NASA's Kepler Mission Announces a Planet Bonanza, 715 New Worlds

[knocker]

 

NASA's Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system.

 

Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-mission-announces-a-planet-bonanza/#.Uw86FM6cSpB

 

The histogram shows the number of planets by size for all known exoplanets. The blue bars on the histogram represents all the exoplanets known, by size, before the Kepler Planet Bonanza announcement on Feb. 26, 2014. The gold bars on the histogram represent Kepler's newly-verified planets. Image Credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel

 

The histogram shows the number of planet discoveries by year for roughly the past two decades of the exoplanet search. The blue bar shows previous planet discoveries, the red bar shows previous Kepler planet discoveries, the gold bar displays the 715 new planets verified by multiplicity. Image Credit: NASA Ames/SETI/J Rowe

[summer blizzard]

Brilliant. Advancing the frontiers.

[mike Meehan]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescope-finds-mother-lode-planets-024938549.html?vp=1#ATXbJs5

 

 

Nasa's planet-hunting Kepler telescope has discovered more than 700 new worlds outside the solar system.

Scientists say the latest results push the number of planets discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700.

Just 20 years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around the sun.

"We almost doubled just today the number of planets known to humanity," Nasa planetary scientist Jack Lissauer said.

Nasa scientist Douglas Hudgins called the discovery a major step towards Kepler's ultimate goal: "finding Earth 2.0".

Astronomers used a new technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets - what planets outside our solar system are called.

All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star.

The 715 planets were nearly all similar in size to Earth and four orbit their stars in "habitable zones" where conditions would support liquid water which is crucial for life to exist.

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[poseidon]

NASA Announces Discovery of First Earth-Size Planet With Potential for Life....

 

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/04/nasa-announces-discovery-of-first-earth-size-planet-with-potential-for-life/360837/