Kepler - A Search for Habitable Planets

"Kepler is a critical component in NASA's broader efforts to ultimately find and study planets where Earth-like conditions may be present," said Jon Morse, the Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The planetary census Kepler takes will be very important for understanding the frequency of Earth-size planets in our galaxy and planning future missions that directly detect and characterize such worlds around nearby stars."

The mission will spend three and a half years surveying more than 100,000 sun-like stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy. It is expected to find hundreds of planets the size of Earth and larger at various distances from their stars. If Earth-size planets are common in the habitable zone, Kepler could find dozens; if those planets are rare, Kepler might find none.

In the end, the mission will be our first step toward answering a question posed by the ancient Greeks: are there other worlds like ours or are we alone?

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Kepler
• telescope
• space
• stars
• NASA
• planets

[abetterplayer]

It's sickening to think how much the world spends on creating weapons to kill other people, when we could be using that money to explore the stars.

[AgrivatedKillah]

@T0R0YD Usually if an animal is intelligent, it will also have curiosity.

Most people don't realize it's not about complex life, if we just find a single set of bacteria on an "alien planet" then that will be the greatest discovery known to man-kind.

[mortenrobinson]

what if the planets never pass in front of their stars, with respect to the position that kepler is observing them from??

[Nionity]

4 aliens don't like it that we come closer to them

[TheSpace81]

good work NASA,you do very impressive work,i hope all mankind would see this video,thank you:-)

[FunkyMango7]

How about this. Finding a planet that is just right for humans doesn't mean that it's right for some types of aliens in the universe. Such as some type of aliens can only live on a super cold planet and can't live on a planet that is just right for humans...

So humans, stop trying to find a planet that is perfect for a human, but say a planet that is perfect for some living things...

[1337EK]

wait, isnt there a bunch of bacteria and fish living deep in the see so wouldnt planets be sure tp have bacteria or something in the ice...

[NJBZX]

I hope that i could go to kepler 22-B one day......

[evoeclipse]

Example of human denying existences of another life is like a person living in the middle of desert inside a dark cave which he never left in his life ...believes he is alone on this planet by just looking through a tiny peep hole for couple of second

[MrSaftDude]

4 pepole are christians

[INOVATION27]

@carlsagandisciple Not at all, but for it to work, we need a united earth.

[RideMyBMW]

@carlsagandisciple right..it ain´t us man