Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 21 June 2017

NASA telescope finds 10 more planets that could have life

By SETH BORENSTEIN said.
AP Science Writer Kepler has spotted more
WASHINGTON (AP) — than 4,000 planet candi-
NASA’s planet-hunting dates and confirmed more
telescope has found 10 than half of those. A dozen
new planets outside our so- of the planets that seem to
lar system that are likely the be in the potentially habit-
right size and temperature able zone circle Earth-like
to potentially have life on stars, not cooler red dwarfs.
them, broadly hinting that Circling sun-like stars make
we are probably not alone. the planets “even more in-
After four years of search- teresting and important,”
ing, the Kepler telescope said Alan Boss, an astrono-
has detected a total of 49 mer at the Carnegie Institu-
planets in the Goldilocks tion, who wasn’t part of the
zone. And it only looked in Kepler team.
a tiny part of the galaxy, One of those planets —
one quarter of one per- KOI7711 — is the closest an-
cent of a galaxy that holds alog to Earth astronomers
about 200 billion of stars. have seen in terms of size
Seven of the 10 newfound and the energy it gets from
Earth-size planets circle This artist rendering provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle, taken in 2015, depicts one possible its star, which dictates tem-
stars that are just like ours, appearance of the planet Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable peratures.
not cool dwarf ones that zone of a star that is similar to our sun. Associated Press Before Kepler was
require a planet be quite launched, astronomers had
close to its star for the right “Are we alone? Maybe Ke- conference. size and potentially habit- hoped that the frequency
temperature. That doesn’t pler today has told us indi- Outside scientists agreed able planets are. Kepler’s of Earth-like planets would
mean the planets have rectly, although we need that this is a boost in the main mission ended in 2013 be about one percent of
life, but some of the most confirmation, that we are hope for life elsewhere. after the failure of two of its the stars. The talk among
basic requirements that life probably not alone,” Ke- “It implies that Earth-size four wheels that control its scientists at a Kepler con-
needs are there, upping pler scientist Mario Perez planets in the habitable orientation in space. ference in California this
the chances for life. said in a Monday news zone around sun-like stars It’s too early to know how weekend is that it is closer
are not rare,” Harvard as- common potentially hab- to 60 percent, he said.
tronomer Avi Loeb, who itable planets are in the Kepler isn’t the only way
was not part of the work, galaxy because there are astronomers have found
said in an email. lots of factors to consider exoplanets and even po-
The 10 Goldilocks planets including that Kepler could tentially habitable ones.
are part of 219 new candi- only see planets that move Between Kepler and other
date planets that NASA an- between the telescope vi- methods, scientists have
nounced Monday as part sion and its star, said Kepler now confirmed more
of the final batch of plan- research scientist Susan than 3,600 exoplanets and
ets discovered in the main Mullally of the SETI Institute found about 62 potentially
mission since the telescope in Mountain View, Califor- habitable planets .
was launched in 2009. It nia. “This number could have
was designed to survey It will take about a year for been very, very small,” said
part of the galaxy to see the Kepler team to come Caltech astronomer Court-
how frequent planets are up with a number of habit- ney Dressing. “I, for one, am
and how frequent Earth- able planet frequency, she ecstatic.”q