NASA SPOTS 54 POSSIBLY LIFE-FRIENDLY PLANETS

The Kepler telescope "has blown the lid off of everything we know" on extrasolar planets.

                               An orbiting NASA telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life, spotting more than 50 potential planets that appear to be in the habitable zone.
                               In just a year of peering out at a small slice of the galaxy, the Kepler telescope has discovered 1,235 possible planets outside our solar system.  Amazingly, 54 of them are seemingly in the zone that could be hospitable to life --- that is, not too hot or too cold, Kepler chief scientist William Borucki said.
                               Until now, only two planets outside our solar system were even thought to be in the "Goldilocks zone."  And both those discoveries are highly disputed.
                               Fifty-four possibilities is "an enormous amount, an inconceivable amount," Borucki said, "because up to now, we've had zero."
                               The more than 1,200 new-found celestial bodies are not confirmed as planets yet, but Borucki estimates 80 percent of them will eventually be verified.  At least one other astronomer believes Kepler could be 90 percent accurate.
                               After that, it's another big step in proving that a confirmed planet has some of the basic conditions needed to support life, such as the proper size, composition, temperature, and distance from its star. More advanced aspects of habitability such as atmospheric conditions and the presence of water and carbon require telescopes that are not built yet.
                               Just because a planet is in the habitable zone does not mean it has life.  Mars is a good example of that.  And even if some of these planets are found to contain life, it might not be intelligent life; it could be bacteria or mold or some kind of life-form that people can't even imagine.
                               All the celestial bodies Kepler looks at are in our Milky Way galaxy, but they are so far away that traveling there is not a realistic option.  In some cases it would take many millions of years with current technology.
                               But what Kepler is finding could be applied to exploring closer stars, astronomers say.  "Our grandchildren will have to decide what's the next step," Borucki said at a NASA news conference.  "Do they want to go there?  Do they want to send a robot?"
                               Before Wednesday, the count of confirmed planets outside the solar system stood at 519.  That means Kepler could triple the number.  And those findings are from Kepler'sscanning of just one-four-hundredth of the night sky, so the number of planets out there may be hundreds of times greater, he said.
                               That is exciting to astronomers, since the more planets there are, the greater the odds that life exists elsewhere in the universe.
                               Yale University astronomer Debra Fischer, who was not part of the Kepler team but serves as an outside expert for NASA, said the new information raised hopes for finding worlds with life.
                                "I feel different today, knowing these new Kepler results, than I did a week ago," she said.  Kepler "has blown the lid off of everything we know about extrrasolar planets."
                                Kepler also found that there are many more relatively small planets than there are giants planets.  That is encouraging, too:  Astronomers think a planet needs to be solid --- rocky like Earth or Mars --- for life to develop.  And very large planets are unlikely to be gas behemoths like Jupiter.