Astronomers Find Earth-Size Worlds
By Barry Ritholtz - December 21st, 2011, 8:00AM
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Very cool scientific achievement in the search for habitable worlds: Scientists have discovered several planets of similar size to the earth orbiting a sun-like star:
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Using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers discovered two Earth-size planets orbiting a distant star–the smallest of all the thousands of alien worlds detected so far, Lee Hotz reports on the News Hub. Photo: NASA.
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Source:
Astronomers Spot Distant Earth-Size Planets
ROBERT LEE HOTZ
WSJ, DECEMBER 21, 2011
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110562687967308.html
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December 21st, 2011 at 11:43 am
T’he WSJ needs to find a better reporter. I’m not in astronomy, but am into reading, and going to the actual site I learned:
1. The Kepler telescope IS looking at stars in OUR galaxy (about a 1/4 way around)
2. The mass cannot be detected from Kepler, but all of the announced system candidates have been verified using a second method (Doppler) that can determine mass (that means there are other earthlikes suspected but not yet confirmed)
3. The planets ARE detected visually/optically. Kepler is a camera that looks at all the stars in the region at the same time and is constantly taking pictures. A dip in the light from the star indicates that a planet may have passed in front (needs to be confirmed, then verified).
Here’s a link to the site: http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/kepler20f/
December 21st, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Barry, please let us know when and if there are any direct plays on mining these jewels.