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The Kepler space telescope has found 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are "Earth-like":
NASA's Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star's habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.
This is the most comprehensive and detailed catalog release of candidate exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, from Kepler's first four years of data. It's also the final catalog from the spacecraft's view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.
With the release of this catalog, derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive, there are now 4,034 planet candidates identified by Kepler. Of which, 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets. Of roughly 50 near-Earth size habitable zone candidates detected by Kepler, more than 30 have been verified.
Also at Space.com, New Scientist, and CNN.
Previously: Kepler Exoplanet Results Briefing on June 19th, Conference From 19th-23rd
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @06:02PM (1 child)
It was called the solar system way before people realized that the Sun is also a star.
The english "sun" translates to the italian "sole", so I assume the romans called it "sole" as well, or something very similar --- this is in fact why the solar system is called "solar".
With that in mind, whether you call it "our solar system", or "our stellar system" is the same thing.
Within the last 100 years we realized that "sun" and "star" mean the same thing, or rather that "star" is a general class of objects that includes the Sun's twins as a subclass.
You may be of the opinion that, eversince astronomers decided to officially name "Sol" the star that Terra is attached to, there should be a unique "solar system", but my opinion is that when humanity does colonize planets around other stars, they will still use expressions like "sunny day", and they will call their star "the sun", and their stellar system "our solar system".
Here's an idea: use solar system for all the objects that are stably orbiting a given star.
Use "stellar" whenever you speak about stars as they relate to each other within the galaxy.
then, if you are so inclined, you can do the following:
intra-orbital = what's happening around a planet
extra-orbital = intra-solar = something happening within a solar system, like solar probes for instance
extra-solar = intra-galactic = within the galaxy. this would be Voyager 1, since it crossed the heliopause.
extra-galactic = outside the galaxy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:48PM
Uhh, sol is Latin for sun, aka that's what the Romans called it