Spark Spot

Telescope to Scout Earth Launched

by Spark on Mar.07, 2009, under News, Science and Technology, Spark Spot

telescope1NASA launched a new telescope to scout the earth sized planets. The telescope, named Kepler, rode into a starry night sky aboard an unmanned Delta rocket that blasted off at 10:49 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.So far, although we’ve discovered more than 300 planets , we haven’t discovered any new earth.

Kepler, named for the 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler, is designed to do just that.Once in position trailing Earth around the sun, Kepler will turn its gaze onto a patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra that is filled with more than 4 million stars. Scientists plan to scrutinize Kepler’s observations of more than 100,000 targets in hopes of catching tiny blinks of light caused by passing planets.Finding Earth-sized planets is like trying to detect a very tiny flea.

The measurements will not only be difficult to make, they will be time-consuming.A planet the size of Earth that is about as far from its parent star as Earth is, will pass by Kepler’s view just once a year. Scientists say they’ll need to catch three transits to verify existence of an Earth-sized world.

NASA hopes to follow up the $591-million Kepler mission with a new generation of powerful telescopes capable of directly imaging Earth-sized planets and analyzing their atmospheres for gases indicative of life. So soon we will come to know about large number of planet in the size of the earth.

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21 Comments for this entry

  • Elaine-
    March 7th, 2009 on 6:38 pm

    well i rather wish they would throw a half a billion dollars at the economy instead, not that i’m not interested in outer space…

  • kavita
    March 7th, 2009 on 6:42 pm

    ohhh, a blog! I’ve read this..did really enjoy reading about the new Nasa-toy:p
    I’ll save this page in my favourites:p and keep updating me!

  • Davida
    March 7th, 2009 on 7:47 pm

    Looks like the science books will have to be re-written. Looking forward to seeing all the images from the new things discovered in the universe.

    Thanks for dropping by my blog and taking the time to leave a comment!

    Davida

  • Giovanna Garcia
    March 8th, 2009 on 7:14 am

    I think it will be amazing to learn about more planet. We are just little a spot in space.
    Thank you,
    Giovanna Garcia
    Imperfect Action is better than no Action

  • Sidney
    March 8th, 2009 on 12:35 pm

    That is a lot of money… lets hope they find something valuable…

  • Alice Audrey
    March 8th, 2009 on 11:49 pm

    Hi. friend. Thanks for visiting. You have a nice blog too.

  • amiable amy
    March 9th, 2009 on 12:29 am

    i have been to Cape Canaveral …NASA, ohhh i love it there….i want to come back depends on my hubby hahaha

    thanks for this info

    thanks for the comments and for the visit also

  • Carver
    March 9th, 2009 on 12:58 am

    This was an interesting post. Thanks for your visit to my blog.

  • imac
    March 9th, 2009 on 1:15 am

    Hi, Sparky (hope you dont mind me calling you that)
    You have a great blog, ive put you in my links, so I can come back at a later time to read much more.

    Thanks for your visit and your kind comments.

  • Lizwi
    March 9th, 2009 on 1:33 am

    I think the launching of Kleper was a good thing to happen. We hope that there will be new discoveries. I do not think that was a waste of time and resources. Thank you for visiting my blog and posting a comment. I will be your regular visitor, please do so to mine also.

  • Jeff
    March 9th, 2009 on 2:06 am

    I always love looking heavenward and since I watched Glen first step out onto the moon I hope I live long enough to see us start to move to other worlds… but with 20-40 years to go I don’t know if it will happen…

    Maybe you could post some NASA photos since I know that people love to look at pics of stars and planets and nebula and stuff like that…

    http://www.Vistaphotography.com

  • BK
    March 9th, 2009 on 6:18 am

    I have always been thinking, there couldn’t be only one Earth in the whole universe; imagine there are probably millions, billions of Stars in space. Just a galaxy like Milky Way and there are already millions of Stars. Then again, if there really is another Earth in the Universe, then they may be in the situation like us, scouting our location. However, just like what Elaine said, I would rather they spent that kind of money on more ‘worthy cause’ at this moment.

  • The Tampa Pirate
    March 9th, 2009 on 6:45 am

    Great post and I love the blog. Thanks for visiting mine. This will be added to my favorites for sure.

    Peace,
    TTP

  • dong ho
    March 9th, 2009 on 8:33 am

    we too benefit from those projects. just look at google earth. so cool!

    thanks for dropping by eskapo. this blog looks cool.

  • Brine Queen
    March 9th, 2009 on 8:57 am

    Very nice. I look forward to the future things that we can learn about the planets.

    Thanks for stopping by my site.

  • lunaticg
    March 9th, 2009 on 2:24 pm

    Wish that kinda money ain’t just wasted without a good result.

  • Tina
    March 10th, 2009 on 4:06 am

    fasinating. love science stuff. thanks for stopping by my place

  • Shuttercow
    March 13th, 2009 on 6:35 pm

    I heard about this. Very interesting! Keep on blogging.

  • Mike
    March 17th, 2009 on 3:27 am

    Thanks for stopping by my site – followed you back and found you have a very interesting site with topics along the lines of my blog. I found this post of particular interest – I enjoy space exploration and try to follow the events.

  • harborside healthcare
    October 30th, 2009 on 1:37 am

    Super site darlings. Thanks awfully

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