Kepler Finds Five More Exoplanets

Arvisp was one of several readers to send news of five new exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope. In addition to the new "hot Jupiters" — the easiest targets to find — Kepler's early data has turned up some oddities, including something that is too hot to be a planet and too small to be a star. And one of the exoplanets is so fluffy that "it has the density of Styrofoam." The real news is that Kepler works as designed, and the scientists running it are fully confident that it will find Earth-like planets in some star's habitable zone, if they are out there to be found. Here is NASA's press release.

Conservative Approach

[Greg Hullender]

They're being extremely conservative here, double-checking every claimed discovery using grround-based telescopes. That's a very sensible way to begin; they'd hate to announce some planets and then have to retract a few later!

As they get more verified examples under their belts, I expect they'll get a bit bolder. I certainly hope so, anyway. Earth-sized planets will be hard to double-check (Hubble could do it, but nothing on the ground), and large outer planets can't be double-checked at all, since they just make one pass and the next could be decades away.

--Greg

What about what we don't know yet?

[TroshBogre]

"...the scientists running it are fully confident that it will find Earth-like planets in some star's habitable zone"

Good to see that we're keeping a nice and closed mind about any lifeforms that might be outside the box. Just because we're so stuck on the definition of life that works here on our planet doesn't mean we won't find a lifeform that completely redefines "habitable zone".

Mote Exoplanets will always be found.

[Froeschle]

"....if they are out there to be found." They are out there whether we can find them or not. What I find really strange is why just prior to the fist exoplanet being discovered that scientists bothered debating the existence of exoplanets in the first place.

If you like data . . .

[Greg Hullender]

Check out these pics of transits from the presentation. http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/414829main_3_transit_light_curves.jpg [nasa.gov]

--Greg

Re:Conservative Approach

[Elder Entropist]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they need to see two transits to see the complete dip of light and a second for confirmation and orbital period. As the project has been running for six weeks, they have only results for planets that orbit their star in 3 weeks or less. Detecting Earth size planets in the habitable zone could take years before they make two transits. Detecting Earth itself would take 2 years.

Re:Mote Exoplanets will always be found.

[QuoteMstr]

Actually, there is a very good philosophical reason to suspect exoplanets should exists: the mediocrity principle [wikipedia.org].

That is, we are not a very special and unique snowflake. We're not in a privileged position in the universe. There are billions of planets just like ours.