NASA to Reveal New Alien Planet Findings Today: How to Watch Live

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA to Reveal New Alien Planet Findings Today: How to Watch Live
By Miriam Kramer | SPACE.com – 3 hrs ago...

This artist's illustration represents the variety of planets being detected by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Scientists now say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-size planet.

NASA will unveil new discoveries made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope today (April 18).

Scientists will reveal the findings during a news conference at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) Thursday. The announcement will also be streamed live.

You can watch the announcement live on SPACE.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

"Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water," NASA officials said in a statement. "Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope is detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better understand our place in the galaxy."

According to NASA's announcement, Thursday's press briefing will include presentations from the following scientists:
• Paul Hertz, astrophysics director, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
• Roger Hunter, Kepler project manager, Ames Research Center
• William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator, Ames Research Center
• Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Sonoma, Calif.
• Lisa Kaltenegger, research group leader, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, and research associate, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

Members of the public can ask questions using the Twitter hashtag, #AskNASA.

The $600 million Kepler spacecraft has flagged more than 2,700 potential planets since its launch. Just 115 or so have been confirmed to date by follow-up observations, but mission scientists estimate that more than 90 percent will turn out to be the real deal.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-reveal-alien-planet-findings-today-watch-live-132925554.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Discovered! Most Earth-Like Alien Planet & 2 Other Possibly Habitable Worlds
By Mike Wall | SPACE.com – 20 hrs ago...

This artist's concept depicts Kepler-62f, a planet 1.4 times the size of Earth that circles in the habitable zone of its host star. The small shining object at right is Kepler-62e, another potentially habitable world in the five-planet system.



This diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a newfound five-planet system with two potentially habitable worlds. Kepler-62 lies about 1,200 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Lyra.



The artist's concept depicts Kepler-69c, a planet 1.7 times the size of Earth that orbits in the habitable zone of a star like our sun, located about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.



This undated handout artist concept provided by Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows the newly discovered planets named Kepler-62e and -f. Scientists using NASA's Kepler telescope have found two distant planets that are in the right place and are the right size for potential life. This handout image from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows an artist concept of what these two planets, called Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f look like. The larger planet in the left corner is somewhat covered by ice and is f, which is farther from the star. The planet below it is e, which is slightly warmer and has clouds and may be a water world. (AP Photo/Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered three exoplanets that may be capable of supporting life, and one of them is perhaps the most Earth-like alien world spotted to date, scientists announced today (April 18).

That most intriguing one is called Kepler-62f, a rocky world just 1.4 times bigger than Earth that circles a star smaller and dimmer than the sun. Kepler-62f's newfound neighbor, Kepler-62e, is just 1.6 times larger than Earth, making the pair among the smallest exoplanets yet found in their star's habitable zone — the just-right range of distances where liquid water can exist on a world's surface.

Kepler-62e and f, which are part of a newly discovered five-planet system, "look very good as possibilities for looking for life," said Kepler science principal investigator Bill Borucki, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. [9 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]

The third potentially habitable planet, called Kepler-69c, is 1.7 times bigger than Earth and orbits a star similar to our own. It's the smallest world ever found in the habitable zone of a sunlike star, researchers said, and represents a big step toward discovering the first-ever "alien Earth."

"We're moving very rapidly toward finding an Earth analogue around a star like the sun," Borucki told SPACE.com.

Researchers announced these newfound planets — all three of which are "super-Earths," or worlds slightly larger than our own — today at a NASA news conference. The Kepler-62 discovery paper, led by Borucki, was also published today in the journal Science.

The three potentially habitable worlds are part of a larger haul. All told, the scientists rolled out seven new exoplanets today — five in the Kepler-62 system and two in Kepler-69.

Alien water worlds?

The five newfound planets in the Kepler-62 system, which is located about 1,200 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, range from 0.54 to 1.95 times the size of Earth. Only Kepler-62e and f are potentially habitable; the other three zip around the star at close range, making them too hot to support life as we know it, researchers said.

Kepler-62e and f take 122 and 267 days, respectively, to complete one orbit around their star, which is just 20 percent as bright as the sun. While nobody knows what the two exoplanets look like, a separate modeling study suggests they're both probably water worlds covered by endless, uninterrupted global oceans. [Two Habitable Alien Water Worlds? (Video)]

"There may be life there, but could it be technology-based like ours? Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy," lead author Lisa Kaltenegger, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.

"Nonetheless, these worlds will still be beautiful blue planets circling an orange star — and maybe life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us," she added.

Not surprisingly, Kepler-62e should be warmer than its more distantly orbiting neighbor. In fact, Kepler-62f may require a greenhouse effect to keep its ocean from freezing over, researchers said.

“Kepler-62e probably has a very cloudy sky and is warm and humid all the way to the polar regions," co-author Dimitar Sasselov of Harvard said in a statement. "Kepler-62f would be cooler, but still potentially life-friendly."

The new modeling study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.



Searching for Earth's twin

The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size exoplanets in the habitable zone of their parent stars. Kepler finds alien worlds by detecting the tiny brightness dips caused when they transit, or cross the face of, their stars from the instrument's perspective.

Kepler has used this technique to great effect, spotting more than 2,700 potential planets since its March 2009 launch. While just 120 or so of these candidates have been confirmed to date, mission scientists estimate that more than 90 percent will end up being the real deal.

While Kepler has yet to discover a true Earth twin, it's getting closer and closer, Borucki said, pointing to the confirmation of Kepler-69c as an example. (That planet lies 2,700 light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus. Kepler-69c's neighbor Kepler-69b, which is about twice the size of Earth and too hot to host life, was also announced today.)

"I think we're making excellent progress in that direction," Borucki said. "We have a number of candidates that look good."

Such steady progress makes sense, since Kepler will of course spot more transits the longer it looks. The telescope needs to observe three transits to flag a planet candidate, so detecting a potentially habitable world in a relatively distant orbit can take several years.

Kepler cannot search for signs of life on worlds like Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f and Kepler-69c, but the telescope is paving the way for future missions that should do just that, Borucki said.

"This is one of the early steps, but there's no mistake — we are on our way to explore the galaxy, to learn about life in the galaxy," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/discovered-most-earth-alien-planet-2-other-possibly-185540040.html

[Geo]

As usual, size and mass are tossed around in such articles. For instance, a rocky planet which has a 40-60% larger diameter then Earth is most likely uninhabitable, but a rocky planet with 40-60% more mass then Earth could fall within the boundaries. Heck Chiron/Planet in SMAC was supposed to be 'only' 30% more massive then Earth...

[Buster's Uncle]

I know why they haven't, but I don't get excited about these worlds where I would never choose to live because of the surface gravity, and I wish they'd refine the process enough to err on the side of too small.

Too, it boggles the mind to think about all the systems where the plane of the ecliptic doesn't line up with us.

[Unorthodox]

Size, mass, eh.

That's typically the journalist writing down to the, what is it, 5th grade level?