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
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NASA will live stream a media briefing about Kepler space observatory results on June 19th:
NASA will hold a media briefing at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, June 19, to announce the latest planet candidate results from the agency's exoplanet-hunting Kepler mission. The briefing, taking place during the Kepler Science Conference, will be held at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
That will kick off the fourth Kepler Science Conference from June 19-23 at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday June 22 2017, @03:21PM (6 children)
What size of radio/traditional telescope do we need to do rudimentary spectroscopy on the closest of these planets? I imagine the new thirty meter telescope might, but I'm not qualified to do the math.
It'd be amazing to start seeing what the atmosphere/surface of these planets are made of.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 22 2017, @03:39PM (2 children)
I vote for building a really huge telescope on the far side of the Moon.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @04:27PM (1 child)
Grishnakh is a well known moon shill, disregard his posts about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @04:43PM
Maser cannon on the near side of the moon.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday June 22 2017, @03:48PM (2 children)
https://jwst.nasa.gov/origins.html [nasa.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday June 22 2017, @04:31PM (1 child)
Webb will be much smaller than the TMT, but I guess has less interference which is better for spectroscopy, then?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 22 2017, @10:53PM
http://www.tmt.org/science-case [tmt.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Infrared_astronomy [wikipedia.org]
Adaptive optics is a game changer, but it can only take you so far.
TMT was planned to begin operating in 2022 but that has been delayed due to the construction/permiting controversy. JWST is designed to last 5-10 years and begins collecting data around early 2019. There may be less overlap than you expect between the missions.
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(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @03:40PM (2 children)
I wonder whether that should be:
"outside our stellar/star system"
rather than:
"outside our solar system".
Alternatively, I wonder whether that should be:
"outside the solar system".
Our star's name is "Sol"; hence, our stellar/star system is known as as the solar system.
(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
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:41PM (3 children)
By "Earth Like" does that mean there are marketing droids, managers, power point presentations, and pointless content-free meetings?
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 22 2017, @10:43PM (1 child)
It's in the summary.
It means these worlds will be suspiciously scorched when we look at them.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:17PM
If our looking at them causes them to be scorched, then we should look at them through instruments instead of the naked eye.
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(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 23 2017, @03:14AM
No, because the Gulgafrinchans sent those people here a very long time ago.
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