New "Earthlike" Kepler Exoplanets announced
January 7, 2015 at 6:16 am
(This post was last modified: January 7, 2015 at 6:20 am by Alex K.)
A few days ago, people working on Data of the Kepler satellite came out with 8 newly confirmed planets which are probably in the habitable zone of their stars, two of them in particular.
http://www.universetoday.com/117881/new-...able-zone/
Kepler, when it was still fully functional, had as its mission to constantly stare at the same square of space in the constellation Cygnus,
![[Image: 286252main_kepler-milkyway-fov_946-710.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.nasa.gov%2Fimages%2Fcontent%2F286252main_kepler-milkyway-fov_946-710.jpg)
where it simultaneously monitored 150 000 stars with its 90 megapixel camera, waiting for planets to move in front of the star and registering the resulting slight dimming.
Of course, we do not know anything about these new planets except that they are probably rocky worlds near the habitable zone of their stars. They could be a Garden Eden, barren wastelands or hellish furnaces depending on their atmosphere.
Just for comparison, our own planet Venus nearly classifies as being in the habitable zone, and has since suffered a runaway greenhouse effect which has stripped it of its surface water and lets it boil in 500 centigrade temperatures. Ironically, the equilibrium temperature of Venus without greenhouse effect is, similar to earth, just slightly below freezing.
If you want to look at the stats of all known exoplanets yourself, go for example to
http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/
Unless multiple transits are recorded, Kepler observations require further validation or confirmation until a discovery is announced - I've read that roughly 10% of Kepler candidates turn out to be false positives. In the case of the 8 newly validated planets, confirmation did not simply come from a separate observation using a different method, but from a very sophisticated computer-intensive simulation called "BLENDER". I have no idea how it works, but it sounds intriguing. Apparently, simulations are performed which allow to judge the statistical probability of alternative hypotheses.
http://www.universetoday.com/117881/new-...able-zone/
Kepler, when it was still fully functional, had as its mission to constantly stare at the same square of space in the constellation Cygnus,
where it simultaneously monitored 150 000 stars with its 90 megapixel camera, waiting for planets to move in front of the star and registering the resulting slight dimming.
Of course, we do not know anything about these new planets except that they are probably rocky worlds near the habitable zone of their stars. They could be a Garden Eden, barren wastelands or hellish furnaces depending on their atmosphere.
Just for comparison, our own planet Venus nearly classifies as being in the habitable zone, and has since suffered a runaway greenhouse effect which has stripped it of its surface water and lets it boil in 500 centigrade temperatures. Ironically, the equilibrium temperature of Venus without greenhouse effect is, similar to earth, just slightly below freezing.
If you want to look at the stats of all known exoplanets yourself, go for example to
http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/
Unless multiple transits are recorded, Kepler observations require further validation or confirmation until a discovery is announced - I've read that roughly 10% of Kepler candidates turn out to be false positives. In the case of the 8 newly validated planets, confirmation did not simply come from a separate observation using a different method, but from a very sophisticated computer-intensive simulation called "BLENDER". I have no idea how it works, but it sounds intriguing. Apparently, simulations are performed which allow to judge the statistical probability of alternative hypotheses.
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