219 Potential Planet Candidates Announced - Kepler tho

NASA held a press conference today to release the latest results of the Kepler mission.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star's habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.



This is the most comprehensive and detailed catalog release of candidate exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, from Kepler’s first four years of data. It’s also the final catalog from the spacecraft’s view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.



With the release of this catalog, derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive, there are now 4,034 planet candidates identified by Kepler. Of which, 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets. Of roughly 50 near-Earth size habitable zone candidates detected by Kepler, more than 30 have been verified.



Additionally, results using Kepler data suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets. Both results have significant implications for the search for life. The final Kepler catalog will serve as the foundation for more study to determine the prevalence and demographics of planets in the galaxy, while the discovery of the two distinct planetary populations shows that about half the planets we know of in the galaxy either have no surface, or lie beneath a deep, crushing atmosphere – an environment unlikely to host life.

Source

More in-depth science can be found here.

 

[Ghostapplesause]

The final Kepler catalog will serve as the foundation for more study to determine the prevalence and demographics of planets in the galaxy, while the discovery of the two distinct planetary populations shows that about half the planets we know of in the galaxy either have no surface, or lie beneath a deep, crushing atmosphere – an environment unlikely to host life.

This has reinforced my theory that both primitive and sentient life is rare in the universe because it is inherently hostile to life. I do not believe life is found everywhere like in Science Fiction.

 

[melty]

Have you heard about pluto though that's messed up

 

[vertexwindi]

Have you heard about pluto though that's messed up

You know that's right.

 

[Tranhuviya]

This has reinforced my theory that both primitive and sentient life is rare in the universe because it is inherently hostile to life. I do not believe life is found everywhere like in Science Fiction.

Moreover, we should be quiet and stop sending radio signals into space so that the life that did survive won't come to get us.

 

[Sable]

Moreover, we should be quiet and stop sending radio signals into space so that the life that did survive won't come to get us.

Yeah, Hawking basically went on record years ago saying that life out there isn't likely to be friendly to us IIRC.

 

[AnOminous]

Moreover, we should be quiet and stop sending radio signals into space so that the life that did survive won't come to get us.

It's already here, waiting, at the bottom of the ocean, dreaming.