Kepler detects nearly 1,300 more planets orbiting distant stars

SFGate.com ^ | 5/11/16 | David Perlman

[NormsRevenge]

Astronomers monitoring the Kepler space telescope have detected nearly 1,300 planets flying in orbit around distant stars, a cosmic search that began nearly 10 years ago inside a rusty old telescope dome at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton near San Jose.

From the size and orbits of the new-found “exoplanets,” the astronomers said at least 550 could be rocky planets much like Earth, and at least nine are orbiting at just the right distance from their stars to lie inside their “habitable zones” where temperatures would be just right for liquid water, the one ingredient essential for life to form.

The Kepler satellite, flying in orbit around the sun, has found an additional 1,327 objects that scientists say are most likely planets but are not yet confirmed by statistical tests, and another 707 the astronomers call “likely impostors.” They could include stars circling each other in pairs of binaries, or unknown objects in flight across a star’s neighborhood, the astronomers said.

[NormsRevenge]

Don't book a flight yet..

[NormsRevenge]

http://kepler.nasa.gov/

http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/

[rdl6989]

In a little over 20 years we’ve gone from the nine (now eight) planets in our solar system to many thousands. Maybe life of some kind will be found out there in my lifetime.

[thesligoduffyflynns]

Aloha from the sunshine state!

All materials are buried in the Vatican archives where no ordinary person has access.

It’s all locked down dude, just like the alien presence on the face of God’s Green Earth /s

[Rome2000]

Be cool to see whats up 5000 years from now.

Trump coins being collected by alien beings.

[Morgana]

Don’t book a flight? Dammit Kepler is looking more and more good everyday! Know what I mean? First spaceship there, and I’m on it!!

[elephantlips]

This all falls under the category of so what? Doing anything about this “find” is soooo far beyond our capabilities now or for any foreseeable future as to render them useless information to be put on the most back burner of back burners. Speed of light is in excess of 186,000 miles per sec. Distances to these possible planets millions and/or billions of light years. The advances in so many areas of science are so far beyond our present situation it doesn’t compare to anything or any situation we have faced before. Inventions are one thing, discoveries are another.

[TXnMA]

What's this "flying in orbit" (twice) moosaki?

Spikka da ingrish?

[minnesota_bound]

#7 You will be able to take the stargate.

[Oatka]

This all falls under the category of so what? Doing anything about this “find” is soooo far beyond our capabilities now or for any foreseeable future

I dunno. In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew an airplane 120 feet in 1903, in 1948 I remember reading a blaring headline that we had bounced radar off the moon, in 1969 we landed a man on the moon. What will we be doing 66 years from now?

All we need is some guy working on a propulsion system suddenly saying "Well, I'll be damned!" - and at the speed of light, or through a worm hole, or . . ., we'll be landing on some of those planets. (In Gen. Grant's memoirs, he said that the first time he rode on a train, it hit 25 mph and thought "We have annihilated space!")

Your post reminds me of the 1899 edition of Punch Magazine where some guy showed up at the Patent Office and asked "Isn't there a clerk who can examine patents?" A boy replied "Quite unnecessary, Sir. Everything that can be invented has been invented."

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks NormsRevenge.

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[maxwellsmart_agent]

Einstein was right. There may be other life out there, but we will never get to know.

They will never prove that other life exists at the distances that they will need to overcome.