NASA's planet-hunting revamped Kepler mission has found more than 100 confirmed planets orbiting other stars.
The information about the planets, some of which are very different from what the spacecraft observed during its original mission, was shared by University of Arizona's Ian Crossfield at a conference of the American Astronomical Society, National Geographic reported.
 |
| Artist's impression of Kepler Mission. (Photo credit: NASA) |
According to the report, many newly-found planets are in multi-planet systems and orbit stars that are brighter and hotter than the stars in the original Kepler field.
It has also found a system with three planets that are bigger than Earth, spotted a planet in the Hyades star cluster -- the nearest open star cluster to Earth -- and discovered a planet being ripped apart as it orbits a white dwarf star.
"Scientists have also found 234 possible planets that are awaiting confirmation."
 |
| A star cluster. (Photo courtesy Nasa) The spacecraft finds planets by the "transit method," noting the tiny brightness dips caused when a planet crosses its host star's face from Kepler's perspective. |
 |
| The spacecraft finds planets by the "transit method," noting the tiny brightness dips caused when a planet crosses its host star's face from Kepler's perspective. |
"Focusing on stars that are much brighter, stars that are nearer by, stars that are more easy to understand and observe from the Earth. The idea here is to find the best systems, the most interesting systems."
Astronomers found the first-ever planets orbiting a star other than our sun in 1992.With a mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are, Kepler stared at the same patch of star-filled sky, watching for periodic blips in starlight caused by orbiting planets and from 2009 to 2013, Kepler discovered more than 1,000 new planets.
 |
| Data from NASA's Kepler mission finds evidence for at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy. Image released January 3, 2013. |
The alien worlds are slightly larger than Earth, and modeling studies suggest that each is probably covered by an uninterrupted global ocean.
http://www.space.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment