Nasa Searches For Earth-like Planets
Updated : Mar 8, 2009
An unmanned Nasa mission to search space for Earth-like planets who have the potential to host life has launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The Kepler telescope will orbit the Sun to watch a patch of space thought to contain about 100,000 stars like ours. The goal is to find, if they exist, Earth-like planets circling stars in the so-called habitable zone - orbits where liquid water could be present on the surface of the planets.
“Everybody was delighted, everybody was screaming, ‘Go Kepler!â€â€™ Kepler’s mission will last at least three and a half years and cost €480 million. The telescope is so powerful that from space, Nasa maintains, it could detect someone in a small town turning off a porch light at night.
Astronomers already have found more than 300 planets orbiting other stars, but they are largely inhospitable gas giants like Jupiter. Kepler will be looking for smaller rocky planets more akin to Earth.
VeryHappyPig says Go Kepler!!
