Kepler Telescope has found 5 exoplanets


The estimated sizes of the 5 new exoplanets compared to jupiter and earth

Kepler Mission scientists will reveal the space telescope’s latest discoveries at a news briefing in Washington on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010. The announcement will be made at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) at a news conference during the 215th national meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel.

Universe Today and other sources indicate that NASA will announce the discovery of 5 new extrasolar planets.

The discoveries were made from the initial analysis of the first 43 days of observation data. Kepler is scheduled to operate for 8 months 3.5 years and hopefully can run longer. There is 8 more months of data already collected that is being analyzed. 2010 should see far more announcements of Kepler discoveries.

the space telescope has spotted some Jupiter-sized objects orbiting stars, and these objects are hotter than the host star. The science team has no idea what these objects could be, but they are part of 100 planetary candidates Kepler has observed that are still being analyzed.

Speaker slides will be available shortly