Has Kepler found Earth twins?

NASA’s space telescope Kepler, which was successfully launched in March 2009, is theoretically capable of hunting out extrasolar planets (planets that orbit suns other than our own) of the size of the Earth. Certain media have recently announced that Kepler has found more than a hundred or so extrasolar planets similar to the Earth in size. But as far as the American agency is concerned, it reiterates that the data from its other-world-hunter is in the process of being analysed and that such a conclusion is premature since observations are required in order to rule out false candidates (for example, in certain cases, two stars that orbit one another). Nevertheless, in mid-July, astronomer Dimitar Sasselov who is working on the Kepler programme gave a talk in Oxford in the United Kingdom in which he announced that more than 100 extrasolar planets comparable to the Earth had been found using this space telescope belonging to NASA.

Video of Dimitar Sasselov’s conference

Kepler mission official website (NASA)

Published on 26 July 2010

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