Kepler Planet-Hunting Mission Finds 5 New Lightweight Worlds

Space.com ^ | 01/04/10 | Andrea Thompson

[KevinDavis]

WASHINGTON — The list of known exoplanets in the galaxy just got bigger, thanks to the first observations of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which found five new lightweight worlds orbiting distant stars.

"I would like to announce today the discovery of five exoplanets by Kepler," said Kepler science director William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., here today at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

[KevinDavis]

A big find..

[KevinDavis]

For other space news go to: http://www.spacetoday.net
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[Redbob]

And an “exoplanet” is?

[DoughtyOne]

I too think it is nice, though it still baffles me how it took so long for them to figure out how many planets in our own solar system.

[null and void]

And an “exoplanet” is?

One that is outside our solar system.

[sit-rep]

This post is worthless without pics! :)

[Mr. K]

I would feel confidant predicting that almost 100% of stars we can see (stable ones) have planets

[Trod Upon]

Might be a good place to send our lightweight president.

[rfp1234]

...five new lightweight worlds...

They have been named after true lightweights:

Obamus Prime, Bidenus Dimmus, Reidus Turdus, Pelosius Plasticus, and Algor Hipporectum.

[scottteng]

please ad me to the space nuts er I mean ping list thanks S

[Alas Babylon!]

LOL!!!!

[Ted Grant]

Have they found evidence of the evil planet Nibiru? It’s due to make a near miss with Earth in late 2012, or so some people say.

You would think we would have seen it coming decades ago, you know?

[the invisib1e hand]

Kepler Planet-Hunting Mission Finds 5 New Lightweight Worlds

Great. Let obama go and be president of one of them.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KevinDavis. May have been posted, dunno, too lazy to check. :')

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[mikrofon]

“La-dies and Gentlemen ... in this cornah (of the galaxy) ... weighing in at 115 trillion trillion metric tons ....”

[LiberConservative]

Not really a big find. It didn't take very long for Kepler to find them. These exo planets have orbits of only a few days, which means, as the article says, they are too close to their stars and far too hot for life. It's still fascinating to know that exo planets seem to be fairly common, but we won't know of anything really interesting until Kepler finds planets with orbits of many months and/or years. That will take a while.

[FDNYRHEROES]

Kepler Planet-Hunting Mission Finds 5 New Lightweight Worlds

Does the headline infer that these new worlds are "overated"?

[Bringbackthedraft]

Great to know there are distant neighbors out there. Eventually we’ll find one that is blue green and white. Billions of stars out there,we are not alone, there has to be intelligent life out there. Unfortunately we won’t live to see them. Someday an interplanetary explorer will find them and have the means to get there. It may take a few hundred or a few thousand years or more but it will happen. Of course that is, if mankind can survive the arrival of the 10th Imam. s/

[wastedyears]

HAHAHA that’s like an insult against Optimus Prime.

[wastedyears]

It's not a planet, it's a planet eater, and its name is Unicron.