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NASA’s Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

By Guest PostSeptember 16, 2011Sciencebinary system, double sunset, Galaxy, gravitational pull, gravitational tug on stars, habitable zone, john knoll, kepler 16b, kepler mission, kepler space telescope, laurance doyle, NASA, planet orbiting two stars, san francisco, saturn, star wars, tatooine, visual effects, william borucki

PASADENA, Calif. — The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth.

Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it. (more…)

Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found in Habitable Zone

By Guest PostFebruary 3, 2011Scienceames research center, charles bolden, constellations, cygnus, earth size planet, extraterrestrial planets, Galaxy, habitable zone, jack lissauer, kepler, kepler 11, kepler 11b, kepler mission, liquid water, lyra, moffett field, NASA, science fiction, space telescope, star, william borucki

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.

Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system. (more…)

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2010Scienceastronomers, citizen science project, constellation, cygnus, debra fischer, dimming of light, earth, earth like planets, exoplanets, galaxy zoo, galaxy zoo project, global network, globe, human computing power, jupiter, kepler mission, kevin schawinski, large gas giants, meg schwamb, NASA, planet candidates, planet hunters, solar system, space telescope, sun, web users, yale astronomer, zooniverse

Web users around the globe will be able to help professional astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets thanks to a new online citizen science project called Planet Hunters that launched Dec. 16. at www.planethunters.org.

Planet Hunters, which is the latest in the Zooniverse citizen science project collection, will ask users to help analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission. The space telescope has been searching for planets beyond our own solar system—called exoplanets—since its launch in March 2009. (more…)

Tag Archives: kepler mission

NASA’s Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found in Habitable Zone

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets