Makes one want to rethink...

the whole take-me-to-your-leader approach: Could 'advanced' dinosaurs rule other planets?

Two planets...

found sharing one orbit.  Now that's truly fascinating.

A wealth of worlds...

Kepler Spacecraft Finds 6 New Exoplanets and Hints at 1,200 More.

And here's an interview with the principal investigator. Scorecard so far:

• 155,000 stars studied
• 1,235 candidate planets
• 293 are Neptune-size
• 288 are super-Earth-size (>2X)
• 165 candidates are the size of Jupiter
• 68 are Earth-size
• 54 of the Earth-size planets are within the habitable zone
• 170 multiple planetary candidate systems 

Lastly, here's a good summary video.

Tip of the proverbial iceberg...

500th Alien Planet Discovered, With Hundreds More to Come

Um, never mind...

Doubt Cast on Existence of Potentially Habitable Planet Gliese 581g

Here's my earlier related post on this recently discovered (?) but yet unconfirmed exoplanet.

Milepost ahead...

on the search for exoplanets: 500th Alien Planet Could Be Discovered This Month.  The count stands at 494 extrasolar planets as of today.  Stay tuned.

Astronomer dispenses with the scientific method...

and leaps to an unsupported conclusion:  '100 percent' chance for life on newly found planet?  More technical article here: First "Potentially Habitable" Planet Announced.

Indeed, why bother with actually doing the hard science when one can generate sensational headlines with a ridiculous proclamation made with no evidence whatsoever?  For the record, this is what it would take:  If There's Life on Alien Planet Gliese 581g, How Do We Find It?

Tip of the proverbial iceberg...

Kepler Discovers Five New Exoplanets

Encylopedia Galactica...

now contains more than 400 exoplanets with the recent discovery by astronomers of 32 new planets outside the solar system.

Here's the official census.

Kepler may be capable...

of detecting exomoons. Amazing. Link to technical abstract.

Link to previous post about the ambitious Kepler Mission to find and catalog exoplanets.

Kepler Space Telescope beginning to yield...

science results: Kepler Detects an Exoplanet Atmosphere. While this is not necessarily groundbreaking news, it does bode well for the huge return of data anticipated by this mission in search of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

How to identify other "pale blue dots"...

in nearby solar systems: New Technique Could Find Water On Earth-like Planets Orbiting Distant Suns. More here.

The spacecraft utilized in the Deep Impact mission to comet Tempel 1 in 2005 is still functioning and is imaging Earth from a distance, obtaining spectra of our rotating planet that is dominated by oceans. Scientists will use this spectral "signature" to identify other ocean worlds during on-going exoplanet surveys.

Isn't science cool?

UPDATE: Related comprehensive article: The New Exoplanetology.

Search for other Earth-like...

worlds commences as NASA's Kepler spacecraft begins its immense exoplanet hunt. One hundred thousand (100,000) stars will be closely scrutinized during the next 3.5 years by this dedicated telescope, looking for a periodic dimming in the brightness of each, presumably due to an orbiting planetary body. The instrument may be able to detect planets the size of Earth and thus a census of such worlds can be compiled.

Isn't science cool? Perhaps I'm biased.

Previous related post: How common are Earth-like planets?

I reiterate my earlier prediction: terrestrial (rocky) planets will be found to be common around Population I G-class stars such as our Sun.

Kepler Space Telescope's...

first light: initial test images released by NASA. Its mission is to scan 100,000 stars for the next 3.5 years in a search for transiting exoplanets.

Link to previous related post.

Kepler mission countdown...

is well underway and is scheduled to launch this Friday evening. Here's my previous post on the NASA mission to identify potentially habitable exoplanets. Link to summary article and to mission home page.

How common are Earth-like planets?

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope is nearly ready to launch, with liftoff scheduled for 5 March.

The mission will attempt to identify potentially habitable exoplanets (that is, those having a rocky crust and that lie within the "Goldilocks" zone around other stars) using the transit method. As these small planetary bodies pass in front of the star around which they orbit there should be an observable dimming of star light, and Kepler's optics are optimized to detect such minor decreases in stellar magnitude.

Faster, please.

355 extra-solar planets...

have been discovered since 1993. That is, planets outside our solar system that are orbiting other stars.

The next-generation James Webb Space Telescope - the replacement for the aging Hubble Space Telescope - is scheduled for launch in 2013 and will have the ability to image these objects and perform spectroscopic studies of their atmospheres.

What a great time for science.