Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Artist conception of multiple-transiting planet systems. AP Photo/NASA
uncharted space

NASA finds 'bonanza' of 715 new planets, but how many could support life?

About four in fact.

OUR GALAXY IS looking far more crowded and hospitable than previously belived after NASA confirmed a ‘bonanza’ of 715 newly discovered planets outside our solar system.

Scientists using the planet-hunting Kepler telescope pushed the number of planets discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700. Twenty years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around our sun.

“We almost doubled just today the number of planets known to humanity,” NASA planetary scientist Jack Lissauer said in a Wednesday teleconference, calling it “the big mother lode.”

Astronomers used a new confirmation technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets what planets outside our solar system are called.

While yesterday’s announcements were about big numbers, they also were about implications for life behind those big numbers.

All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star. The 715 planets came from looking at just 305 stars. They were nearly all in size closer to Earth than gigantic Jupiter.

Habitable zones

And four of those new exoplanets orbit their stars in “habitable zones” where it is not too hot or not too cold for liquid water which is crucial for life to exist.

Douglas Hudgins, NASA’s exoplanet exploration program scientist, called Wednesday’s announcement a major step toward Kepler’s ultimate goal: “finding Earth 2.0.”

“It’s a big step in not just finding other Earths, but “the possibility of life elsewhere,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, a Harvard and Max Planck Institute astronomer who wasn’t part of the discovery team.

imageArtist’s concept depicts NASA’s Kepler mission’s smallest habitable zone planet. (Pic: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/Tim Pyle)

The four new habitable zone planets are all at least twice as big as Earth so that makes them more likely to be gas planets instead of rocky ones like Earth and less likely to harbor life.

So far Kepler has found nine exoplanets in the habitable zone, NASA said. Astronomers expect to find more when they look at all four years of data collected by the now-crippled Kepler; so far they have looked at two years.

Planets in the habitable zone are likely to be farther out from their stars because it is hot close in. And planets farther out take more time orbiting, so Kepler has to wait longer to see it again.

Another of Kepler’s latest discoveries indicates that “small planets are extremely common in our galaxy,” said MIT astronomer Sara Seagar, who wasn’t part of the discovery team. “Nature wants to make small planets.”

And, in general, smaller planets are more likely to be able to harbor life than big ones, Kaltenegger said.

Column: Is space exploration worth the money? >

Read: Lunar rover is still alive and might actually be ok, say officials >

Author
Associated Foreign Press
Your Voice
Readers Comments
78
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.