Out of this world discovery
This image depicts multi-planet solar systems, much like the worlds discovered by the Kepler space telescope. Courtesy of www.sciencedaily.com
Courtesy of www.sciencedaily.com
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced its Kepler mission’s discovery of 719 new worlds beyond Earth’s solar system February 26. These planets contribute to a rocketing count of verified exoplanets, whose existence has a significant impact on current understandings of the galaxy.
NASA launched the Kepler space telescope with the goal of finding life-supporting planets similar to Earth. The $600 million instrument is adept at finding large groups of planets outside Earth’s solar system, according to huffingtonpost.com. Its discovery is the largest exoplanetary one ever made.
“We studied just over 1,200 systems, and from there we were able to validate 719 planets,” Jason Rowe of NASA Ames Research Center said according to huffingtonpost.com. “This is the biggest haul ever.”
Four of the newly found planets are roughly twice the size of Earth and orbit in what is considered the habitable zone of their stars. This fact signifies that they are at a certain distance from their stars that could allow water to exist in liquid form on the surface, according to washingtonpost.com.
“Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth,” according to sciencedaily.com.
All of the recently identified worlds are members of multi-planet systems, many of which are extremely compact, with several satellite objects closely orbiting a star.
Mr. Rick Bria, Part-Time Astronomy Technician at Convent of the Sacred Heart, believes that the Kepler discovery suggests that Earth’s solar system is not unique.
“Other solar systems have many planets circling the parent star. With planets similar to Earth, and similar to the gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune,” Mr. Rick Bria said.
In order to be “earth-like,” a planet must be big enough so that its atmosphere does not drift away, but no larger than 10 times the size of Earth, according to slate.com.
Kepler’s findings expand NASA’s knowledge of exoplanets as well as provide a foundation for further research.
“The Kepler mission is just the beginning. Scientists will be extracting new information from the Kepler data for years to come,” Mr. Bria said. “Also, bigger and better telescopes will be coming online and hopefully will build and expand on what Kepler has done. It is a very exciting time for this field of astronomy.”
These recent discoveries comprise a significant portion of the 961 exoplanets detected and validated by the Kepler Telescope Mission. Researchers hope that Kepler will continue looking for and finding celestial objects in the years to come.
– Isabelle Jeffrey, Staff Writer
