Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
posted by
mattie_p
on Thursday February 27 2014, @10:31AM
from the I-bet-that's-all-of-them-now dept.
from the I-bet-that's-all-of-them-now dept.
kef writes:
"NASA's Kepler mission has doubled the number of known planets outside of our solar system. In what can only be described as a "bonanza", 715 new planets have been reported thanks to the Kepler space telescope's planet-hunting mission. Using a new method for verifying potential planets led to the volume of new discoveries from Kepler, which aims to help humans search for other worlds that may be like Earth."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
NASA Kepler Telescope Discovers 715 New Planets
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 1000 moderator points
| 27 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday February 27 2014, @11:08AM
One bit of good news for all this is that we're starting to get a better sense of at least 1 other factor of the Drake Equation, namely the fraction of stars with planets. And the answer appears to be remarkably close to 1, which is to say that planets are not unusual at all.
This is good news provided that any aliens (a) can't get to us easily enough for it to be worth trying, (b) are friendly, (c) are less technologically capable than us, or (d) are killed by the common cold.
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 27 2014, @04:16PM
...the fraction of stars with planets. And the answer appears to be remarkably close to 1, which is to say that planets are not unusual at all.
This plus the recent discovery of atmospheric water vapor on Tau Bootis b [extremetech.com] keeps increasing the probability that we will find life out there.