Kepler Delivers

A little more than a year ago I reported on the Kepler mission -- an orbiting telescope dedicated to searching for extrasolar planets. Well, NASA's announced that Kepler has made its first hits. The satellite has so far identified five worlds circling other stars. All five are big "hot Jupiter" types, massive worlds circling close to their parent stars.

This is not a surprise to the astronomers running the project, as that kind of world is apparently the easiest to spot. Smaller worlds like Earth with longer orbital cycles take longer to identify. It will likely be several years before there are enough observations to tell if any of the stars watched by Kepler have planets like ours.

Comments

[Chrystal K.]

This is exciting.

[Cambias]

It sure is, Chrystal. What do you find exciting about it?