Number of Habitable Exoplanets Found by NASA's Kepler May Not Be So High After All
The tally of potentially habitable alien planets may have to be revised downward a bit. To date, NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope has discovered about 30 roughly Earth-size exoplanets in their host stars' "habitable zone" — the range of orbital distances at which liquid water can likely exist on a world's surface.
Or so researchers had thought. New observations by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia spacecraft suggest that the actual number is probably significantly smaller — perhaps between two and 12, NASA officials said today (Oct. 26)
[...] Gaia's observations suggest that some of the Kepler host stars are brighter and bigger than previously believed, the officials added. Planets orbiting such stars are therefore likely larger and hotter than previously thought.
Also at NASA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @05:16PM (2 children)
Ah, I always wondered what the humans in the Matrix world did to "scorch the sky."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 30 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)
Ah, yes. The movie that justified using humans as "batteries" by throwing in "a form of fusion". That even more vague throwaway line should definitely inform our geoengineering efforts.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:44PM
I think it was all explained in the animatrix.