Kepler: L -5
March 1, 2009
An artist's representation of the Kepler spacecraft.
Well, we’re just a few days away from the launch of the Kepler Mission, designed to search out terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars.
Until now, we’ve only been able to detect Jupiter-sized planets orbiting distant stars by measuring the star’s “wobble”, as the gravity of those large planets tugs the star back and forth during the course of their orbits. The Kepler Space Probe will essentially serve as a super Hubble, in that we’ll actually be able to see extraterrestrial planets crossing in front of their host stars.
Let me say that again: WE’LL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO SEE EXTRATERRESTRIAL PLANETS FOR THE FIRST TIME. I don’t know… to me, that’s a big deal.
To make things even more exciting, it’s worth noting that the eggheads who were flabberghasted at the sheer number of planets we’ve found outside of our solar system, expecting planet formation to be somewhat of a rarity in the universe, have revised their stance, and are now claiming that the existence of Earth-like planets may be the norm rather than the exception. Nobody wants to put a number on it this time, but considering that our galaxy alone has over 200 billion stars… well, you do the math. At some point, the possibility of there being another planet out there where life developed comes so close to 100% that it’s simply not worth arguing about anymore.
We’re a long way from pointing at a star and declaring that there is an intelligent civilization on one or more planets orbiting that star, but this brings us one step closer to that goal. One can only hope that NASA’s second wind doesn’t get quashed by the recent downturn in global economics.
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