Are you interested in discoveries being made by the Kepler mission?

I love this stuff too. Ever since the Mars Phoenix mission ended last May I have been following Kepler.

Brilliant. Thanks for this!

Oh absolutely! By monitoring ~200,000 stars continuously are able to measure small changes in the brightness and spectral shifts. That will then be used to predict the presence of orbiting planets. The resolution will be so great they should be able to find Earth-like planets. Unfortunately it will only find them if they are orbiting in a plane that is near edge on to us. That is limiting but still much better than anything we have so far.

Shall we take bets? I vote in 2 years they will find 50 Earth-like planets.

Here is Kepler’s home page

@worriedguy
Very cool.
Thank you.

@cazzie
I love sharing this stuff.
Your very welcome.

@philosopher do you tune into Science Friday with NPR. They are at risk of losing their funding…. So, tune in and give what you can… they do good work!!! I listen in at Science Lands in Second Life… I invite you to join us!