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It's pretty unlikely this will remain highly talked about after Kepler releases its findings in a few months. Preliminary results show huge numbers of small ear
by equark 16y ago
It's pretty unlikely this will remain highly talked about after Kepler releases its findings in a few months. Preliminary results show huge numbers of small earth-like planets. I believe they expect to find dozens or hundreds in the habitable zone. Kepler is really what everybody is waiting for and should completely revolutionize planet-finding.
- wlievens 16y agoActually, the most interesting results won't be here til the second half of 2012, if you take the following [somewhat chauvinistic] criteria into account: - A really interesting planet orbits a planet similar to the sun. - The goldilocks zone around a planet similar to the sun puts it in an orbit radius of around 1 year (give or take 20% or so) because orbit period is a function of solar mass and distance. - It takes three occurances to be sure that a "dip" you see in light emissions is probably a pattern rather than a coincidence. It's like colinear points on a plane: two points always make a line, but for three points to be on a line you're pretty damn lucky. - Kepler was launched in 2009. So in the end of 2012 we'll have a list of (hopefully hundreds of) confirmed earth-like planets that orbit sol-like stars with a rotation period around 1 year. That is awesome.