Earth-Like

Kepler, NASA's orbiting planet-finder observatory, is delivering information babies that could grow up to change how we view the universe.

Kepler

Kepler's unblinking space-eyes found 1,200 new planets.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ... and so on, up to 1,200.  Try counting up to that number while imagining a new planet each time.  Kepler did.  What now?

Also Kepler

Most of what can be said about this finding has been said in a very worthwhile blog called Bad Astronomy, which is of course filled with the very best astronomy.  Author and astronomer Phil Plait wrote his article carefully, observing numerous times that the 70 of these planets that are "Earth-Like" are not Earth.  Venus is Earth-Like, and so is Mars.  

These numbers represent only one millionth of the stars in our galaxy though.  Kepler is looking at a very small piece of the Milky Way, and is doing so from our narrow vantage point.  This means that only those planets with orbits on the same plane as Earth will be found by Kepler.

Phil had this to say in closing:

" For the first time in human history, we can look out into the night sky and actually and realistically and scientifically consider the presence of other Earths out there.

Science! I love this stuff. "