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by Are We Alone? NASA Spacecraft Finds 706 Possible Planets
The first 43 days of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft
have been very productive: the mission looked at over 156,000 stars and
identified 706 candidates for Earth-like planets. The candidates will
require follow-up research to determine whether they’re actually
planets; if all 706 happened to meet the criteria for exoplanets, they
would just about triple the number of known extrasolar planets.
The new set of data is exciting for scientists and for alien hunters.
Identifying planets outside of our own solar system is the first step
toward identifying planets that could possibly harbor life. After the
newly-found objects are verified as planets, Kepler can then continue
observing them to determine if they exist in the “sweet spot” that could
support liquid water and, by extension, life. Kepler has already
returned results far above the mission’s leaders’ expectations and will
continue to watch its little patch of the sky to help us determine
whether we have company in the galaxy.
The first 43 days of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft
have been very productive: the mission looked at over 156,000 stars and
identified 706 candidates for Earth-like planets. The candidates will
require follow-up research to determine whether they’re actually
planets; if all 706 happened to meet the criteria for exoplanets, they
would just about triple the number of known extrasolar planets.
The new set of data is exciting for scientists and for alien hunters.
Identifying planets outside of our own solar system is the first step
toward identifying planets that could possibly harbor life. After the
newly-found objects are verified as planets, Kepler can then continue
observing them to determine if they exist in the “sweet spot” that could
support liquid water and, by extension, life. Kepler has already
returned results far above the mission’s leaders’ expectations and will
continue to watch its little patch of the sky to help us determine
whether we have company in the galaxy.
