Life On 86 Planets

May 15, 2011

By Michael Muracco

86 possible Earth-like planets of 1,235 possible planets in the Kepler mission star field will be scanned.

The powerful Green Bank Telescope at the very cutting edge of radio astronomy technology in rural West Virginia has begun listening for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets. Selected from a list of 1,235 possible planets in the Kepler mission star field shown above — the effort will gather 24 hours of data on each one. The mission is part of the SETI project, which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, launched in the mid 1980s. The 17 million pound (7.7 million kilogram) telescope became operational in 2000 and is a project of the NSF’s...

Two Billion Earthlike Planets In The Milky Way

March 30, 2011

By Michael Muracco

Two Billion Earthlike Planets In The Milky Way

via: dailygalaxy.com Our Milky Way galaxy may be home to at least two billion Earthlike planets, a new study based on initial data from from NASA’s Kepler space telescope says — a number that is actually far lower than many scientists anticipated, which could make it hard to find twin “Earths” in our galaxy. Based on what Kepler’s found so far, the study authors think that up to 2.7 percent of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way host so-called Earth analogs. As of this February, Kepler has confirmed 15 new planets and found an additional 1,235 planet...

Tiny Area of Milky Way Yields Six-Planet Solar System and 1200 Exo Planets (58 in Life-Zone Orbits)

February 2, 2011

By Michael Muracco

Tiny Area of Milky Way Yields Six-Planet Solar System and 1200 Exo Planets (58 in Life-Zone Orbits)

* NASA’s Kepler telescope has found more than 1,200 extrasolar planet candidates. * Smaller worlds, like Earth, appear to be more common than gas giants, like Jupiter. * One six-planet system is unique in that the planets orbit very close to their sun. NASA’s life-search is off to the races! NASA announced today that the Kepler space telescope’s survey of one small swath of the Milky Way registered more than 1,200 exo-planet candidates, including 58 residing in life-friendly orbits around their parent stars. Today’s new discoveries from NASA’s Kepler space mission reveal a large and promising variety of planets...