Kepler's Astounding Haul of Multiple-Planet Systems

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NASA's Kepler spacecraft is proving itself to be a prolific planet hunter. Within just the first four months of data, astronomers have found evidence for more than 1,200 planetary candidates. Of those, 408 reside in systems containing two or more planets, and most of those look very different than our solar system.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered 170 planetary systems containing between two and six transiting planets. This animation shows all the multiple-planet systems discovered by Kepler as of 2/2/2011; orbits go through the entire mission (3.5 years). Hot colors to cool colors (red to yellow to green to cyan to blue to gray) are big planets to smaller planets, relative to the other planets in the system.



"We didn't anticipate that we would find so many multiple-transit systems. We thought we might see two or three. Instead, we found more than 100," said Smithsonian astronomer David Latham (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics).

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