NASA’s Kepler telescope discovers new planets in 1284: “Useful to understand if we are alone in the universe” – The Daily

More than a thousand small eclipse on the stars of the firmament. Tiny drawn in by the transit of planets, hitherto unknown, in front of the stars around which they orbit. As happened a few days ago with Mercury on the solar disk. You studying these phenomena that scientists of the NASA Using sophisticated eye of the Kepler space telescope – capable of capturing the slightest diminution of the light emitted by a star due to the passage of a planet – have managed so indirectly to identify, in one fell swoop, in 1284 brand new worlds. The new findings, based on data collected by Kepler in the last four years, are collected in a study, published in “The Astrophysical Journal” and coordinated by Timothy Morton, the Princeton University .

the overall calculation of alien worlds , the so-called exoplanets, that is, external to the solar system, has thus risen to about 3200, most of which, in 2325, discovered just from Kepler. New planets, 550 may be similar to Earth. They are, in fact, relatively small and perhaps Rocky. And nine of them, in particular, could find themselves in the so-called “habitability end” . A clove of sky, astronomers explain, in which the planet’s distance from the parent star is such to allow the presence of water in liquid form on its surface. An indispensable condition to make a planet potentially suitable for incubating life.

“With this announcement, the number of confirmed planets Kepler has more than doubled – says Ellen Stofan , scientific director NASA -. This new discovery gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star similar to our own, we may one day find another Earth. ” During the press conference in which NASA has given the indirect observation announcement of 1284 new tenants of the cosmos, scientists have pointed out the Milky Way teeming with planets . As he had already guessed Giordano Bruno more than four centuries ago, writing that “is not one world, one Earth.”

“Before the launch of the Kepler space telescope – states Paul Hertz , director of NASA’s astrophysics division – we did not know if the outer planets of the solar system were rare or common in the galaxy. Now, thanks to Kepler and to the research community, we know that there could be even more planets than stars . Question – says the scholar – useful for future missions, which will bring us closer to find out if we are alone in the universe. ” In the coming years, NASA provides, in fact, to refine even more the hunt for exoplanets, with new sophisticated wide-eyed on the cosmos. As the telescope Tess (Transiting exoplanet survey satellite), successor to Kepler , which from 2018 will scan 200,000 stars in search of the Earth twin planets. Or the successor to the Hubble Telescope, the James Webb space telescope, which should always be launched in 2018. One of the goals of future missions of the atmosphere is the in-depth analysis of the new planets, looking for possible traces of life, as a signal on the presence of chlorophyll.

the study by the new results of Kepler

L ‘ NASA animation

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